Meghan Markle ready for EIGHTH engagement since Royal Wedding | Royal | News (Details)

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On July 17, the royal couple will be attending the exhibition, which aims to explore the life of Nelson Mandela, honouring the 100th anniversary of the leader’s birth.

The event is the Duchess of Sussex’s eighth confirmed engagement since the royal wedding on May 19. 

Meghan, 36, has thrown herself into royal life with official engagements at Ascot, a visit with the Queen, a Buckingham Palace garden party, the Queen’s Young Leaders awards and Trooping the Colour since her marriage. 

Kensington Palace has also confirmed engagements in Dublin this month as well as the celebration of the RAF’s centenary year with senior royals. 

This weekend, in unofficial events, she was also spotted at the polo and is expected to make an appearance at Wimbledon as she enjoys her first summer season as a member of the Royal Family. 

Before the royal wedding Meghan and Harry did a tour of the UK with engagements in London, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast as the American former actress got to grips with her new role. 

Announcing her latest event today, Kensington Palace said Meghan and Harry will tour the exhibition, which encompasses six themes of Nelson Mandela’s life story – character, comrade, leader, prisoner, negotiator and statesman – tracing Mandela’s journey from when he begin as an activist to being the president of South Africa.

The exhibit is set to arrive in the UK for the first time, having had successful runs other countries, including a six-week appearance at the Paris Town Hall in 2013.

Lord Peter Hain, anti-apartheid activist and chair of the Nelson Mandela Centenary Exhibition, welcomed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s support to honouring the leader’s legacy.

He said: “The Mandela Centenary Exhibition at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, which is free to visitors from 17 July – 19 August, will depict the anti-apartheid freedom struggle and Mandela’s vision of a non-racial rainbow democracy based upon justice, equality and human rights.

“We are delighted the Duke and Duchess will be supporting it.”

In 2015, Prince Harry travelled to South Africa and visited Mandela’s cell, where the leader spent 18 years imprisoned under the Apartheid regime.

Along with meeting government officials, he also encountered Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel.

During the Mendela exhibition, Meghan and Harry will also be speaking to artists and designers who worked tirelessly on the displays, portraying the leader’s life journey.

One of the pieces on display includes the ‘Complete Works of Shakespeare’, a book which political prisoner, Sonny Venkatrathnam, smuggled onto Robben Island by disguising it in colourful Diwali cards, in a bid to convince the prison warden it was his bible.

Between 1975 and 1978, the volume was passed between 33 of Venkatrathnam’s fellow prisoners — including Mandela.

The book became known as the ‘Robben Island Bible’, and has become one of the most renowned artefacts from Mandela’s history.

The exhibition will also feature annotations made by Mandela and his contemporaries.

Various guests are expected to turn up for the opening of the exhibit, including Thembi Tambo, South Africa’s High Commissioner to the UK and daughter of anti-apartheid politician Oliver Tambo, who used to be Mandela’s close colleague.

The exhibit will also feature a letter from Mandela, written on April 16 1990, thanking the British public for their “overwhelming generosity” for staging the Wembley concert in his honour.

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