Prince Harry’s fiancée Meghan Markel created a Canadian link to the British royalty but nine years before that, a hairdresser’s daughter from Montreal married a member of the royalty who is 13th in line to the British crown.
The Montrealor in question is Autumn Kelly, and her prince, Peter Phillips, is the son of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Philips and the first grandchild of the Queen Elizabeth II who also gave the British monarch her first grandchild.
This is perhaps one of the most fascinating royal romances of all times. Autumn met Phillips at the Montreal Grand Prix in 2003 while she was working in the BMW hospitality suite, and he was working for Formula One racing team BMW Williams.
He invited her to a post-race Formula One party when they met for the first time but she did not know she was dating a British royal until two months later when she saw him in a television documentary about Prince William. Her mother was also watching the documentary, and asked her daughter “Oh, Autumn, what have you gotten yourself into?”
Autumn’s engagement to Phillips was announced by Buckingham Palace on 28 July 2007, and the Queen consented to the union. Prior to the marriage, Autumn who was born on May 3, 1978, converted from Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism. If she remained Catholic after her marriage, her husband would have lost his place in the line of succession to the throne. Today he is 13th in line to the throne while his two daughters born to Autumn, Isla and Savannah, are standing behind him at No. 14 and 15 respectively. However, Autumn decided to retain her Canadian citizenship.
The couple married during a private ceremony attended by about 300 guests, including the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle on 17 May 2008. This is the same chapel where Prince Charles and his wife Camilla took their marriage vows.
The wedding was important in some way. It was where the Queen officially met Prince Harry’s then girlfriend Chelsy Davy. William’s fiancée Kate Middleton too was in attendance but the prince could not be there. It was not seen as an snub and Clarence House announced that he had to attend a long standing prior engagement.
Phillips has confessed that he was smitten from the moment he first saw Autumn. “Peter couldn’t take his eyes off her,” a friend told The Independent. “Within five minutes he had managed to engage her in conversation. He had to go off to do some official business but within half an hour he was back and had managed to get her mobile number, email address and invite her and three of her friends to the Formula One post-race party.” Peter had described it as “fate.” Initially Autumn had told the prince her name was Megan!
Autumn had worked as a waitress and a model to pay for her studies and had a brief career as an actress. At 16 she appeared in a children’s adventure film, Rainbow, which was shot over nine weeks in her native Montreal in 1994. She also acted in a movie starring Bob Hoskins and Canadian actor Dan Aykroyd and played a role in a Canadian television crime show called Sirens. After that she went to university where she graduated in East Asian studies.
Her parents divorced when Autumn was eight years old, and now both are remarried. She has two brothers. One is a brick layer and the other a chef.
Phillips and his wife lead a low-key life. They have gone to oblivion after public interest in the royalty was robbed by William-Kate courtship, their high-profile marriage and Kate’s pregnancies and children.
Phillips would have loved that isolation as they are known to shun the limelight. He is said to be a beneficiary of various trust funds by the Queen Mother and other members of the royal family, but both of them continue to work. Princess Anne decided against having titles for her two children, Peter and Zara, to give them a normal upbringing.
Press reports said that before their marriage the couple made a media splash following the release of a pre-wedding interview and 20-page photo spread in the British tabloid Hello! which paid them close to $1 million.
