The new royal couple is already on the job, just days after revealing their engagement. Prince Harry and his American fiancée Meghan Markle arrived in the English city of Nottingham Friday morning to visit a charity fair marking World AIDS Day.
Just as Lady Diana did in 1981 and Kate Middleton in 2011, Meghan Markle made her first official engagement with Prince Harry by her side. Markle may have left her fans in the U.S. but she clearly has a new following in the U.K. where hundreds of people lined up to welcome her.
An eager public watched on, some waiting hours to catch a glimpse of Prince Harry and his American fiancée, reports CBS News correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti.
“Well, it’s just brilliant news, to give our support to Meghan and Harry,” said one woman who arrived at the crack of dawn.
Markle’s visit to the World AIDS Day charity fair in Nottingham marks a quick role change from television actress to House of Windsor – one she appeared to handle with studied comfort.
Britain’s Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle greet well-wishers in Nottingham, England, on December 1, 2017 as they arrive for a World AIDS Day charity fair, their first public event together since announcing their engagement.
Oli Scarff / AFP/Getty Images
Royal photographer Chris Jackson has spent more than 10 years covering Prince Harry and now his wife-to-be.
“They are going to be a formidable team and I think probably a lot to look forward to,” Jackson said.
Markle discussed her own royal ambitions earlier this week.
“I think in these beginning few months and now being boots on the ground in the U.K., I’m excited to just really get to know more about the different communities here, smaller organizations who are working on the same causes that I’ve always been passionate about,” Markle said.
Friday’s carefully chosen public debut was a symbolic nod to Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, who championed HIV/AIDS awareness up until her death 20 years ago.
Images of her shaking hands of patients without wearing gloves helped change the way the world understood the epidemic.
“Oh, they would have been thick as thieves, without question,” Harry said of how he thinks his mother would have thought of Meghan.
Prince Harry alongside his brother Prince William and sister-in-law Kate Middleton have devoted much of their lives to carrying on Princess Diana’s humanitarian legacy.
With Markle by his side, Harry says he is now more committed than ever.
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