Meghan

by Andrew Morton

  The extravagance of her wardrobe and her lifestyle—the Windsors employed around twenty-five full-time staff attired in royal livery at their mansion in the south of France—was in marked contrast to the utilitarian ethos of the House of Windsor back in Blighty. Living well and graciously was her best revenge on the royal family who had turned their back on her and her husband.

  Though much has been made of Meghan’s slave heritage, she is not the first biracial woman to join European royalty. In 1958 a mixed-race baby was born in Bocas del Toro, Panama, to Javier Francisco Brown and Silvia Maritza Burke. The family moved to New York, where their daughter, Angela Gisela Brown, proved to be a talented student. She went on to study fashion at Parsons School of Design, where, as their outstanding pupil, she was presented with the Oscar de la Renta Gold Thimble Award.

  She started her own fashion label, A. Brown, before working for the fashion house of Adrienne Vittadini. In 1997, at a party in New York Angela, then thirty-nine, met a banker who was eleven years her junior. Eventually it emerged that he was also a royal, Prince Maximilian of Liechtenstein—the smallest royal nation in Europe, but the richest. After dating for two years, they married in January 2000 at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in New York. Among the five hundred guests were members of the royal House of Liechtenstein, including Max’s parents, Prince Hans-Adam II and Princess Marie; other members of his family; as well as representatives from other European royal houses. Though this was the first-ever multiracial royal wedding, it went almost unnoticed in the world’s press.

  The couple’s only child, Prince Alfons Constantin Maria of Liechtenstein, was born in London in May 2001. Though the family feature occasionally in Panamanian and South American media, they remain largely under the radar in Europe.

  While Prince Max heads a major investment company and makes the occasional speech on the environment, the royal couple, like the rest of the family, stay out of the limelight. A statement from the royal Palace in Verduz, the nations’s capital, rather says it all. “The Liechtenstein family is a private family, and this applies to any charities that they are involved in.” While the curious might catch the royal family strolling on the beach at their Panama holiday home in Playa los Destiladeros, they would rarely if ever see them on a public platform.

  Though Meghan has much in common with Grace, Rita, Wallis, and Angela, the American royal she most closely matches is the former Sarah Butler, now Princess Sarah Zeid. Not only did she qualify with the same degree, international relations, from an American college, she works for the United Nations and devotes her life to often difficult and draining humanitarian work. When she married she changed her religion, her country, and her culture—just like Meghan. Born in Houston, Texas, she was educated in London and then attended college in Houston at the University of St. Thomas. Armed with a master’s degree in development studies, she joined the United Nations in New York, focusing on peacekeeping and children’s issues.

  While working there she met Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein of Jordan. Educated at Cambridge University and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, he married Sarah Butler in Jordan’s capital, Amman, in 2000. They have four children—Prince Ra’ad, born in 2001; Princess Hala, born in 2003; Princess Azziza, born in 2009; and Prince Zaid in 2011. Princess Sarah, now forty-five, continues her good works by raising awareness for causes including Every Newborn Action Plan, the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, and the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.

  Charming and committed to the work of the UN, in 2014 Prince Zeid was appointed United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In December 2017 Princess Sarah visited Africa in her capacity as the UNHCR Advisor on Gender, Forced Displacement, and Protection. She went to witness the humanitarian work being done in war-torn South Sudan, meeting displaced persons in refugee camps and visiting orphanages. Then she went on to visit more refugees settled in camps inside Kenya.

  She recalled: “Everywhere we went, people were pleading for peace, for the opportunity to go back home and restart their normal life. I am truly humbled by the stories I have heard—stories of enormous courage, resilience and perseverance.”

  She is also cochair of Every Woman Every Child, described as “an unprecedented global movement that mobilizes and intensifies… action by governments to address the major health challenges facing women, children and adolescents around the world.”

  On her Twitter account, @PrincessSaraZR, she describes herself as “determined that mothers and newborns survive and thrive EveryWhere!” In one tweet she touchingly paid tribute to her husband: So very proud of #Zeid. He and @UNHumanRights have worked so hard and been so strong.

