Finding Freedom

by Omid Scobie

  Although Harry had yet to propose, he had started to tell most of his inner circle that it was something he planned to do. Unbeknown to most, he already had an engagement ring in the works. That May, Harry traveled alone to Botswana in his role as patron of Rhino Conservation Botswana. While in Africa, he did a little secret diamond scouting with a close friend who helped him to source the perfect conflict-free stone.

  Not everyone felt as sure of this match as Harry did. A month after his own wedding, Skippy sat down with his childhood friend to voice a concern: Harry and Meghan were moving too quickly. He was “pretty blunt” with Harry about whether he was “rushing into things,” according to a source.

  Skippy, who, like the majority of Harry’s close friends, didn’t know Meghan well, advised Harry to “be careful.”

  Skippy advised they live together before “doing anything more serious.” He said his words came from a good place, but Harry didn’t totally see it that way. It felt like his friend was implying that Meghan couldn’t be trusted and had ulterior motives. “It really hurt him that someone he was so close to would not trust his judgment,” the source said.

  Skippy and Harry, who always texted or talked regularly, didn’t speak for some time after the failed heart-to-heart.

  Both William’s and Harry’s friends were concerned with the pace of his relationship. In a way, Meghan wasn’t being treated differently to anyone else—male or female—who entered their orbit. Since Diana’s death, the princes had been extremely cautious of anyone who might try to take advantage.

  Around the same time that Skippy took Harry aside, Prince William decided to confront his brother over his own concerns.

  “A happy and content Harry is rare, so to see him practically skipping around was a delight,” a source still in regular contact with the brothers said. “But at the same time William has always felt he needs to look out for Harry, not as a future monarch but as an older brother. Their whole adult lives he’s felt he should keep an eye on Harry and make sure he’s not in trouble and on a good path.”

  Having met Meghan only a handful of times, William wanted to make sure that the American actress had the right intentions. “After all, these are two brothers that have spent their whole lives with people trying to take advantage of them,” the source said. “They’ve both developed a radar to detect that type of person, but as William didn’t know a whole lot about Meghan, he just wanted to make sure that Harry wasn’t blindsided by lust.”

  Like all royals, William straddles two roles. When it comes to Harry, he is not only his brother but also heir to the throne—and as the future king, it was his job to assess the risk of any newcomers into the Firm. This was an institution with dozens of staff involved in the lives of their bosses, some of whom were whispering words of alarm into the Duke of Cambridge’s ear. By nature, senior Palace staff and courtiers are people who, having dedicated their entire lives to the institution of the monarchy, do not like outsiders upsetting the carefully balanced machine. It is their job to spot the potential crises when outsiders are coming into the Firm, whether it’s a new staffer heading up a charity initiative or someone marrying into the family.

  Meghan was totally foreign to this group of advisors, who sometimes tended to be even more conservative than the institution they guarded.

  This was the backdrop when William sat down with his brother to discuss his relationship with Meghan.

  “Don’t feel like you need to rush this,” William told Harry, according to sources. “Take as much time as you need to get to know this girl.”

  In those last two words, “this girl,” Harry heard the tone of snobbishness that was anathema to his approach to the world. During his ten-year career in the military outside the royal bubble, he learned not to make snap judgments about people by their accent, education, ethnicity, class, or profession.

  Removing Meghan from the equation, Harry was also tired of the dynamic that had become established between him and his older brother. There had come a point when Harry no longer felt as though he needed looking after. There was a thin line between caring and condescending. Just because he went about his life differently than his brother didn’t make it wrong.

  William may have felt he was acting out of concern, but Harry was offended that his older brother still treated him as if he were immature. “Harry was pissed off,” another source said. “Pissed off that his brother would ask such a thing. Some felt it was an overreaction. But then, this totally sums them up as people—William the calm and rational one, and Harry, who can’t help but take things far too personally.”

