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(#14) Elizabeth II
- 92
On November 20, 1947, Princess Elizabeth planned to wear the famous Fringe Tiara at her wedding. The elaborate tiara, made of diamonds, gold, and silver in 1919, had a long history in the royal family. But on the morning of her wedding, disaster struck.
According to the royal jeweler, "the Fringe was given to Queen Elizabeth on her wedding day, and the hairdresser broke it." Thinking quickly, the tiara was sent to the House of Garrard workshop – the same designers who originally made the tiara – with a police escort:
We fixed the tiara that morning, had it sent back to Queen Elizabeth, and then she got married in it. You don't expect the royals to have those sorts of mix-ups, but they do!
They say rain is unlucky on a wedding day, but apparently a broken tiara is good luck: Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip have been married more than 70 years.
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(#2) George IV of the United Kingdom
- Dec. at 68 (1762-1830)
In 1795, George, Prince of Wales – the future King George IV – married his cousin, Princess Caroline of Brunswick. It wasn't a union of love, much like many royal marriages in the period. George needed help paying off some debts (£630,000, to be exact), and Caroline had money.
When George saw his bride for the first time, he exclaimed, “I am not well. Get me a glass of brandy!” It went downhill from there. On their wedding day, George was so drunk that he couldn't stand on his own, and two dukes had to hold him up at the altar. He even wept openly during the ceremony.
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(#5) Henry IV of France
- Dec. at 57 (1553-1610)
On August 18, 1572, a French princess married the king of Navarre. The royal wedding went horribly wrong when it led to one of the worse massacres in the history of France.
The wedding occurred during the French Wars of Religion, and it instantly divided Paris because the bride and groom practiced different faiths during the darkest days of the Reformation. Margaret of France, daughter of Queen Catherine de Medici and sister of France's king, was raised Catholic. Her groom, King Henry of Navarre, was a Protestant, also known as a Huguenot. The royal Catholics saw the wedding as an opportunity, since many wealthy Huguenots came to Paris for the event.
Just days after the two wed in a public ceremony, Catholics sent by the queen rose up and slaughtered at least 3,000 Huguenots, in what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The horrific wedding present didn't end the union, and two decades later the groom became King Henry IV of France.
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(#10) Harthacnut
- Dec. at 24 (1018-1042)
King Harthacnut, ruler of Denmark and England, became the most memorable guest at a wedding in 1042. The king abruptly dropped dead in the middle of a toast: "As he stood drinking... he fell suddenly to the earth with a tremendous struggle."
Harthacnut was the last Scandinavian ruler of England, replaced by Edward the Conqueror.
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(#12) Alfred the Great
- Dec. at 50 (849-899)
Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, was 19 when he married in 868, and he was already afflicted with hemorrhoids. The night before his wedding, Alfred prayed for God to replace his hemorrhoids with a less painful disease.
Instead, Alfred woke up with a much worse problem: a flare up of an intestinal issue that made the hemorrhoids look mild. Today, historians suspect it was likely Crohn's disease. At the discovery, Alfred supposedly burst out, “If only I’d stuck with the hemorrhoids!"
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(#1) Philip IV of Spain
- Dec. at 60 (1605-1665)
King Philip IV of Spain should have known better when he married his own niece. The Spanish Hapsburg line was already dangerously inbred, to the point that hereditary deformities were killing off huge numbers of children in the family. But that didn't stop the troubling union in 1644.
The wedding produced the tragic King Charles II, who could barely function due to genetic abnormalities. Genetic tests show the Hapsburg gene pool was so familial that Charles was almost as inbred as a child produced by a brother impregnating his own sister.
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About This Tool
Every European royal family seems to have a close and complicated relationship, and the members of these royal families are now lived in various countries in Europe. Royal weddings can be said to be the most important moments that have attracted the attention of the world. However, some royal weddings in history were worse than people think, such as forgotten vows, inappropriate rings, or unruly weddings, weddings are not immune to flaws.
No matter how hard people work, they still have many weddings that are disastrous, and these weddings were recorded in history. This random tool lists 14 of the most disastrous royal weddings in history, one of the most famous weddings is Diana's.
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