EDEN CONFIDENTIAL Royal snub for Meghan Markle's father

EDEN CONFIDENTIAL Royal snub for Meghan Markle's father

Poor Thomas Markle, who has to watch on television in America as a man he's never met walks his daughter up the aisle today, has suffered a further blow.

I can reveal that the Queen has decreed he will not be granted a coat of arms.

It's a major snub, because the fathers of previous commoners who married into the Royal Family, including those of Kate Middleton and Sophie Rhys-Jones, were accorded the honour.

Their coats of arms were made public in the weeks leading up to their weddings and featured on the souvenir programmes for the ceremonies.

The decision will mean that Meghan Markle's outspoken relations are not able to boast a Markle coat of arms.

Her half-sister, Samantha Grant, had already publicly discussed the expected honour. 

'Mr Markle will not have his own coat of arms,' confirms a senior source at the College of Arms, which acts on behalf of the Crown in all matters of heraldry.

'We were told it would be too 'complicated'.

'The Palace has instructed us to use the example of the Duchess of Gloucester and give Meghan Markle her own coat of arms instead.'

He is referring to Birgitte van Deurs, who married the Duke of Gloucester, a cousin of the Queen, in 1972. To qualify for armigerous status (the right to bear hearaldic arms), foreigners need to prove they have an ancestor who was a subject of the Crown. 

While this may have been a problem for Danish-born Birgitte, it posed no difficulty for Mr Markle, as his forebears include Mary Smith, a maid who was recorded in 1856 as working at Windsor Castle.

Spokesmen for the College of Arms and Kensington Palace declined to comment.

 

Prince Harry appears to be using the wedding to distance himself from some of his loyal old friends.

I hear that he's put several noses out of joint by inviting pals to the ceremony and lunchtime reception for 600 people, but not allowing them to join the 200 allowed at the evening party at Frogmore House, Windsor.

'Some of Harry's friends have been shocked not to be invited,' a source tells me. 'It's proving very divisive that many of them are getting all dressed up but have to take their wives home mid-afternoon.'

To add insult to injury, the evening reception seems to have turned into a networking opportunity full of showbusiness types, including George and Amal Clooney, Sir Elton John and Oprah Winfrey, whom Harry hardly knows.

Cameron quitter Mensch 'splits up with her husband'   

Cameron cutie Louise Bagshawe infuriated the Tories by causing a by-election in her marginal seat of Corby when she quit Parliament in 2012 after just two years to spend more time with her new husband, the rock promoter Peter Mensch, in his native America.

So her former constituents will be bewildered to hear that her seven-year marriage has now apparently hit the rocks. 'They've split up,' claims one of their friends

Novelist Louise, 46, and Mensch, 65, who shared a house in New York, are too discreet to comment, but it's not the storyline she had in mind when she reflected on how she first set eyes on Peter at Oxford University.

'I was instantly attracted to him, but he was married,' she said. After their respective first marriages broke down, she 'went looking' for her old flame.

For their fourth anniversary, he gave her a crystal swan 'because swans mate for life'. 

 

Ageing Bull De Niro gets a lift to beach 

Robert De Niro played a series of menacing characters in Hollywood films such as The Godfather Part II and Goodfellas, but he cut a feeble figure as he disembarked from a boat in Ibiza this week.

Wearing a khaki sunhat, the Oscar-winner, 74, called on two sturdy fellows to carry him on to dry land so that he didn't get his tootsies wet. Not so much Raging as Ageing Bull , perhaps.

When Princess Eugenie walks up the aisle at St George's Chapel in October, it could be a double wedding.

For I hear that her fiance Jack Brooksbank's younger brother, Thomas, has now also become engaged. 

The Eton-educated investment manager, 30, is to wed Amy Rodgers, 27, who works for fashion label Paul Smith. A friend remarks: 'Wouldn't it be lovely if it was a joint wedding with Eugenie and Jack?'