George I Was A Brute Who Beat Up His Wife And Locked Her Away.
Before he became a British king, George I was the Elector of Hanover in what is today modern Germany. In 1682, George's mother arranged for him to marry the very wealthy Sophia Dorothea of Celle, a Germanic noble. The marriage was unhappy from the start, especially since George felt it was totally within his rights to have mistresses, whom he flaunted in front of his young bride. But things got worse when Sophia tried to find her own love story and began a relationship with Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, a Swedish count.
Queen Isabella Overthrew Her Husband With The Help Of Her Lover.
Queen Isabella of France was around 12 years old when she married King Edward II of England in 1308. Though the relationship had happy moments in the beginning, Edward's obsession with a number of male favorites - first Piers Gaveston and then Hugh Despenser - put a strain on the marriage. Isabella began an affair with Roger Mortimer, and with his help she launched a successful coup against her husband.
Princess Caroline Matilda Unwittingly Married An Insane Danish King.
Princess Caroline Matilda of Great Britain - George III's youngest sister - was married off to King Christian VII of Denmark at the tender age of 15 in 1766. But she found no happiness in her new kingdom. In fact, Christian was suffering from severe mental instabilities that pushed their fragile relationship to the edge. Among Christian's behavioral problems was his cruel streak - including the time he let Caroline Matilda know what he thought of her by mounting his new wife's portrait prominently in the bathroom.
Henry VIII Was A Terrible Husband - And Had Two Wives Beheaded.
If there was any royal who could never figure out the secret to marital bliss, it was Henry VIII, the King of England from 1509 to 1547. He divorced two wives, killed two more, and lost one to the ravages of early modern childbirth. Of his doomed marriages, perhaps the most tragic, was to Catherine Howard. Henry married Catherine when he was 49 and she was only 16 or 17. The huge age discrepancy mirrored a discrepancy in lifestyle, too.
Henry II And Eleanor of Aquitaine's Marital Tensions Broke Out Into Open Warfare.
One of the great romances of the medieval world was the relationship between King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Sparks flew when they first met: Henry was the young, handsome future king of England, and Eleanor was the beautiful, captivating wife of the king of France. But they didn't let a little thing like Eleanor's marital status stand in their way - she got an annulment in 1152, and Henry and Eleanor married a few weeks later. Though their marriage was royal, it also was open to the same strains as any other. Henry's eye wandered, and by the 1170s the marriage was beyond the point of repair. He even installed a mistress at his side. Bitter, brilliant, and bold, Eleanor convinced her sons to rebel against their father in 1173.
Peter The Great Hated His Wife So Much That He Committed Her To A Convent.
Russia's Peter I may be remembered as "the Great" - but to his first wife Eudoxia, he was anything but. Eudoxia married the tsar in 1689 in a wedding that Peter's mother had brokered. Though the marriage produced three kids, Peter grew bored with his wife. In 1698, after nine years of marriage, Peter felt it was time to move on. So, he divorced Eudoxia and sent her to a convent. With his first wife out of the picture, Peter secretly married his peasant-mistress a few years later.
The Wedding of King Henri De Navarre And Marguerite De Valois Led To The Massacre Of Thousands.
The wedding with perhaps the most directly awful consequences was that of Princess Marguerite de Valois and Henri de Navarre. They came from two sides of the tracks: Marguerite was the willful daughter of Catholic King Henri II of France and his calculating wife Catherine de Medici, and Henri was the Protestant King of Navarre. Their marriage in Paris on August 18, 1572, brought both Catholics and Protestants to the city to celebrate the royal nuptials. But the spirit of Christian unity was short-lived. On the night of August 24, the so-called St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre - on the orders of Marguerite's brother King Charles IX and her mother Catherine de Medici - made Paris's streets run red with the blood of thousands of slaughtered Protestants.
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