Confident, cool and candid: the papers' view of the royal engagement interview

After a 16-month romance, Harry revealed how he got down on one knee as they cooked a chicken dinner at Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace, with Meghan saying she could not wait to say “yes”.

Here is how the papers viewed the newly engaged pair’s happy news:

l The Daily Mail calls their interview with BBC's Mishal Husain "one of the most open and extraordinary royal interviews ever", saying they talked with "refreshing candour" about the proposal.

Columnist Jan Moir said it was Ms Markle “who provided the dazzling sparkle and most of the chat” during the 21-minute sit-down.

Of her debut performance, Moir says Ms Markel showed “supreme confidence and ermine-edged poise, of a type never before seen in a royal spouse-to-be of either sex. Like ever”, but that it was clear the couple “are as loved up as a pair of lovebirds in a love nest on Love Island on International Love Day.”

Editor-at-large Richard Kay, which the paper says “knew Harry’s mother best”, reveals Diana, Princess of Wales, would have been thrilled at the news – and by choosing Ms Markle as his future wife, “Harry has fulfilled Diana’s casually mentioned prediction of the sort of girl he would marry”.

l The Daily Mirror, too, mentions Harry's belief that his mother and bride-to-be would "be thick as thieves".

And writer Polly Husdon says “it’s just impossible not to be thrilled for the happy couple”, praising “lucky, lucky duck” Ms Markle for the public’s warm reaction to the announcement.

The paper’s Alison Phillips says “royal life is never going to be the same again”, and that the American actress is a “kick-ass, super-cool, confident woman who knows who she is and where she’s going in those skyscraper heels”.

l Fellow tabloid The Sun leads heavily on the couple, revealing Harry spent six months designing the ring, which features a "massive" square-cut diamond from Botswana and two stones from Diana's jewellery collection. An expert estimates the ring is worth £50,000 "but with the use of the late Princess Diana's diamonds as side stones, this ring, like Kate's before it, is of inestimable worth".

Royal biographer Christopher Wilson says the royal family has “finally” joined the 21st century.

“After 1,000 years marrying other royals and high-borns and keeping themselves aloof, the penny has dropped. You don’t have to be a blue blood to make a good princess,” he writes.

l The Daily Telegraph leads with the picture of the pair gazing adoringly into each other's eyes and points to the sweet anecdote that the Queen's corgis "took to her straight away". The paper breaks down the stages of their relationship, from how they met – set up by a mutual friend – to what the future holds, possibly starting a family "in the near future".

Bryony Gordon comments that rather than Harry spending the past few years carefully selecting his bride-to be, perhaps Harry had just “fallen in love”, surmising: “That he met this chick, who is kind of gorgeous and kind of cool and with whom he kind of shares mutual interests – exercise, charity work – and thought, “I like her so I’d better put a ring on it?”

l The Daily Express also uses the beaming picture of the couple arm-in-arm, calling it "the look of love", while the i says it will be a wedding "like no other".

l The Guardian's Afua Hirsh, meanwhile, says their upcoming marriage demonstrates the "changing faces of Britain's attitude to race" and that "their marriage will bring into reality what the British establishment lacked the imagination to conceive of as possible 17 years ago – that a senior royal can love, and marry, someone whose ethnic heritage is not just different to his, but the heritage that has always been most othered in Britain – black and African".

l And The Times' David Sanderson describes Ms Markel as a "refreshing departure from the mould of staid tradition".

Indeed, most of the papers seem to channel the same message: they couldn’t be happier for the royal and his soon-to-be wife.

l Echo Woman – Page 37