Queen Elizabeth II She married her third cousin, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, in November 1947.
Royals have been marrying their cousins since time immemorial, traditionally as a means of strengthening political alliances. What might be surprising though is that members of the royal family have continued to marry their cousins, right up to the present day!
Diana's royal roots
In addition, this royal connection means that Diana and her husband Prince Charles were very distant cousins, via several lines. In particular, they each descend from a daughter of Henry VII: Margaret, who married James IV of Scotland, and Mary, who married Charles Brandon.
Camilla Is Related to Both Diana and King Charles
Strangely, they are also both related to the late Princess Diana through shared ancestry dating back to King Charles II. Also note that Camilla's great-grandmother was a mistress to King Edward VII, the great-great-grandfather of King Charles.
Their resulting romance came at a time when marrying a divorcé was not only frowned upon, but also forbidden by the Church of England. And since Margaret was not yet 25 years old, she required marriage approval from her sister, the queen, who ultimately refused to give it on account of the captain's marital history.
The couple had two sons, but after his wife had an affair, Peter filed for divorce in November 1952. It was his divorced status which eventually made it impossible for Margaret to marry him, as both the Church of England and parliament suggested they were firmly against the match. PETER TOWNSEND IN 1955.
The sisters were born with severe learning difficulties and, following the death of their father in 1930, they were admitted to a mental health institution, the Royal Earlswood Hospital in Redhill, London, in 1941.
Nerissa Bowes-Lyon and Katherine Bowes-Lyon, first cousins of Queen Elizabeth, were secretly incarcerated in the Royal Earlswood Asylum for Mental Defectives in 1941. The scandal, uncovered after Nerissa's death in 1986, was the subject of a 2011 documentary.
Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.
As TIME pointed out, the royal family had been cool towards Diana even before her divorce from Charles, due to the attention she attracted from the tabloids. While the precise reasons for the coolness are “still ultimately a matter of speculation,” Lacey says, “there was no doubt it was there.
Early on in her reign, Queen Elizabeth I proclaimed that she would not marry because she was 'already bound unto a husband which is the Kingdom of England'. Nevertheless, numerous candidates were mooted and over the next two decades Elizabeth found each man unsuitable, for one reason or another.
And when Princess Margaret passed away in 2002, Queen Elizabeth openly cried at her funeral—one of the only times the monarch has shown emotion in a public setting. “The queen lost her most intimate companion,” Herrera wrote.
It's rumored that Camilla's father planted a fake Camilla-Andrew engagement notice in The Times, apparently forcing Andrew's hand. Literally. Prince Charles returned home to news of Camilla and Andrew's engagement. According to Bedell Smith, that fake engagement announcement explains why Charles didn't marry Camilla.
Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher, her prime minister from 1979 to 1990, had a turbulent relationship – both publicly and privately.
The couple had married back in the '70s - two decades on from Margaret's love affair with Townsend - and one of them was a divorcee. 'He said that Margaret was very, very unhappy about it and made that known publicly,' she explained.
1947. A ruling queen's husband is called a Prince Consort because the title of King is only given to a monarch who inherits the throne and can reign. Therefore, the title of King will go to Prince Charles, who will succeed Queen Elizabeth.
Queen Elizabeth's two eldest children arrived at Balmoral Castle in time to be at her side before she died. Prince Charles (now King Charles III) and Princess Anne are believed to have made it to Balmoral Castle in Scotland to say goodbye to their mother.
Her health deteriorated in the last twenty years of her life. She was a heavy smoker for most of her adult life and had a lung operation in 1985, a bout of pneumonia in 1993 as well as three strokes between 1998 and 2001. Margaret died in February 2002 aged 71, after suffering her fourth stroke.
Why was Princess Margaret cremated? In the aftermath of her death, “royal watchers” told The New York Times that Princess Margaret had opted to be cremated so that her remains could fit alongside her father King George VI's grave in a vault that was made especially to hold him specifically.
Elizabeth had many lovers - MYTH
We may never know if Elizabeth had non-platonic relationships with any of them, though no evidence has ever conclusively proved that she took lovers or companions before or after taking the crown.
Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, also called (1550–64) Sir Robert Dudley, (born June 24, 1532/33—died Sept. 4, 1588, Cornbury, Oxfordshire, Eng.), favourite and possible lover of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
I will too! Answer: The big reason Prince Charles and Camilla Shand, as she was then known, didn't get married in the early 1970s: He never asked her. And there are probably a number of reasons for that. In his early 20s, like many other young men, Charles simply wasn't ready for marriage.
The Queen Mother also reportedly didn't approve of Charles and Camilla's relationship, with royal author Robert Jobson writing in his 2006 book, William's Princess, that "it was a fact that Camilla's name was not allowed to be spoken in the presence of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother."