Meghan & Mrs Simpson What A Difference 80 Years Makes

How times change! Andrew Morton reflects on two divorcées marrying into the royal family

When Meghan Markle walks down the aisle at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle on May 19, listen carefully for a low humming below the singing of the choir. It will be the sound of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who are buried at Frogmore, within the castle grounds, furiously spinning in their graves.

While the duchess was the last American to marry into the royal family, her fate was the polar opposite to that of the charismatic Ms Markle. Their lives stand as vivid testimony to the changes in British society – and the House of Windsor – over the last two royal reigns.

The issue that binds and divides them is that of divorce. How differently they were treated. Former actress Meghan, who divorced her film producer husband Trevor Engelson after less than two years of marriage, has been warmly welcomed into the royal bosom.

She was invited to spend Christmas with the royal family at Sandringham, even though she is not yet officially part of it, and she walked arm-in-arm with fiancé Harry. She chatted with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as they left St Mary Magdalene Church after the Christmas Day service – her place firmly ahead of the Princess Royal, the Duke of York, and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie towards the front of that very hierarchical family procession. The duchess-in-waiting also received an oblique shout-out in the Queen’s Christmas broadcast.