BEFORE THEY MET
The childhood stories of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and their family trees
AS the spare, not the heir, Prince Harry always played the royal rascal.
Born on 15 September 1984, the then third in line to the throne knew he would probably never be King.
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Little Harry — the second son of Charles and Diana — could easily have felt sidelined when some senior members of the family and staff favoured older brother Wills.
The Queen Mother would often call for William to sit next to her, and he would go to Clarence House to visit her without Harry.
But on the bright side, the youngster enjoyed the kind of freedom Wills would never have.
Harry was just six when he taunted William: “You’ll be King, I won’t. So I can do what I want!” And he made the most of it.
Harry’s cheeky sense of humour and happy-go-lucky nature made him instantly lovable.
Trying to make life “normal”, Diana took her boys to theme parks, fast-food joints and trips to the cinema.
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As they got older, visits to Aids clinics, homeless shelters and kids’ charities showed the boys how other people lived.
But even Diana’s patience was tested by the young prince.
Inspector Ken Wharfe, who looked after the young princes and Diana, says the angriest he ever saw her was when she was telling off Harry for hitting William with a snooker cue while they stayed on Richard Branson’s Caribbean island Necker.
He said: “Harry was always pushing the boundaries. That was never the case with William.”
Harry was not academic and struggled with his schooling.
He started at Mrs Mynors’ nursery school in London’s Notting Hill in 1987 before going to Wetherby School in 1989.
He began boarding at Ludgrove Prep in 1992. While there he was told his parents were separating — they divorced in 1996.
The fallout of Charles and Diana’s marriage ending had a big impact on their sons.
But Diana’s death in August 1997, when Harry was just 12, changed him for life.
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Struggling with this tremendous loss, on September 6, 1997, Prince Harry walked past thousands of people who had gathered to say goodbye to the woman many had dubbed “the People’s Princess.”
He trailed behind his mother’s coffin in the funeral procession along with his brother, father and grandfather Prince Philip.
He was held back a year at Ludgrove before passing the entrance exam to Eton in 1998.
Like other teens, Harry liked to party — and he hit the headlines in 2001 and 2002 for drinking and smoking pot.
He spent a gap year travelling through Africa, Argentina and Australia in 2003.
He started dating Zimbabwean Chelsy Davy in 2004 and their on-off relationship would last until 2011.
Harry enrolled at Sandhurst in 2005 to train in the Army.
In April 2006, he joined the Household Cavalry as a Blues and Royals officer.
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He spent ten very happy years in the Army, latterly as an Apache helicopter gunner, and secretly completed two tours of Afghanistan before leaving in 2015.
In April 2014 he split with actress Cressida Bonas, his second serious girlfriend.
Harry went on a blind date in June 2016 with American actress Meghan Markle . . . and they got engaged in November last year.
With his party exploits in the past, Harry is now best known for his charity work and founding the Invictus Games for injured troops.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are in a celebratory mood on their wedding day
"I'm proud of who I am... a confident woman"
RACHEL MEGHAN MARKLE was raised mostly by her mum, Doria Ragland, in Los Angeles.
Doria and Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, got divorced when she was six.
It was a second marriage for Tom, who has children Samantha and Tom Jnr with his first wife, Roslyn Loveless.
Describing her heritage, Meghan said: “My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African-American.
“I’m half-black and half-white. I have come to embrace (this and) say who I am, to share where I’m from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident, mixed-race woman.”
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The young Meghan found it quite tough to split her time between social worker and yoga instructor Doria and dad Tom, a Hollywood lighting director.
But she enjoyed spending time with him on set and he paid to send her to private school.
Meghan attended the Hollywood Little Red Schoolhouse primary and the all-girls Catholic Immaculate Heart High School.
And she developed an outspoken voice at a young age.
Aged 11, she wrote to then First Lady Hillary Clinton and the makers of a TV advert that featured the line: “Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.”
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When her male classmates saw the ad and yelled that the kitchen is where women belonged, Meghan complained about what she saw as the slogan’s sexist assumption.
She was delighted when her letter-writing campaign led to the ad’s wording being changed from “women” to “people”.
Meghan — who was born on August 4, 1981, and shares a birthday with Prince Harry’s great-grandmother the Queen Mum — went on to study theatre and international relations at Northwestern University School of Communication.
She graduated in 2003.
As an aspiring actress, she struggled at first to make ends meet, waitressing and appearing as a game show glamour girl in the US version of Deal Or No Deal.
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In 2002, Meg landed her first TV acting role with a guest spot on daytime soap General Hospital.
She went on to appear in a number of other series, including sitcoms Cuts and The War At Home, as well as the dramas CSI:NY and 90210.
As a biracial actress, Meghan would later talk about the challenges of trying to get cast in racially specific roles while also finding her voice as a performer.
Her big break came in 2011 when she landed the part of paralegal Rachel Zane on the US series Suits, which co-starred Gabriel Macht, Patrick J Adams and Gina Torres.
The show became a top performer among USA Network’s scripted programmes.
Set in a Manhattan corporate law firm, the legal drama sees savvy Zane attending Columbia Law School to pursue her dreams of becoming an attorney.
Meghan left the show last year after filming her on-screen wedding.
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She also founded a popular lifestyle blog called The Tig. It ran from 2014 to 2017, promoting humanitarian causes.
In 2015, she spoke at the United Nations on gender equality and female empowerment.
Meghan began dating actor and producer Trevor Engelson in 2004.
They married in Jamaica on September 10, 2011, but divorced in August 2013.
After meeting Prince Harry on a blind date in June 2016, she is expected to become a duchess when Harry is given a dukedom on their wedding day.
Meghan Markle and her mother Doria Ragland arrive at their pre-wedding accommodation
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