Meghan Markle's tea with the Queen, and why it's a matter of when not if for Harry

After Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s public show of affection at the Invictus Games in Toronto last month, many have been expecting an engagement announcement. It is, friends of the couple say, a matter of when not if.

I don’t expect an announcement immediately, especially given that the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are due to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary in November. It seems unlikely anything would be done to distract from that historic moment.

But the royals are good at keeping quiet. The Queen herself is said to have kept her proposal hidden from the public for a year until she turned 21, because her father was against her marrying so young.

There have even been reports that Harry and Meghan, who holidayed in Botswana in August, are engaged. Talk that the US actress is not going to take part in series eight of TV show Suits adds to the speculation.

The rumours have now gone into overdrive, with reports that Meghan and the Queen met and spent an hour together at Buckingham Palace, drinking a blend of Assam and Darjeeling tea.

It is said Harry, 33, who is close to his grandmother, had spoken to her during the summer, asking to introduce Meghan, 36.

But the meeting last Thursday was not just a cosy chat with granny. Under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, the monarch has the right to veto the marriage of any senior member of his or her family.

As sovereign, she is required to give formal consent to any family marriages to guard against those that could “diminish the status of the royal house”.

The fact that Meghan is a divorcée — she was married to Trevor Engelson from 2011 to 2013 — has been widely speculated to hurt her chances. But in reality how can it? The future king, Charles, is divorced and so is his future queen consort, Camilla.

Modern royal marriage rules have been relaxed. While the Royal Marriages Act originally meant that all royal family members needed consent in order to marry, a change in the law in 2013 means it now only applies to the six people closest in line to the throne — Charles, Prince William, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Harry and Prince Andrew.

Divorce has been an issue in the past. In 1936 Edward VIII abdicated to marry the divorced Wallis Simpson. As head of the Church of England, whose teachings forbade anyone to marry a divorced person, an attempt to sidestep the rules would have caused uproar.

Those same rules later shattered another love affair, when the Queen’s sister Princess Margaret wanted to marry her father’s divorced equerry, Peter Townsend. “I simply hadn’t the weight to counterbalance all she would have lost,” he said.

Today the royal family seems more relaxed — and compassionate — on the issue, perhaps because the Church has since softened its stance on divorce. After so much sadness, everyone would wish Harry every happiness.