  “Harry has a heart of gold, but he’s also incredibly sensitive,” a longtime family friend said.

  Though another friend added, “Harry could see through William’s words. He was being a snob.”

  Harry was taken aback, even angry, despite the fact that William was simply looking out for his brother. He didn’t really know Meghan yet. He was concerned that Harry had isolated himself from many of their old friends. “But perhaps he just didn’t want to accept that Harry had grown up and become his own man,” said a source.

  William told an aide he was “hurt” that his brother didn’t see that he really was simply watching out for Harry’s best interests. The two brothers had spent a lifetime, after all, relying on each other in the wake of their mother’s death.

  “William and Kate love Harry. They felt that they looked after him. William brought his brother up a lot of the time, provided a parental role and what that actually meant,” said a source close to the Cambridges.

  At least two other family members also voiced concerns to each other over the pace at which Harry’s relationship was moving. Meghan had often been the topic of conversation and gossip among them. When she first arrived in the prince’s life, one senior royal referred to the American actress as “Harry’s showgirl.” Another told an aide, “She comes with a lot of baggage.” And a high-ranking courtier was overheard telling a colleague, “There’s just something about her I don’t trust.”

  Harry was “aware of the talk,” a close friend of his said. “He’s extremely protective of Meghan. He understands that a lot of people are against them, and he will do everything he can to keep her safe and away from getting hurt—even if that means distancing himself from those people.”

  In the months after William talked to Harry about the relationship, the two hardly spoke. The brothers went from always making time for each other to barely spending any time together. Harry had always loved popping across the grounds of the palace to see Charlotte and George, bringing them gifts that included an electric SUV for his nephew and a tricycle for Charlotte. But those visits came to a virtual halt by that summer of 2017. In fact, Harry had spent less time with Prince Louis than the others because of the growing tension between him and his brother after the baby’s birth on April 23, 2018. The distance came from both directions. Harry spent less time going over to see the children, but the invites from William and Kate were the first to dry up.

  Though not necessarily her responsibility, Kate did little to bridge the divide. She was fiercely loyal to her husband and his family.

  Although Kate and Meghan were close in age, they weren’t meeting each other at the same point in their lives. Kate had been deeply embedded in the royal family ever since she met William in college. A mother of three (and mother of the heir to the throne), her life revolved around family and duty to monarchy and country.

  Kate and Meghan came from different backgrounds and have had vastly different life experiences. Kate was never interested in having a career, while that was always a driver for Meghan. They also had different personalities. While Kate was shy and quiet, Meghan was an extrovert.

  Harry didn’t care what his family thought or said. “Nothing was going to get in the way of his happiness,” a source close to Harry and Meghan said. “He knew Meghan was right for him. Their love was real, and their feelings for each other were genuine. Everything else was noise.”


  While Harry was battling those in his private life who didn’t think he should propose, Meghan was fending off public inquiries on the very same subject.

  The possibility of a royal wedding was the top questions for the press when Meghan took her place alongside the rest of the Suits cast at the June 11 ATX Television Festival in Austin, Texas. There to promote the series’ one hundredth episode, she nonetheless found herself dodging questions about the possibility of her marrying a prince. Meghan offered nothing but a smile when one reporter outright asked if she was eager to marry Harry.

  Her castmates tried to help by filling in the blanks. “Meghan is super happy,” said Patrick J. Adams, her on-screen romantic interest. “She is so deserving of all the great things that happen for her in this world.”

  The series’ executive producer Aaron Korsh later revealed that while he never asked about Meghan’s relationship status, he had quietly been planning for the exit of her character, Rachel, from the show from the start of 2017. “Collectively with the writers, we decided to take a gamble that these two people were in love and it was going to work out,” he told BBC Radio 4.

