Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are mourning the death of their dog Guy, prompting a look back at the role the rescue beagle played when Harry proposed.
In his memoir Spare, published in January 2023, the Duke of Sussex wrote about the night he asked Meghan to marry him and how Guy the dog was involved. While Prince Harry, 40, and Meghan, 43, had previously spoken about how he proposed at their London home in their 2017 BBC engagement interview and the 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, Spare shed new light on the emotional moment — and how Guy was there for it all.
Prince Harry recapped how Guy made the move with Meghan from Canada (where she lived while filming Suits) to be with him in the U.K., and how they all settled into a rhythm at Nottingham Cottage, Harry’s home on the grounds of Kensington Palace. Guy was seriously injured in an accident shortly before Meghan moved (which she mentioned in her Instagram tribute eulogizing her dog on Jan. 7) and Harry wrote in Spare about how he helped care for the beagle as he healed.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex/Instagram
“I loved that dog. I couldn’t stop kissing him, petting him. Yes, my intense feelings for Meg spilled over onto anyone or anything she loved, but also I’d wanted a dog for so long, and I’d never been able to have one because I’d been such a nomad,” Prince Harry wrote of Guy, and shared the story of the night he proposed in November 2017.
“One night, not long after Meg’s arrival in Britain, we were at home, making dinner, playing with Guy, and the kitchen of Nott Cott was as full of love as any room I’d ever been in,” Harry wrote.
The Duke of Sussex said he popped champagne and headed outside with Guy, leading Meghan to find a blanket surrounded by candles. Prince Harry said he hoped the tribute would “look like Botswana, where I’d first thought of proposing,” seemingly referring to their third date there.
“Now I knelt on the blanket, Guy at my side. Both of us looked up searchingly at Meg,” Prince Harry said in Spare. It relived a scene that audiences got a glimpse of in the Harry & Meghan docuseries — ring box and all!
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He popped the question and Meghan said yes. “Then we were crying and laughing, and petting Guy, who looked frozen solid,” Prince Harry wrote in Spare.
Guy would be by Meghan and Harry’s side in the years that followed, from their royal wedding day (where he was by Meghan’s feet as she had her hair and makeup done!) to the family expanding with the birth of Prince Archie, now 5, in 2019, their U.S. move after stepping back from their royal roles in 2020 and much more.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex/Instagram
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son and daughter Princess Lilibet, now 3, made rare cameos in Meghan’s video tribute to Guy. Footage in the montage showed Archie expertly walking Guy on a leash as he explored the outdoors with Harry, and a still shot showed Lilibet and Meghan on a blanket in the grass with Guy and the family’s two other dogs, Pula the Labrador and rescue beagle Momma Mia.
“We love you Guy, yes we do. We love you Guy, and we’ll be true. When you’re not near us, we’re blue,” Princess Lilibet and Meghan seemed to sing in audio overlaid as the tribute closed with the slide, “In Memory of Guy.”
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex/Instagram
On Jan. 7, the Duchess of Sussex posted a 90-second montage to her new Instagram account to announce that Guy had died.
“In 2015, I adopted a beagle from a dog rescue in Canada. He had been at a kill shelter in Kentucky and given a few days to live. I swooped him up … and fell in love,” Meghan wrote in part.
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“They referred to him as ‘the little guy’ because he was so small and frail, so I named him ‘Guy’. And he was the best guy any girl could have asked for,” she wrote.
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