Over the years, the British royal family has been caught up in countless scandals, mysteries
and other strange occurrences — and the common thread between them all seems to be
that someone played fast and loose with the truth. Here are the biggest lies the British
royal family ever told.
In hindsight, it seems fairly obvious that the marriage between Prince Charles and Princess
Diana was anything but happy. But back then the public believed — for a very long time
— that their union was a fairy tale romance of the highest order. Little did the world
know, however, about Charles' affection for Camilla Parker Bowles.
Diana herself figured out Charles' true feelings for Camilla long before the rest of the world,
as made perfectly clear by her remark during that infamous Panorama interview many years
later.
"Well, there were three of us in this marriage. So it was a bit crowded."
Of course, it didn't exactly help that Charles seemed to display far less affection for Diana
than for Camilla, even in day-to-day life. When their engagement was announced in 1981,
for example, a journalist asked whether they were in love, to which the couple responded:
"Of course."
"Whatever 'in love' means."
The rift between Charles and Diana had widened even before the wedding bells tolled. Charles
allegedly wept on the night before the wedding, while Diana actually considered calling the
whole thing off — only to be told by her own siblings that it wasn't her call to make.
A fairy tale romance, indeed.
Edward VIII was crowned in 1936, but just one year later he abdicated the throne in
order to marry his one true love, Wallis Simpson — an American divorcee whom the powers that
be would never have accepted as his queen. Funnily enough, however, the scandalous romance
between Edward and Simpson was one of the more straightforward aspects of his reign.
It certainly pales in comparison to the ex-king's secret Nazi ties.
Yes, it would have been easy to chalk up Edward's split with his family to his decision to marry
Simpson. But one of the key reasons for their mutual animosity was his wholehearted support
of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. Edward seems to have been fond of the Nazis because,
unlike England, Germany supported his union with Simpson. In reality, though, Hitler was
conspiring to undermine Edward's trust in his family — and even planned to reinstate
him as a pro-Reich puppet monarch.
The plan never came to fruition, of course, and while the public was aware that Edward
was sympathetic to the Nazis, the truth was considered so scandalous that Winston Churchill
himself worked to cover up the damning correspondence between Edward and the Germans. The full extent
of the former king's Nazi connections wasn't uncovered until 1957.
Elizabeth I ruled England from 1558 to 1603, and along the way she managed to navigate
the turbulent inner workings of the country to establish herself as a major force in European
politics.
Aside from her vast political influence and massive popularity with the people, one of
Queen Elizabeth's defining traits was that she remained unmarried throughout her reign.
This led to her being commonly referred to as "The Virgin Queen" — and the use of this
title was gleefully encouraged by the queen and her bedchamber ladies. Most likely, however,
it was also something of an exaggeration.
The exact status of Elizabeth's carnal affairs has always remained a little unclear, and
obviously nothing was ever officially announced. Nonetheless, many people couldn't help but
note that she was extremely fond of flirting with handsome courtiers, and speculation about
her hidden exploits ran rife across the continent.
In the years since her death, many even suggested that the great queen had sometimes let these
personal matters influence her political decisions. The truth remains shrouded in history, however,
and it's highly likely that stories of Elizabeth's promiscuity were somewhat embellished by the
era's patriarchal attitudes. Even so, historians seem to agree that she was, at least, extremely
close with an aristocrat named Robert Dudley… whose wife mysteriously fell down a staircase
and died in 1560. So make of that what you will.
In 1973, Princess Anne married Captain Mark Phillips, an Olympic equestrian and military
man — but the seemingly blissful union between this dashing captain and the Queen's daughter
was actually anything but. The pair's marriage was dogged by speculation and rumors, all
suggesting that they were actually deeply unhappy.
"Are they true or untrue?"
"What are we doing here?"
Then, in 1989, an allegation surfaced that Anne was romantically involved with another,
younger Naval officer. Anne and Phillips separated that same year.
Incidentally, Anne eventually married that very same Naval officer, Vice Admiral Timothy
Laurence; as it turned out, they had been in a secret relationship for years. But it
was ultimately Phillips who was hiding the real bombshell: A child born of an extramarital
affair in New Zealand in 1985. He went to great lengths to keep this secret daughter
hidden from both the public and the Royal family, to the point of paying alimony under
the guise of "consultant" payments, and allegedly having his agent threaten the mother. Even
the daughter herself was under the impression that her father was dead for the first eight
years of her life.
It would be wrong to say that George III's mental health problems are a secret, since
they're what he's best known for these days. However, a spirited attempt was made to hide
his diminishing faculties from the public, and whenever he took a turn for the worse,
he was hauled off to the distant Kew Palace in an effort to pull the wool over the eyes
of the people.
Still, people talk, and these attempts to keep George's illness on the down low didn't
quite work out. The rumors of the king's so-called "madness" ran rampant, and the stories could
get quite creative — like the infamous tale in which he supposedly mistook a tree for
the King of Prussia.