  Meghan didn’t discuss her marriage plans with anyone, but to her closest friends it was clear how she felt. Perhaps that was why Jessica was so keen to shift course in the middle of a June fitting that had been intended to be for personal evening events as well as upcoming scenes on Suits. Eyeing some bridal gowns on a nearby rack, the stylist suggested Meghan try on a few. While the studio hadn’t shared a script yet, the pair knew there was going to be an upcoming wedding scene for Meghan’s character, Rachel. It may have been for work, but the two couldn’t help but giggle as Meghan tried a couple on. Meghan looked breathtaking in each one.

  Harry and Meghan weren’t only moving forward with their relationship privately. In late June, with Harry’s consent, Meghan invited Sam Kashner, a high-profile Vanity Fair writer, to her Toronto townhouse. She was ready to talk, but it was going to happen on her terms.

  For a couple who had pleaded with the press for privacy, this was a risky move. Though Meghan had been falsely accused in the past for courting the press, this time there could be no mistake: Meghan was sitting down with a reporter with Harry’s blessing. Never had a royal girlfriend spoken so publicly about her relationship and, most surprising, declared in a glossy magazine that she was in love.

  Meghan’s only request for the photo shoot with the photographer Peter Lindbergh was that her freckles not be photoshopped away. She wanted to look natural and show her real self. She was more than pleased with the results, even sending handwritten thank-you notes to then editor in chief Graydon Carter and other team members involved in the feature. “I loved it,” she wrote.

  Prior to the writer’s arrival, Meghan prepared a lunch of field greens, pasta with chili peppers, and warm bread. Her favorite peony blooms sat alongside assorted books, including a Vogue anthology, Grace Coddington’s memoir, and, fittingly, a thick coffee table book of Vanity Fair portraits through the years. Her white couch was scattered with British throw pillows and a strategically placed blanket so that her beloved pooches, Bogart and Guy, could lounge without dirtying the furniture.

  In the interview, Meghan claimed that Harry was the reason she kept her sanity despite the media frenzy. “It has its challenges, and it comes in waves—some days it can feel more challenging than others,” she said. “And right out of the gate it was surprising the way things changed. But I still have this support system all around me, and, of course, my boyfriend’s support.”

  When Meghan’s cover story hit newsstands on September 7, it was groundbreaking in how frankly she discussed her relationship with Harry. “I can tell you that at the end of the day I think it’s really simple,” she said. “We’re two people who are really happy and in love.”

  She argued that dating Harry hadn’t changed who she’d always been—an independent woman not defined by the men in her life. The only thing that was different was “people’s perception” of her.

  “I’m sure there will be a time when we will have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell,” she said, “but I hope what people will understand is that this is our time. This is for us. It’s part of what makes it so special, that it’s just ours. But we’re happy. Personally, I love a great love story.”

  Theirs was a love story that took hold in Africa—where now Meghan, on the last day of an incredible three-week stay, stretched her body into the perfect warrior pose.

  She quietly took in her surroundings from the grounds of their final home away from home on this trip, a modern villa in Livingstone, Zambia, just under ten miles upstream from Victoria Falls. The rising sun washed over her makeshift yoga garden, while an exotic flock of birds that looked as if they had just had their tails dipped in pots of colorful paints serenaded her.

  Harry and Meghan’s return to the place they had fallen in love a year earlier had been a magical one. The pair had explored Botswana’s wildlife with the help of Harry’s friend and fellow conservationist David Dugmore, who runs Meno A Kwena. From driving trips across the Makgadikgadi Pans, one of the largest salt flats in the world, to scoping out passing zebra, warthogs, and hippos during romantic boat trips along the Boteti, each day brought a different kind of excitement. Just waking up in their tent was an experience in wildlife, with elephants, giraffes, and zebras all part of the incredible view from the window opposite their bed.

  Harry once likened his life in London to that of a caged zoo animal, so it was no wonder that witnessing the likes of lions, elephants, and cheetahs surrounded by space and wilderness made him feel free, too. “I have this love of Africa that will never disappear. And I hope it carries on with my children as well,” he said, adding that he welcomes any “opportunity to give something back to a country that has given so much to me.”

