• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, December 12, 2017

Our world is changing.

A key piece of evidence to support that statement: The second-born son of the heir to the British throne is engaged to an American television actress.

And it just so happens that she is a star on a long-running drama series on a network literally named USA.

She is Meghan Markle, and she has been a cast member on the USA Network legal drama called “Suits” since it began in 2011. The show concluded its seventh season last September. She plays one of the show's swashbuckling attorneys.

Markle, 36, will reportedly marry Prince Harry, son of Charles and Diana -- the prince and late princess of Wales -- some time next spring. Harry's brother William will one day be King of England (after his father).

Markle was married once before. She is now divorced. Once upon a time, this was a no-no for the British royal family, but not anymore, apparently.

So let me get this straight: She is an American, she is divorced, she is an actress and she is on television (“telly” in British). I wonder how Queen Elizabeth reacted to all this? Is there a word for “plotz” in British?

Although she is on a national TV show, I will admit that I never heard of Meghan Markle before the news started flowing freely that she and Prince Harry were an item.

That is not intended to besmirch either Ms. Markle or her hard-driving lawyer show, “Suits.” (I nearly typed “The Suits” just now, but caught myself.)

“Suits” has many fans, and Prince Harry might be one of them. Is this how she first came to his attention, while he was watching USA Network one evening? Or did they meet in some other way, at some fancy party where the stars of USA Network rub elbows with royalty?

In the wake of the news that Harry and Meghan are now in the planning stages for their wedding next year, I wished to know more about this enigmatic actress who spells her first name Meghan so differently than Megyn Kelly and other Megans on TV such as Megan Mullally.

The networks of NBC maintain a healthy supply of back-episodes of many of their shows on a proprietary Web site where TV columnists can access press materials. There, I found ample episodes of “Suits” and recently watched the seventh-season finale.

On the show, Markle played Rachel Zane, who in the episode I watched was working with her father, who is also an attorney, in a complicated legal battle with a company and its CEO over the CEO's sexual-harassment behavior.

If I don't have this quite right, it is because I didn't watch the shows that came before this finale. It's not that important to have all of the plot points right, however.

Suffice it to say that Rachel and her dad (played by Wendell Pierce) eventually won this battle in dramatic fashion, but not before Rachel herself stepped in and took over the case -- essentially seizing the power in the relationship away from her dad because the case had become too personal for him (or some such). Let the record show that as an actress, Meghan Markle makes an impressive lawyer.

Some time after the end of the seventh season of “Suits,” it was reported that Markle will not be returning to the show, most likely because her life is about to change dramatically.

It's too bad for “Suits” and its many fans, and also for USA Network, which might have made p.r. hay with its star turned-princess -- the only one in the history of television, as far as I can recall. Alas, it is not to be. Or to put it another way, USA's loss is England's gain.