Three British Royal Brides More Scandalous than Meghan Markle

How does Meghan Markle stack against other controversial royal brides?

9 min readNov 27, 2020

Elizabeth Woodville, Catherine Howard and Meghan Markle

Prince Harry and Meghan have been married for nearly three years at this point. Harry, once considered the world’s most eligible bachelor, finally shed the title when he married American actress Meghan Markle before their closest friends and family, heads of state and dignitaries, and an avid audience of millions around the world.

Meghan has been under the media’s watchful eye, especially the British cutthroat tabloids, ever since her engagement to Harry became public. Much has been dissected about her origins, past, genealogy, personal affiliations, and preferences. At one moment, she’s a cute feminist-in-the-making writing letters to change sexist ads, the next, she’s a member of a publicly dysfunctional family (in her defense, who isn’t?).

Harry is also no strange to media attention. Seen as a playboy for many years, his relationship with the press hasn’t always been a smooth one. One moment he’s seen as a brave army captain, and the next as a regular party boy, naked in a Vegas hotel.

As we all know, it’s all a matter of how you frame it.

Earlier this year, the couple decided to break from the royal family to live simpler (not as simple as us peasants, of course) life, devoid of the strict rules and obligations imposed on members of the royal family. As controversial as the news was, it mattered a lot less than it might have in the past when the monarchy was far more relevant than it is today.

Leaving the tabloids aside, in the British monarchy’s collection of controversial brides, Meghan Markle is, however, at risk of going down in history as a boring choice — for the simple fact that royal brides are not as relevant as they once were.

Elizabeth Woodville

In 1464, a scandal broke when the young Edward IV presented his new wife, the low-rank aristocrat Elizabeth Woodville. Having just defeated the Lancaster’s and achieved what appeared to be a definitive victory in the long War of the Roses, Edward was tasked with cementing the House of York into power. His trusted advisor, the Earl of Warwick, wished for him to marry a foreign princess. History tells us that Edward met the widowed Elizabeth by the side of the road, where she had positioned herself to plea for the new king’s interference in granting her sons their rightful inheritance from her late husband’s estates. Edward did one better: he married her.

There had been stories of Edward marrying other women in secret ceremonies only for the benefit of the wedding night, but with Elizabeth Woodville, he assumed the commitment after doing the deed. Elizabeth is said to have been a very beautiful woman, but her conquest of the king granted her also the unofficial, less flattering title of a witch (one that many single ladies out there today would also gladly concede to Meghan Markle).

Elizabeth’s detractors believed her to have bewitched the king to such an extent that he no longer thought for himself. At least that’s what the Earl of Warwick affirmed when he rose in rebellion against Edward, in favor of George, the king’s second brother. Elizabeth had, indeed, placed so many of her Rivers relatives in positions of power that it was inevitable that she’d angered those who were left out in the cold. Someone as powerful as Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, was not about to let go of his influence over the king without a fight. As Warwick set out to prove he deserved his unofficial title of Kingmaker, Elizabeth found herself in the center of yet another power struggle in England.

You know how it goes, when there’s a crisis in the monarchy, blame it on the low-rank harlot who had no business marrying the king in the first place — can you imagine what kind of interviews Warwick would have given to The Sun?

Elizabeth Woodville was a low-rank aristocrat with little to no influence, then a queen, then a witch. She was also a fierce protector of her children, a smart political player, and the great-grandmother of one of the most famous queens of England, Elizabeth I. She scandalized an entire court when she married Edward, and she made many enemies as she elevated her family into power.

Catherine Howard

The most famous British monarch to make scandalous marriages was, of course, the British monarch who went through the greatest number of them: Henry VIII.

Grandson of Elizabeth Woodville, Henry VIII married no less than six times. His affair and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn was scandalous enough. In his anxiety to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne, Henry caused the definite separation of the Church of England from the Vatican, forever changing religious life in his country.

Anne Boleyn was, of course, accused of being a cheap seductress, and the power of her dark eyes is a subject of fascination to this day. Anne acquired many enemies, especially among those who blamed her for Henry’s ultimate betrayal of Catherine of Aragon, a powerful princess in her own right and the epitome of a “suitable royal spouse”.

By the time Henry got to Catherine Howard, wife number five, there wasn’t much he could do to shock his subjects. Known for mood swings and erratic behavior, Henry constantly changed his mind and made decisions based on impulse. That the king would choose a wife more to his taste after being disappointed with the foreigner Anne of Cleves couldn’t possibly have been a big surprise. Catherine Howard, however, was a young girl of seventeen to the king’s more than mature forty-nine years of age. If by the Late Middle Ages’ standards Henry was an old man, by today’s his relationship to Catherine would have been immediately labeled as problematic, if not straight out pedophilia.

Catherine Howard is often described as a frivolous, empty-headed child. In the end, she was accused of adultery and beheaded for it.

The truth is that Catherine, although related to the powerful Howard family, didn’t have many resources or power over her own life. It’s likely that she was a simple child, not very educated and in way over her head at court. It seems plausible that she was a girl who enjoyed dancing and having fun, not at all a skillful political player. The fact remains that, as a queen, she was seen as frivolous and weak, and not even comparable to the regal Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife.

Wallis Simpson

Flash forward to contemporary times: another Edward, this time the VIII, creates scandal with his choice of bride. Edward couldn’t conciliate his choice to marry Wallis Simpson, an American that was twice divorced, and keeping the crown. In December of 1936, he abdicated in favor of his brother George. This was the move that allowed Elizabeth, Geroge’s eldest daughter, to come to the crown herself, and her grandson to now marry another American divorcée, and an actress at that.

I’m sure the irony of it all is not lost on the queen.

Sure, Harry has been pushed so far down the line of succession by his older brother’s offspring that his choice of bride hardly matters — at least politically — and a lot less now that he broke off from the royal family. But still, nothing signals how times have changed quite like the details that once made a woman a completely unacceptable royal bride now being simply glossed over as a funny curiosity.

Despite her lack of noble blood, her previous marriage, and her loud-mouthed family, Meghan Markle leaves much to be desired as a controversial royal bride. She’s not an evil young seductress of loose morals, nor a witch. She hasn’t been involved in a major royal divorce nor promoted a major change in the Church of England. Fifty years ago, her status as a divorcée (meaning: no longer a virgin) would add her some points in the controversial scale, but now it counts for pretty much nothing.

What was left for her to do, she’s done it: got Harry to break with the Crown and move to America. Still, ordinary people don’t really care.

Luckily for both Harry and Meghan, it’s not the 1400s anymore (or the 1930s for that matter), and no one but eager-to-sell tabloids really cares if there’s any potential controversy surrounding their choice of each other.

On the grand scale of controversial royal brides, Meghan still registers as boring.

Good for her.

Three British Royal Brides More Scandalous than Meghan Markle

How does Meghan Markle stack against other controversial royal brides?

Elizabeth Woodville

Catherine Howard

Wallis Simpson

Written by Gobisalsvsh