  Harry was a tireless supporter of Botswana’s efforts to preserve its natural habitats, including his becoming a patron of the Rhino Conservation Botswana charity in January 2017. During the second week of their trip, he showed Meghan the charity’s work. Its director, Martin “Map” Ives, took the couple out to see some of the critically endangered black rhino, which Harry helped move and fit with electronic tracking devices in September 2016.

  “Harry has seen at firsthand the cruel and senseless damage inflicted on these endangered animals by poachers,” Map said. “Rhino conservation is a deadly serious business, and Botswana cannot do it alone—we need everyone to help us fight this battle.”

  That Harry brought Meghan to see his work with RCB was another testament to the depth of their relationship. He wanted to share everything important in his life with her. “There is a conservation angle to [their relationship],” Map said, “but it’s also an emotional attachment.”

  During the trip, Harry had also introduced Meghan to Dr. Mike Chase, who founded Elephants without Borders, which supports local communities to coexist with elephants. The couple spent some time with Mike and his partner, Kelly, who showed an awestruck Meghan how to affix a satellite-tracking collar to a ten-thousand-pound mammal.

  As Meghan continued her morning yoga practice by the green riverbanks of the Zambezi River, it was difficult not to lose focus. She had never imagined she would be laying out her mat as wild Cape buffalo grazed across the water and fishermen’s boats returned to their ports after the morning’s catch.

  Nor did she ever dare dream that during this magical trip that the man beside her, the fifth in line to the British throne, would promise to make her his wife. During those soul-baring moments under the Botswana’s blanket of stars, Harry made his intentions very clear and she wanted nothing more. On their final day in Botswana, they felt more connected to each other than ever—best friends, partners, soul mates.

  And Harry quickly proved himself to be a man of his word. Shortly after their return to London, he made his promise official. As Meghan prepared dinner at Nottingham Cottage, which had quickly started to feel like ho
me, he got down on bended knee and asked for her hand in marriage. It was a moment they would never forget. But it would be some time before they shared the news with the world. For now, it would be their little secret.

  9

  Boom!

  Now that they were engaged, there was plenty of discussion at Kensington Palace about the couple making their public debut before the 2017 Invictus Games. But with Harry’s international sporting event for wounded, ill, and injured members of the armed services and veterans taking place in Toronto, the September competition became a natural place for their public coming out. (Despite reports claiming otherwise, it was sheer coincidence that the Games were in Meghan’s adopted hometown; the host city had been chosen in May 2016.) What could be better than combining a public declaration to each other with perhaps Harry’s most important legacy?

  The Invictus Games had their genesis when Harry returned from his first tour of duty in Afghanistan profoundly affected by what he had seen.

  “In February 2008 I found myself boarding a plane at Kandahar airfield, Afghanistan, that had been delayed due to the loading of a Danish soldier’s coffin,” he wrote in an essay pegged to the first games. “Three of our own were flying back with us, all in induced comas and with different scales of injuries . . . Many of us on that flight were relieved to be flying home to loved ones, but this was also when the reality of the conflict hit home. Sure, I’d heard about it, expected it, called in many medical evacuations for it, but I had never seen it first-hand. By ‘it’ I mean the injuries that were being sustained largely due to improvised explosive devices. Loss of life is as tragic and devastating as it gets, but to see young lads—much younger than me—wrapped in plastic and missing limbs, with hundreds of tubes coming out of them, was something I never prepared myself for. For me, this is where it all started.”

  His advocacy was also inspired by a 2013 White House meeting with Michelle Obama, which the First Lady described as “focused on honoring the sacrifice and service of our veterans and military families.” Mrs. Obama, along with the Second Lady, Dr. Jill Biden, created the Joining Forces organization to support veterans and their families by providing education and other opportunities for transitioning service members.