  It has been a remarkable life so far, leading others by her example. Such is his admiration for his American wife that whenever Prince Zeid makes a speech, he tries to mention his American wife by name.

  While Princess Sarah Zeid is from Meghan’s generation, it is another American, Lisa Halaby, who is probably the best known royal philanthropist. Born in Washington, DC, to a rich and accomplished family—her test pilot father headed Pan American World Airways—she worked in several countries before she found herself in Amman, the capital of Jordan.

  There she met King Hussein of Jordan, whose wife had recently died, and in June 1978 they married. The king was forty-three, and Queen Noor, as Lisa became known, was twenty-seven. Of all Americans who married into foreign royalty, Queen Noor did more to help those less well-off than any other, working tirelessly in establishing a range of charitable foundations until the king’s death in 1999.

  She alarmed many conservatives inside the Arab kingdom with her focus on women’s rights, economic development, and environmental protection. When the king died, her grace and warmth touched many Jordanians. President Bill Clinton described her as a “daughter of America and Queen of Jordan who made two nations proud.”

  Another American queen, albeit of a much smaller country, was San Francisco–born socialite Hope Cooke, who by chance met Palden Thondup Namgyal, the heir to the throne of the tiny mountain kingdom of Sikkim, in a hotel lounge during a summer trip to India. He married the twenty-two-year-old student in 1963 and two years later became the king, or chogyal, after the death of his father. After a referendum in 1975, the population voted to join neighboring India and thus abolish the monarchy. As a result, the queen of Sikkim left behind the king, from whom she had become estranged, and took their two children back to New York, where she set up a new life in Brooklyn, finding work and contentment as a writer, historian, and lecturer.

  Other notable American women who have married right royally include Jackie Kennedy’s kid sister Caroline Lee Bouvier, who married a Polish count in 1959 and became Princess Lee Radziwill, clinging to the title after their divorce after fourteen years of married life. Nearer Meghan’s own age is model Kendra Spears, who is the youngest American princess. Born in Seattle in 1988, by the time she was at college she was juggling her studies with the demands of the fashion world.

  Introduced to the forty-two-year-old Prince Rahim Aga Khan by supermodel Naomi Campbell, Kendra was whisked off her feet in a whirlwind courtship and married in the beautiful Bellrive Castle in Geneva in 2013. They have two children, and she is now known as Princess Salwa Aga Khan.

  While the list of Americans marrying into foreign royal families is as varied as it is long, only one American family can claim to have two princesses among its ranks. As Americans have discovered over the last two centuries, it does help if you have deep pockets. Billionaire businessman Robert Warren Miller enjoyed watching two daughters marry into royalty: Marie-Chantal Miller wed Prince Pavlos, the Crown Prince of Greece—a country without a monarchy, it should be added—and her younger sister, furniture designer Alexandra, is married to Prince Alexander von Furstenberg. The third of the Miller sisters failed to make it a royal flush, but she did snag a member of the famous Getty family.

  Finally, you can have all the money and titles in the world, but nothing c
an stop that moment of magic when two people connect across a crowded room—as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle discovered. They were not the first royals to experience that moment of magic. When Florida-born Kelly Jeanne Rondestvedt was in a New York restaurant with a group of girlfriends she spotted a handsome man across the room. He looked at her, they connected, and in 2009, the brilliant investment banker and the talented lawyer were married. The lawyer is one of Harry’s cousins, Prince Hubertus, heir to the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha royal house, which was, incidentally, the surname of the British royal family until 1917.

  Kelly Jeanne Rondestvedt took the title Hereditary Princess Kelly of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and the couple and their three children live happily ever after in their the magical Schloss Callenburg in Coburg, Germany.

  As Prince Harry might say, “the stars were aligned.”