While it's true that George was pretty far gone during his final years, this reputation
does him a great disservice, since he was actually a pretty capable ruler for the majority
of his six-decade stint on the throne. When he was at the top of his game, George proved
himself a cool-headed ruler who could act as a buffer to the era's politicians flaring
tempers and make sensible, informed decisions for the good of the kingdom. For this reason,
he was sorely missed by his own government, even during his final years of his ailing
mental health.
Henry VIII was a cruel, vindictive tyrant, but one thing he did have going for him was
that he genuinely loved his son, Henry Fitzroy. There was just one minor problem, though:
Fitzroy was born of an extramarital affair, and as such, had no legitimate claim to the
throne of England. Naturally, the king dealt with this in characteristically bombastic
fashion. When the child was 6-years-old, the king introduced him to the court with great
fanfare, and gave him a whole heap of titles that pretty much made him the highest-ranking
noble in the land.
For a long time, the young Fitzroy seemed on track to become the next monarch, illegitimate
or not. Unfortunately for Fitzroy, King Henry never quite got round to legitimizing him,
so in the strictest official sense, he was, well… pretty much a nobody. Then, when a
mystery illness took young Fitzroy's life at just 17-years-old, the king seemed to go
to great lengths to avoid even acknowledging his death in public. Fitzroy's burial in the
unassuming Thetford Priory was as quiet and unceremonious as his early title shower had
been luxurious.
The year was 1820 — and King George IV wasn't exactly happy with his wife, Queen Caroline.
In fact, George was desperate to get a divorce, but since the only acceptable reason to do
so at the time was adultery, there was just one thing for a determined king to do: Launch
an epic smear campaign against Caroline, take things to the Parliament, and very, very publicly
expose the queen's alleged dalliances.
This backfired spectacularly for King George. The public promptly sided with Queen Caroline,
knowing full well that the king himself was hardly blameless in matters of adultery. It
didn't exactly help that the queen's attorney, Lord Brougham , roughed up His Majesty's integrity
with accusations of conspiracy and bribery, and threatened to release evidence of the
King's own debauchery. George even drew comparisons to the unsavory Emperor Nero of Rome, and
although the king's motion ultimately passed, the public opinion was so overwhelmingly on
Caroline's side that the government decided to play it safe and withdraw it.
At the end of the day, the king's attempt to slander Queen Caroline cost him the support
of the public... and the circus around the pair's animosity marked the beginning of the
tabloid media's obsession with the British royal family. Whoops.
Queen Victoria's reign over the United Kingdom was, up until that point, the longest of any
monarch in the country's history. But she ruled through the majority of the Victorian
era alone, because her husband, Prince Albert, died in 1861 — a good four decades before
her reign came to an end in 1901
The queen and the prince were seen as the gold standard of a strong relationship and
the ultimate embodiment of proper family values, and Victoria certainly devoted much of her
energy to convincing the world that her relationship with her late husband had been hunky dory.
She built an impressive mausoleum with sculptures of her and Albert lying harmoniously in rest,
and personally put together much of Albert's 1867 biography, The Early Years of the Prince
Consort, which took a predictably romantic approach to the subject of their relationship.
In reality, however, their life was not quite blissful as Victoria would have you believe.
Albert was a stiff, unpopular man who liked to wield power like a king despite not actually
being one. Victoria, meanwhile, was prone to tantrums and greatly troubled by her conflicting
positions: as Albert's wife, by tradition at the time he was supposed to be in charge,
yet she was also his Queen and ruler.
Albert died at the young age of 42, before they could work through their various difficulties
— which may have influenced Victoria's desire to retroactively whitewash the relationship.
It seems like Prince Charles' marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles has been a considerably
less tragic affair than his union with Princess Diana. But just because the controversies
are lesser doesn't mean that there are no controversies at all.
When Charles at some point ascends to the throne as king, Camilla's official title will
be "Queen consort," and in the event of her outliving him, it will be updated to "Queen
Camilla, the dowager queen." However, on his own official website, Charles at one point
stated that her official title will be "Princess consort" — a title that's admittedly cuter,
but also one that can't be applied to the wife of a king in any circumstances.
In fact, king or not, Charles simply doesn't have the power to alter Camilla's title in
any way — she'll be "Queen consort," and that's that. The claim that Camilla will be
"Princess consort" has since disappeared from Charles' website, because, according to him,
it wasn't really a thing that people asked about anymore.
In January 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced that they would be moving away from
their duties as senior-ranking members of the royal family. They stated that the decision
came, quote, "after many months of reflection and internal discussions," and also noted
that their relationship with Queen Elizabeth II , Prince Charles, and Prince William remained
functional. But many speculated that something else was going on.
Then came Meghan and Harry's now-legendary interview with Oprah Winfrey, and it became
clear that something was indeed askew among the royals. The interview piled embarrassment
upon embarrassment on the royal family, as the Sussexes alleged that Meghan's time with
them had been afflicted by racism and flippancy towards her mental health. She even revealed
that her ordeals led her to consider suicide.
"And I just didn't… I just didn't want to be alive anymore."
Aside from a short official statement on the matter, most sources indicated that the royal
family intended to handle the damage internally. However, Prince William was almost immediately
asked whether the royal family is racist, and he vehemently denied the claim — so
regardless of whom you choose to believe, this story seems to have at least one royal liar.