Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Rushed Into Their Marriage for One Key Reason: Author

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who met on a blind date in 2016, tied the knot in a high-profile ceremony at Windsor Castle in May 2018. The whirlwind engagement, announced just a year after they first met, was reportedly driven by a pressing reason. According to royal author Tina Brown, Prince Harry was eager to marry quickly because Meghan Markle’s 'biological clock was ticking.' According to Mirror, royal author Tom Bower also echoed Brown's claims in 2022. He argued that Markle had expressed a desire to have children shortly after her first date with Harry.

Brown, in her book The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor, claimed that Prince William was concerned about the couple’s fast-moving relationship, fearing Markle wouldn’t have enough time to adjust to life within the royal family. William, who courted Kate Middleton for eight years before proposing, reportedly felt that Harry was rushing into marriage. "William was nervous," Brown wrote. She added, "William knew Harry all too well and feared he was heading for trouble. Every time his brother fell in love, it was an eruption of Vesuvius."

According to the Daily Mail, Brown noted how William was particularly anxious after Markle's trip to Botswana. "'You do realize this is the fourth girl you've taken to Botswana," he allegedly remarked after his brother's starry-eyed account of the trip.'" In his 2023 memoir Spare, Harry revealed that William had warned him to slow things down. He added that while William had been quite discouraging about his relationship with Markle, his key motivation to marry Markle quickly was security— so she would gain the police protection afforded to working royals. 

It wasn’t just William whose warnings Harry ignored; some of his closest friends also voiced concerns about Markle. Tom 'Skippy' Inskip, a longtime friend since their Eton days, reportedly cautioned Harry about moving too quickly and suggested the couple live together before taking things further. As per the book Finding Freedom, Skippy’s concerns came 'from a good place,' but Harry didn’t see it that way. Other friends, as noted by Bower, whispered that Harry was 'f***ing nuts' for dating Markle, describing her as a 'woke' spoilsport after she reprimanded them for transgender and feminist jokes during a shooting weekend in late 2016.

Despite these challenges, Harry and Markle described their relationship as deeply serendipitous during their first joint interview in 2017. Harry told BBC presenter Mishal Husain, “The fact that I fell in love with Meghan so incredibly quickly was confirmation to me that all the stars were aligned, everything was just perfect." Markle also shared fond memories of the intimate proposal, describing it as “amazing, so sweet and natural and very romantic." She shared, “He got on one knee.”