100% I can't wait I'm really excited
I'll be watching it yeah I love it yeah
Brilliant - yeah really happy yeah really happy for them.
I'm happy for them, excited for them but I think the monarchy is a bit of an anachronism.
Some of the reactions in London this week to this week's Royal wedding.
We put cutouts of a real pair in Piccadilly Circus and as a barometer of
public interest the result was sometimes a little weird
They might make great cutouts -- they do.
But how do Harry and Megan fit into the larger Royal picture?
Arguably no one has dug deeper into the details than royal
biographer Andrew Morton.
He sat down with Adrienne Arsenault and laid out what
makes this royal couple so remarkable
This wedding will be a show only the Royals can pull off -- we know that.
But, more lighthearted. a bit more open. Certainly historic.
Very excited. Yes I'm very happy for them.
An heir to the British throne marrying an
American actor, divorced, raised Catholic, a woman of colour...
And an activist long before she met her Prince.
Is it true that Harry assembled some video clips
from Suits to show -- his grandparents?
From what I gather, yeah.
Any sense of how that went over?
It's quite a story for the Royal biographer, Andrew Morton.
He wrote Diana: Her True Story.
Now he's written, Meghan: A Hollywood Princess.
We met in New York to talk about Megan Markle's
moment and this wedding he says that will lead to a certain royal
ancestor spinning in his grave right below all the festivities.
He'll definitely be spinning in his grave. The Duke of Windsor is buried in the grounds
of Windsor Castle and the reason why is he abdicated his throne in 1936 so that
he could marry a twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson and now what's happening
a divorced American is walking down the aisle. She's going to be made a
royal highness and so it shows you the transformation
inside the royal family and also inside the nation with regards to divorce.
Well certainly within the Queen's own family -- they are no stranger to divorces.
Divorce has become actually a fact. Three of her four children have divorced.
Her sister, Princess Margaret divorced and of course famously
Prince Charles and Princess Diana divorced.
Kind of set the tone for that for the rest of
the Queen's reign because both William and Harry have effectively been allowed
to marry who they want.
Was it a matter of Harry legitimately saying this is the
this is a love of my life...
Nana, the Queen, Your Majesty, this is the woman I would like to marry.
Is there any protocol that says that the Queen has to decide if that's okay?
Oh yeah, I mean Harry's in the line of
succession he has to get permission from the Queen and he took Megan along to
Buckingham Palace October last year to meet the Queen and let the Queen, let
his grandmother run the rule over but also the Queen was running the rule over
Harry because remember ten years before she could have she could be kind of
scratching her head and saying no not so much.
I mean because he was a wild child, he was a drunk, he was an angry young man.
So you think if he'd actually met Meghan Markle a decade earlier and introduced
her to the Queen, the Queen would have said no?
Probably because of Harry's behaviour.
But and that's what a former courtier at Buckingham Palace said to me
It's Hello Canada did that video with Meghan Markle sometime back asking her
William or Harry and she really didn't know.
I have to say hello Canada loved the fact that they've got that video.
Prince William or Prince Harry?
I don't know.
Harry! Harry? Sure.
When you actually look at her on the screen
she's totally nonplussed, you can see she's like a rabbit in the headlights
thinking who's William, and who is Harry and then there was a real sense that she
didn't even know who they were.
At that time though, Harry as you say was living
a very different life and so we've been talking about, as has everyone
you know look at the picture of Diana and Meghan here, people have been talking
about the presence of Diana and I can't figure out the right terminology...is it
In the shadow of Diana, is it that it's the spark of Diana? How would you
characterize her place in this?
Well, I mean her place is very much kind of
the ghost of Diana really, or the aura of Diana.
Diana died aged 36 Meghan's 36
Meghan is an independent humanitarian, eloquent, articulate, make speeches.
Diana at that time in her life -- independent, humanitarian and you know it's almost
like the baton has been as it were psychically passed on.
What do you think your mother would have thought of Meghan
Or said about Meghan?
At least they'll be thick as thieves.
Without question I think she would be over the moon you know with the
ring in with everything else going on -- she's with us --
I'm sure she's with us, yeah, jumping up and down somewhere else.
You know, Harry said in that interview that that Meghan and his mother he thought
would have would have been as thick as thieves.
Do you actually think so I mean
you knew you knew Diana?
She would have loved the fact that he has a spring in
his step and look he's whistling a merry tune. He's a man reborn and the fact that
Meghan's making him happy is what most parents want for their children.
