Unhappily Ever After: Most Destructive Royal Marriages

Before George I became king, he was the Elector of Hanover in modern Germany. In 1682, George's mother set him to marry the wealthy Sophia Dorothea of Celle, a German noble. The marriage started unhappy; George felt he had the right to have mistresses, which he showed his young bride.

Things worsened when Sophia sought her own love, starting a relationship with Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, a Swedish count.

George confronted his wife about the relationship. Things became heated.George physically attacked Sophia and began beating her.Brutish George left Hanover for the King of Great Britain role in 1714 without Sophia. He divorced her in 1694 and...George virtually imprisoned her.He kept her imprisoned for the rest of her life.

Königsmarck was murdered for loving Sophia. This fact makes the story more tragic.

Queen Isabella of France married King Edward II of England in 1308, around age twelve. Early on, the relationship had happy times. However, Edward's focus on male favorites—first Piers Gaveston and then Hugh Despenser—stressed the marriage.

Isabella...Isabella began an affair with Roger Mortimer.Isabella partnered with Mortimer, and with his help, she staged a successful coup against her husband. Edward was soon imprisoned and died mysteriously in 1327.

Princess Caroline Matilda of Great Britain, George III's youngest sister, married King Christian VII of Denmark in 1766 at age 15. She found no joy in her new kingdom. Christian suffered severe mental problems that pushed their fragile bond to breaking point.

Christian's behavior included cruelty. He let Caroline Matilda know his opinion by...Christian mounted his new wife's portrait prominently in the bathroom.

Christian also had sexual addictions and paranoia.He suffered from paranoia..Johann Friedrich Struensee treated the king. Instead, he took control of government, enacted reforms, and began a relationship with the young queen.Struensee was called in to treat the king. He took government control, passed Enlightened reforms, and started a relationship with the young queen.

Things ended poorly for both. Struensee was removed and executed. Caroline was exiled and died at 23.

Henry VIII, King of England from 1509 to 1547, never found marital happiness. He divorced two wives, killed two more, and lost one to childbirth. His marriage to Catherine Howard was perhaps the most tragic.

Henry married Catherine at 49; she was only 16 or 17. The huge age gap showed a difference in lifestyle too.

By the time Henry married Catherine, he was a shadow of the prince he once was. He was obese and inactive.He was obese and inactive.He was inactive, thanks to an old jousting wound.He had an old jousting wound.Catherine looked for romance outside her marriage during her youth. After the accusation of an affair with Thomas Culpepper, Catherine Howard's downfall came fast. The teenaged queen was beheaded on February 13, 1542.

Catherine was not the only wife Henry had executed. He beheaded his second wife, Anne Boleyn, just a few years before.

George III's eldest son and heir, also named George, chased mistresses and spent money on buildings and gambling instead of royal duty. So his father forced George the younger into marriage.George agreed by paying off his debts.George agreed if he took a short trip down the aisle and married a suitable bride.

The arranged marriage failed completely. The chosen bride was the prince's first cousin, Caroline of Brunswick. They hated each other from the start. The wedding night on April 8, 1795, was a mess.George was drunk.He could not handle the idea of going through the wedding sober.

The couple stayed together long enough to have a child. Caroline gave birth to Princess Charlotte nine months after the wedding. George became king in 1820 and shocked Britain by attempting to divorce his wife.He tried to divorce his wife.

King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine had a great romance in the medieval world. Sparks flew when they first met. Henry was the young, handsome future king of England. Eleanor was the beautiful, captivating wife of the king of France. They ignored Eleanor's marital status. She got an annulment in 1152, and Henry and Eleanor married a few weeks later.Henry and Eleanor married.They married a few weeks later.

Though their marriage was royal, it faced the same problems as any other. Henry's eye wandered. By the 1170s, the marriage could not be fixed.Henry even installed a mistress at his side.Eleanor was bitter, brilliant, and bold.Eleanor convinced her sons to rebel against their father in 1173.In 1173.

Henry locked Eleanor away for the last 16 years of his life.He locked her away for the final 16 years of his life.Her sons Richard and John inherited the throne. Eleanor acted in the royal court until she died in 1204.

Marrying someone not of her choosing was disastrous for the fierce Queen Tamar of Georgia. She co-ruled with her father before his death and was his official heir.Not everyone was excited about having a queen.Nobles and family members insisted Tamar find a man to rule beside her.Both nobles and family members insisted that she find a man to rule at her side.So in 1185, the queen married Yuri Bogolyubsky. It was a huge mistake. His drinking and affairs soon made him an unfit consort.

In 1185, the queen married Yuri Bogolyubsky. It was a huge mistake. Between his drinking and affairs, he soon proved unfit.Tamar kicked him out and annulled the marriage in 1187. Enraged, he led a revolt against his ex-wife.Tamar kicked him out and annulled the marriage in 1187. Enraged, he led a revolt against his ex-wife.He led a revolt against his ex-wife.She handily defeated the enemy. She ruled until 1213.

Russia's Peter I earned the title "the Great." His first wife, Eudoxia, did not see him that way. Eudoxia married the tsar in 1689 in a wedding that...Peter's mother brokered the arrangement.The marriage produced three children. Peter grew bored with his wife. After nine years, Peter decided to move on in 1698.

So, he...Peter divorced Eudoxia and sent her to a convent.Peter secretly married his peasant-mistress a few years later, with his first wife gone.

The marriage of Princess Marguerite de Valois and Henri de Navarre had awful consequences. Marguerite came from Catholic King Henri II of France and his wife Catherine de Medici. Henri was the Protestant King of Navarre.

Their Paris wedding on August 18, 1572, brought Catholics and Protestants to the city. Christian unity ended quickly. On August 24, the so-called...St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.King Charles IX and Marguerite's mother, Catherine de Medici, ordered the massacre. They made Paris streets run red with the blood of thousands of slaughtered Protestants.

Marguerite's new husband barely escaped. This started a new marriage badly. The pair annulled their union in 1599.

When the 20-year-old Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth II's eldest son and heir to the British throne, on July 29, 1981, people celebrated it as a fairytale wedding. That marriage quickly turned into a dark story. Diana later called her wedding day "the worst day of my life."

Diana faced a disastrous marriage that changed both lives. Diana disliked the strict rules of royal life. Charles found a mistress, and Diana began taking lovers. The couple showed their private issues in public. When the royal couple separated in 1992 and divorced four years later, it showed royals do not always get "happily ever after."

Prince Albert is known for his loving marriage to Queen Victoria and promoting domestic values. The marriage he shared with his British bride was new for him. His parents had been very unhappy. His mother, Princess Louise, married his father, Ernst I, when she was only 16. Though Ernst was a libertine, he did not accept that in his wife, even as his affairs strained the marriage. Louise bore two sons, but this did not bring the couple closer.

When Louise took her lover, Ernst could not forgive the act, and...He divorced her.in 1826 and stopped Louise from seeing her children again. Louise desperately wanted to see her children, so...She actually dressed up as a peasant.Louise died in 1831 at age 30, still grieving her sons' loss. She once blended into a crowd and watched them.

Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth II's younger sister, was a popular figure in British high society during her sister's reign. Her wedding to photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones on May 6, 1960, became the season's social event. The marriage proved an emotional rollercoaster for both. Margaret and her husband both possessed vanity and combative traits; these traits brought out the worst in each other during their intense arguments.

Things worsened between the royal couple. Armstrong-Jones started leaving "I hate you." for his wife. Among the ridiculous things he wrote: "You look like a Jewish manicurist; I hate you.." The marriage ended in divorce in 1978.