  Acknowledgments

  Sometimes it helps to be in the right place at the right time. My wife, Carolyn, is from Southern California, and for some of the year I live in Pasadena, a few miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. When Meghan Markle’s engagement to Prince Harry was announced, it was remarkable how many local people had stories about the Suits actor. Pasadena was truly Meghan Markle central; Edmund Fry, owner of Rose Tree Cottage, a piece of England in the town, served her tea; her old boyfriend, now a Realtor, sold a house just across the street; parents sent their children to the schools where Meghan has either studied or performed at. Local photographers had boxes of slides with unseen shots of the royal-in-waiting. And talking about waiting: the Hippie Kitchen, where she volunteered as a teenager, was just a short drive away, as was nearby Glendale, where comedian Natasha Pearl Hansen, herself Norwegian and African American, amused audiences with a stand-up routine based around her unusual biracial upbringing.

  So, starting in Pasadena, I would like to thank my friend Dr. Wendy Kohlhase for introducing me to the enthusiastic and helpful staff and administrators at Immaculate Heart High School. School president Maureen Diekmann and Callie Webb delved deep into the archives stored in the basement to discover all matters Markle, while senior teachers Christine Knudsen and Maria Pollia added their insights with regard to their former pupil. My thanks, too, to photographer John Dlugolecki for uncovering a charming series of shots of Meghan as she blossomed into a beautiful young woman.

  Gigi Perreau, a Hollywood child star herself and Immaculate Heart alumni, and Emmanuel Eulalia, director of drama at St. Francis High School in La Cañada, described Meghan’s emerging talent. Elizabeth and Dennys McCoy spoke warmly of the young Meghan, while the thoughts of Catherine Morris, Jeff Gottrich, and the staff at the Hippie Kitchen, who work tirelessly to help those without a roof over their head, were much appreciated.

  With regard to Meghan’s complicated and extensive family tree, I would like to thank genealogists Elizabeth Banas and Gary Boyd Roberts, historian Christopher Wilson, as well as Professor Carmen Harris, University of South Carolina, Upstate, who put the lives of her ancestors in context. Family members Tom Markle Junior, Roslyn Loveless, and Noel Rasmussen all helped tease out her equally complicated upbringing, while several friends, including Leslie McDaniel and others who remain anonymous, added their perspective. Tameka Jacobs and Leyla Milani talked perceptively about the girl they knew from the Deal or No Deal days, while several members of the crew of Suits, who for professional reasons did not want to be named, also pitched in.

  I would also like to thank Professor Prochaska and Trevor Phillips, OBE, former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, for their views on her impact on the monarchy and the country. I have discussed this issue with other former members of the royal household who have understandably asked not to be named.

  My thanks too to Samantha Brett, author of Game Changers.

  A huge thank-you too to my researchers, Phil Dampier in London and the indefatigable Lisa Derrick in Los Angeles. Without the consummate professionalism, too, of my editors Gretchen Young in New York and Fiona Slater in London, as well as the dedication of editorial assistant Katherine Stopa, we would never got over the finish line.

  Finally, a big shout-out to all my Pasadena friends, acquaintances, and neighbors, whose thoughts, suggestions, and advice energized this whole project.

  Pasadena

  March 2018

  About the Author

  Andrew Morton is one of the world’s best-known biographers and a leading authority on modern celebrity and royalty. His sensational 1992 biography, Diana: Her True Story, which was written with the intimate cooperation of the Princess of Wales and for the first time revealed her conflicted secret life, became an international bestselling phenomenon. Since then Morton has gone on to write New York Times bestsellers on Monica Lewinsky, Madonna, David and Victoria Beckham, Tom Cruise, and Angelina Jolie. His most recent works include 17 Carnations, on Edward VIII, later Duke of Windsor, and Wallis Simpson’s relationship with the Nazis and the big royal cover-up, and Wallis in Love, the groundbreaking biography of Wallis Simpson. The winner of numerous awards, he divides his time between London and Los Angeles.

  Also by Andrew Morton

  17 Carnations: The Royals, the Nazis,

  and the Biggest Cover-Up in History

  Wallis in Love:

  The Untold Story of the Duchess of Windsor,

  the Woman Who Changed the Monarchy

  Diana: Her True Story—In Her Own Words

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.

  To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.

  Sign Up

  Or visit us at hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters