What’s your opinion of the British royal family? Whether or not you’re a royalist, you may be surprised to hear some of the details we’re about to tell you concerning scandals among the most famous family in Britain.
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Scandals in the British Royal Family
King Edward VIII
In 1936 he was crowned king after George V and a year later abdicated to marry twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.
He was accused of being a Nazi sympathiser and sent away to be the Governor of the Bahamas. He died in 1972.
Edward was succeeded by his younger brother George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret. For more information, watch the excellent film The King’s Speech starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter and Guy Pearce as Edward Vlll
Princess Margaret
Elizabeth II’s sister. She fell in love with a married man, Captain Peter Townsend, a Royal Air Force Officer.
Townsend divorced his wife, but the Church of England did not allow them to get married.
Princess Margaret married a photographer, Anthony Armstrong Jones, but got divorced in 1978.
Margaret became the first royal to get divorced since Henry VIII back in the 1500s.
The Crown
Prince Charles and Lady Di
Both allegedly had affairs while married. Diana allegedly most famously with James Gilbey in 1992 (“Squidgygate”), James Hewitt and Will Carling, among others, and Charles with Camilla Parker Bowles, who he eventually married in 2005.
In 1995, after divorcing Charles, Diana gave a TV interview for the BBC and said, “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded”
Prince Andrew
As Queen Elizabeth’s third child, Prince Andrew is ninth in line to the British crown.
Prince Andrew resigned from his job because of seedy friendships. He was allegedly close friends with American convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
Prince Andrew was sued for damages in 2021 by Virginia Giuffre for allegedly raping and sexually abusing her when she was 17.
Prince Andrew settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
Lady Edwina Mountbatten
She was the wife of Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince Philip’s (The Duke of Edinburgh) maternal uncle and last Viceroy Of India, blown up on holiday in Ireland by the IRA in 1979. It was widely rumoured that while accompanying her husband in 1947 to negotiate the British withdrawal from colonial India, she started an affair with Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India. They met several times over the years. Though a physical relationship has never been confirmed, the Mountbattens’ daughter Pamela did say that they definitely loved each other.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
They stepped back from royal life and commitments in 2020.
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, Harry said that the royal family had cut him off financially. Nevertheless, they managed to buy a house in California.
Megan Markle has been accused of bullying senior members of royal family staff. Markle has accused the royal family of racism concerning her son, Archie.
Prince Harry may have stepped back from the UK spotlight, but he was definitely in it when he went to a fancy dress party dressed as a Nazi in 2005 and was photographed playing billiards naked in Las Vegas in 2012.
…and now it’s your turn to practise your English. Does your country have a royal family? Have there been any scandals? We’d love to hear them.
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