How Meghan Markle 'entranced' Prince Harry when they first met – ‘obsessed’

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary on Thursday. The couple tied the knot at St George’s Chapel in Windsor on May 19, 2018. Their anniversary comes just weeks before the Duke and Duchess of Sussex return to the UK for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

Meghan and Harry relocated to the US after their shock exit from life as working royals two years ago. 

Prior to their departure, they had lived in Kensington Palace, London and then Frogmore Cottage, Windsor. 

The couple started their love story in the capital, with the pair going on their first date in Soho in the summer of 2016.

Authors of Finding Freedom, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, wrote that Harry “was in a trance” after their first encounter. 

In a serialisation in The Times in 2020, Mr Scobie and Ms Durand wrote: “Over drinks (beer for him, a martini for her), they asked each other questions about their work. 

“Nibbles may have been out on the low table in front of their oversize chairs, but neither touched the food. 

“They were also too engrossed in their conversation, and too involved with each other, to notice the rather rude wallpaper featuring photos of women’s private parts that adorned the walls.”

They added: “No one expected what happened next.”

“‘Almost immediately they were almost obsessed with each other,’ a friend said. 

“‘It was as if Harry was in a trance.’ Meghan called one of her girlfriends. “‘Do I sound crazy when I say this could have legs?’ she asked.”

The following evening, Meghan and Harry met up again for a romantic dinner. And the next night, the then-actress was whisked through the streets of London to Kensington Palace, where Harry was living at the time.

Six weeks later, Harry invited Meghan on a trip to Botswana, a country close to the prince’s heart.

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Mr Scobie and Ms Durand wrote: “A friend said, ‘She came back smiling and just completely spellbound.’ 

“Her phone was full of photos — the nature they had seen, candid snaps of herself, and selfies with Harry. 

“According to the friend, if Meghan didn’t have to return to Canada for work and Harry to his life in London, ‘they would have happily spent the entire summer there together’. 

“Meghan said that she and Harry talked so much, about things she rarely shared with anyone.”

Meghan and Harry dated for several months before their relationship came to light. 

Of this period, Meghan later said: "We had a good five, six months almost with just privacy, which was amazing."

They got engaged just over a year after their first meeting in Soho, and Meghan was introduced to life as a royal as she attended official engagements and the family’s Christmas at Sandringham, making her the first royal fiancée to do so. 

Tens of millions of people across the world tuned in for the Royal Wedding on this day four years ago. 

They have since welcomed two children — Archie Harrison and Lilibet Diana — and started afresh in California having left their royal lives behind. 

The Duke and Duchess will be returning with their children for the first time next month. 

While it will be Archie’s first time in the UK since the Sussexes’ exit, Lilibet has never visited her father’s home country. 

Meghan and Harry’s daughter is understood to have never met the Queen, so the monarch’s Platinum Jubilee provides a perfect opportunity for the two ‘Lilibets’ to be introduced.

‘Finding Freedom’ was written by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand and published by HQ. It is available here.