(#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!"
(#6) James I of England
- Dec. at 59 (1566-1625)
In 1589, King James VI of Scotland sailed across the sea to meet his future bride, Anne of Denmark. But on the way back, storms nearly threatened to sink the ship. James became obsessed with the idea that witches were trying to kill him, and he began a witch hunt as soon as he returned to Scotland.
Under torture, a woman named Geillis Duncan (the inspiration for an Outlander character accused of witchcraft) blamed other women for bewitching the king and his bride. James's witch persecution spiraled into the North Berwick witch trials, where the king personally tortured accused witches to force confessions.
(#8) Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
- Dec. at 53 (1719-1772)
Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha was nervous on her wedding day. In 1736, she had just left Germany to travel to Britain. Augusta crossed the channel to marry the heir to the United Kingdom, Prince Frederick. At the time, Augusta was only 16, and her groom was nearly 30. They only met once before their wedding, and the teenage bride didn't speak any English.
Augusta's nerves only grew stronger on her wedding day. She vomited all over her dress – and even worse, she threw up on her mother-in-law, Queen Caroline.
(#7) Marie Antoinette
- Dec. at 38 (1755-1793)
When Marie Antoinette left Austria to marry the heir to the French throne in 1770, she was only 14 years old. The wedding disaster went beyond the fact that she and Louis XVI of France barely knew each other. The French prepared an elaborate white and silver dress covered in diamonds for the foreign bride – but it didn't fit.
The dressmakers miscalculated the teen bride's measurements, and it was much too small. Marie Antoinette walked down the aisle with a gap in the back of her dress, which was deemed scandalous. This wasn't even the worst part of her union – her marriage eventually led the reviled queen to the guillotine, where she lost her head during the French Revolution.
(#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.
(#3) Henry VIII of England
- Dec. at 56 (1491-1547)
Pretty much every one of King Henry VIII of England's weddings ended in disaster. His first wedding, to his dead brother's widow, ended with Henry breaking a thousand-year alliance with the Catholic Church and triggering the English Reformation. His second wedding, to a pregnant Anne Boleyn, ended badly when she couldn't bear him a son. She was convicted of treason and beheaded. His third bride, Jane Seymour, died nine days after giving birth.
Henry's fourth bride, Anne of Cleves, lucked out. He found her repulsive and divorced her only six months after the wedding. The fifth bride wasn't so lucky. Catherine Howard was Anne Boleyn's cousin, and she was also beheaded for allegedly cheating on the king. Henry's sixth wife, Catherine Parr, managed to outlive her royal husband.
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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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