In early December 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when
King Charles III is the first British monarch who has previously had a civil marriage and a civil divorce. In 1981, Charles, then the Prince of Wales, married Lady Diana Spencer in a fairytale wedding watched by 750 million people worldwide.
The Royal Marriages Acts decreed that all members of the royal family were required to obtain the sovereign's consent before contracting a marriage. As King, he was obliged to follow the Act of Settlement, but he was exempt from the Royal Marriages Act. There was also no law against marrying a divorcee.
Queen Elizabeth II was the longest-serving monarch in Britain's history, but it was a decision by her uncle that cleared Elizabeth's path to the throne. King Edward abdicated in 1936 so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, making Elizabeth's father the new king.
In 1937, Edward was created Duke of Windsor and married Wallis Simpson in a ceremony in France. During the Second World War, the Duke of Windsor escaped from Paris, where he was living at the time of the fall of France, to Lisbon in 1940.
The Mughal king Shah Jahan , who built the Taj Mahal, married his own daughter Jahanara after Mumtaz's death because she looked like Mumtaz to Shah Jahan. Mumtaz died on 17 June 1631 while giving birth to Shah Jahan's 14th child.
Oedipus, in Greek mythology, the king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.
Scientists have identified Akhenaten, the “heretic” king who introduced monotheism to ancient Egypt, as Tutankhamun's father. Akhenaten first married Nefertiti, who was renowned for her great beauty, but had no sons so he then married his sister in an effort to have a son.
He left Oedipus instead with a shepherd, who brought him across the mountains to the king of Corinth. This king claimed the boy and raised him as his own. When Oedipus grew to manhood, a prophet warned him that he would kill his father and marry his mother.
In early December 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was in the process of divorcing her second.
There is no law in the UK that prohibits a person from being crowned king or queen if they have been divorced. This may surprise some who know their history (or have watched The Crown) as people will point to Edward VIII who was forced to abdicate to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcée.
Marrying a royal doesn't exactly make you Queen or King...or even a Princess. If a British queen marries, her husband is known as a king consort, but does not become king. In the case of Queen Elizabeth's husband, Prince Phillip, because he is Greek, he cannot hold the title as King.
The royal family are closely affiliated to the Church of England, which only began permitting divorcees to remarry while their former spouses were alive in 2002. Take a look back at the royals' first wedding photos and details...
Three of the Queen's children went through a divorce - Prince Charles to Princess Diana, Princess Anne to Mark Phillips and Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson. Charles remarried the Duchess of Cornwall, while Anne found love again with Timothy Laurence.
Mary, Queen of Scots (aged 15/16), was married to Francis, Dauphin of France (aged 13/14), in 1558. The pair had been betrothed since Mary was five and Francis was three. Mary had originally been betrothed when she was six months old to the future Edward VI of England, whom she was supposed to marry at the age of ten.
Anne was the first of the Queen's children to be divorced. She separated from her husband of 19 years, Captain Mark Phillips, in 1989 and divorced in 1992. Charles and Andrew both divorced from Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, respectively, in the same year.
The most suitable wife for a king of Egypt was the daughter of a king of Egypt, and Ramesses II was a stickler for tradition. He ended up marrying no less than four of his daughters (that we know of). They were Bintanath, Meritamen, Nebettawi and the relatively unknown Hentmire.
In 1997, Ziona succeeded his father Chana, who in turn had succeeded Khuangtuaha in 1966. He had 39 wives, 94 children, 14 daughters-in-law, 33 grandchildren and one great grandchild; 181 family members in total and counting. His family and their four-story residence are one of the major tourist attractions in Mizoram.
Henry VIII (1509-1547) is one of history's most famous monarchs. His radical political and religious upheavals reshaped the Tudor world. He is best known for his six marriages and his life-long pursuit of a male heir.
Answer and Explanation: King George III had only one wife, and unlike his predecessors, reportedly never took any mistresses.
To keep the royal bloodline pure, kings often married within their family, a sister or half sister, for example. In a few cases, they married their daughters, although it is not clear whether or not these marriages were true conjugal unions.
In Europe, the practice was most prevalent from the medieval era until the outbreak of World War I, but evidence of intermarriage between royal dynasties in other parts of the world can be found as far back as the Late Bronze Age.
Abumbi II, the 11th fon, or king, of Bafut, Cameroon, has close to 100 wives. They weren't all his to start. According to local tradition, when a fon dies, his successor inherits all his wives and then marries his own queens.
Why did Henry VIII marry Katherine of Aragon? He loved her – and Spanish Katherine's powerful family also provided useful allies to the English throne. Katherine was first married to Henry's older brother, Arthur, who died soon afterwards.
Henry VIII's Illegitimate Children
Henry also had an illegitimate son, named Henry Fitzroy (meaning 'son of the king') born in 1519. The King made Fitzroy Duke of Richmond, and ensured he was well provided for. Fitzroy enjoyed a 'prince's life' until his premature death at 17, probably from tuberculosis.