It can be nerve-racking to meet your beau’s family for the first time. But when those relatives are royal, it’s probably a little more intimidating.

Prince Harry had been secretly dating American actress Meghan Markle for five months before the news broke, but the couple’s families were not surprised because the most important introductions had already been made.

In the Channel 5 documentary ‘Harry & Meghan vs the Monarchy,’ royal expert Ashley Pearson described Meghan Markle’s “extraordinary” first meeting with the Queen.

“The meeting went extremely well,” she said.

“Meghan was warmly welcomed. Here she is – articulate, bright, intelligent, well-spoken, beautiful, elegant — what is not to like?”

Meghan gave her own account of the meeting in the Oprah interview, saying she met Her Majesty at Royal Lodge, where the Prince of Wales, Prince Andrew, and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York have previously resided.

Meghan said she and Harry were going there for lunch and were joined by the Queen, who had just finished a church service in nearby Windsor.

“I recall Harry and I being in the car when he said, ‘OK, well, my grandmother is going to be there, so you’re going to meet her.’ ‘OK, great!’ I said. I adored my grandmother and used to look after her.’ ‘Right, do you know how to curtsy?’ he asks.”

Meghan, it turns out, had no idea her family actually curtsied to the Queen in private.

“I thought genuinely that’s what happens outside, that’s part of the fanfare,” Meghan explained. “I didn’t think that’s what happens inside.”

“How do you bow to the Queen?” Oprah inquired. “Deeply, to demonstrate respect,” Meghan explained, “and I learned it quickly.”

“We just sat there and chatted, and it was lovely and easy,” she said after the curtsey was over.

Meghan later added that she has always had a positive relationship with the monarch. “The queen has always been fantastic to me,” she explained.

In the documentary, former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond discussed Meghan’s first meeting with Prince Charles, Harry’s father.

She stated: “Meeting your in-laws when one of them is a future king – meeting Prince Charles – must have been difficult or intimidating for Meghan.

“She is, however, a strong woman. She probably marched in and just got on with it.

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