A Monarchy Of Misfits

The marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, when the second son of the Prince of Wales married a divorced American actress of mixed race and uncertain religion, was seen as a fundamental modernisation of the British monarchy.

Historian and presenter David Starkey (Radio 4’s Moral Maze, Question Time) traces the radically shifting marriage customs of the British monarchy, from the laxity of the Middle Ages, through the stringencies of the Hanoverians, to the house of Windsor and its sometimes contorted adaptations to the realities of modern family life.