There are a lot of reports around the unwritten regulations the royal family follow, from abstaining from eating garlic to wearing nude nail polish, but the Duke of Sussex discovered the hard way that there are solid, "strict" rules in place when it comes to relationships.
Prince Harry's romance with Meghan Markle was considered to be modern from the get-go, with the royal choosing to date an actress and divorcee, whom he invited to formal events before she married into the royal family.
Very early on, Harry had decided that Meghan was 'The One', but he recalled the obstacles they had to overcome before they exchanged vows in May 2018.
Opening up about their secret dates in 2016, before their relationship went public, he wrote in his memoir Spare that he had an epiphany about the seriousness of their romance shortly after a trip to Botswana.
© GettyReflecting on how quickly he had formed an emotional attachment, he said: "I’d always told myself that there were firm rules about relationships, at least when it came to royalty, and the main one was that you absolutely must date a woman for three years before taking the plunge.
"How else could you know about her? How else could she know about you – and your royal life? How else could both of you be sure that this was what you wanted, that it was a thing you could endure together?
© Getty"It wasn’t for everybody. But Meg seemed the shining exception to this rule. All rules. I knew her straightaway, and she knew me. The true me. Might seem rash, I thought, might seem illogical, but it’s true: For the first time, in fact, I felt myself to be living in truth."
However, Harry's assumption of the longevity of their relationship before engagement was not the only hurdle – he also questioned if he actually had to ask permission to marry Meghan.
© Karwai TangRecounting telling Ed Lane Fox, or Elf, who was the Duke’s private secretary, that he wanted to propose, he wrote: "There were strict rules governing such things. Rules? Really? He came back days later and said before doing anything I’d need to ask Granny’s permission.
"I asked him if that was a real rule, or the kind we could work around. 'Oh, no, it’s very real.' It didn’t make sense. A grown man asking his grandmother for permission to marry?"
© WPA PoolHarry then looked back at his father King Charles asking permission to marry Queen Camilla. "Elf said there was no point in examining the whys and hows, this was the inalterable rule. The first six in line to the throne had to ask permission.
"The Royal Marriages Act of 1772, or the Succession to the Crown Act of 2013 – he was going on and on, and I could barely believe my ears. The point was, love took a decided back seat to law."
Harry later recalled his nerves at raising the matter with Her Late Majesty, before he set up a romantic picnic blanket in the grounds of Kensington Palace to propose to Meghan in the presence of her late dog Guy.
The happy couple are now approaching their seventh wedding anniversary after they tied the knot at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle on 19 May 2018. They live in Montecito with their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, and continue to make loved-up public appearances.
