Author(s): Susanna De Vries

History

Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, made history when she married Prince Harry. The divorced, bi-racial American, descended from African slaves, has been welcomed into the British royal family. While hers is clearly a love match, this has rarely been the case for royal brides. Only Queen Victoria and the present Queen Elizabeth II were able to marry the princes they loved.

Traditionally, English princes always married for dynastic and political reasons and large dowries. Few of these arranged marriages were happy. Royal wives were regarded as 'baby factories' and it was seen as normal for kings and princes to take mistresses. The young foreign princesses who married Edward II and James I found their husbands had male lovers - but still needed to sire sons to continue their dynasties.

The raffish penniless Charles II, on his return from exile, married a teenage Portugese princess for her enormous dowry and appointed his pregnant mistress as her lady-in-waiting. On learning the truth his bride fainted. A centure later, an equally shocked Princess Augusta of Saxe-Coburg threw up and ruined her wedding gown on seeing her husband's mistress at her wedding ceremony.

The future George IV also married for money but found his bride, Princess Caroline of Brunswick, physically repulsive, consummated the marriage on their wedding night but refused to allow his wife to be crowned beside him in what became the first War of the Wales.

The disastrous mismatch of Prince Charles and Princess Diana became the second War of the Wales. Royal Marriages reveals the serious misdiagnosis of Diana by a royal physician and a leading psychiatrist. After several scandals including 'Camillagate', the Queen ordered the feuding couple to divorce.

Decades later, the Queen relaxed the rules, allowing Prince Charles to marry the woman he had always loved. In 2011, Her Majesty allowed Prince William to marry Kate Middleton and in 2017 gave her permission for a third love match, that of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. These exceptional women and the late Princess Diana have changed the face of the British monarchy.