The fact that Meghan's bringing a degree of experience of the world...
not just of the movie world but also of the world of philanthropy, the charities,
United Nations, adds an extra dimension to her involvement of the Royal family
that again would have impressed the princess or the late princess.
And so when you went to Pasadena to spend some time there learning about
Meghan Markle, you probably had a sense of her activism already but what surprised
you about what you learned about the degree she was interested in it?
Well, quite frankly I was very surprised, the fact that she was so young I mean
you know the fact that she was debating and discussing issues like the first Gulf War
age 10 and that she was leading a demonstration, making placards was interesting.
What's the dish washing liquid story?
Age 10, she's organizing demonstrations, aged 11 she's she's notorious in school for
writing letters to food corporations complaining about sexist advertising on
a Procter & Gamble campaign for dishwashing liquid "women are fighting
greasy pots and pans" -- and she felt that was wrong she thought they should be
"people" and her dad said well write to them so she wrote to Procter &
Gamble and all that to be said and within a month
that advertising campaign was changed from women to people.
"The gloves are coming off. People are fighting greasy pots and pans with ivory clear."
"Meghan Markle."
And it's something she used when she a few years later made a speech
at the United Nations. "In doing this we remind women that their involvement matters."
So she's always had that activist side to her and if she hadn't
been an actress she would could well have been a politician
she could well have been a diplomat.
Well, she tried, right? She wrote the foreign service exam.
Yeah and failed it. Had she passed him we could be talking about
Ambassador Markle today not princess Megan.
You know and we seem to have claimed
Meghan Markle even though she is an American
-- But she's an honorary Canadian
I think so
I think she's an honorary Canadian princess don't you think?
Well, she is now.
I think we'll confer with that title.
Okay, because it's more than than Toronto
being a place to lay her head while she was shooting Suits
There's more to the Canadian connection right?
Yeah and she actually talked about going to
live there if you recall when candidate Trump was looked to be on the verge of
winning the election so she does obviously have an affection for it as a
place of civilization and refuge
Did it mean something for Harry as well?
We look at some of these pictures of him as a little kid playing with Diana and
William I mean it does Canada mean a bit of anonymity for him a bit of
freedom.
Canada's always had a special place for most members of the royal
family and it's interesting how many royal princes have fallen for Canadian
girls over the years so it must be something in the water. The fact that
Meghan lived in Toronto helped to grow the relationship enormously
There's no paparazzi culture in Toronto unlike New York, London, and Paris they
were able to walk the dogs, go out and about, so in a way Toronto was the
perfect ground. it was very fertile ground for a Royal
romance to develop.
You know what we talked about about Harry as you were
watching him grow up at what point did your heart start beating a little harder
out of worry for him.
Well the time after the funeral where it seemed to be a very
lost young man, and there are some pretty telling pictures of him emerging from
Boujis nightclub since closed down.
very worse for wear. And trying to start
fist fights with paparazzi photographers.
Well that was somebody who was very much
out of control.
What saved him?
Well he says himself that coming back from
Afghanistan, 2008 with three British soldiers badly injured
and a Danish soldier in a in in a coffin was something that really
gave him pause to think about his future his future responsibilities and it was
the germ of the idea for the Invictus games which has been they were held in
Toronto
So not to put too much, too fine a point on it but there is a lot riding on this union.
Absolutely.
Her very existence as a biracial member of the royal family
the first biracial member the royal family will make people look again at the
composition of the royal household. There's only something like 6% of ethnic
minorities in the eleven hundred people who are employed by the palace and I've
always argued that the whole the point about having a monarch is it represents
the nation and it's a very skewed sample of the British demographic.
You just hope
that in time
The slow gearing of the palace changes the composition.
Is there something in the wedding itself that you're gonna be watching
in particular?
For me the enduring moment is going to be the Queen and her
interaction with Doria Ragland, the longest-serving monarch in British
history standing next to the what great-great granddaughter of a slave and
from a family where at one point a member of that family worked as a maid
at Windsor Castle. This is kind of a a true Cinderella story.
Interesting.
Andrew, thank you very much, you're a good sport. My pleasure.
So with wedding preps underway we are obviously getting ready too.
CBC News we'll bring you special coverage of the royal wedding on television on radio and
online all this week. We'll bring you the National from London and Windsor and dig
into questions about the couple, the Monarchy, what this union represents and
then join Adrienne bright and early next Saturday -- she may or may not wear a
fascinator. Live coverage of the big event. You can wear PJs will give you a
front-row seat to the wedding of the year beginning at 4:00 a.m. Eastern on
CBC television CBC News Network, CBCNews dot ca.