The Youngest Royal Brides in History

[Curryong]

^ I think it is significant that Margaret had only one child in spite of multiple marriages in an age of huge families. To be giving birth in your early teens with the primitive medical procedures of the time was likely to be horrible and probably left some gynaecological damage. Changed times indeed!

 

[Countessmeout]

It has been said Margaret suffered serious complications and nearly died giving birth to Henry who was a very large baby and she was a tiny 13 year old. Likely made it impossible for her to carry after.

 

[Meraude]

Have anyone mentioned Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfork who at the tender age of six became the bride of four-year-old Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York in 1478? Anne died three years later, and her young husband disappeared together with his older brother king Edward V some time after 1483, the young boys are known as the Princes in the Tower.

 

[Denville]

Well, the men sure liked their woman young and ripe ready to be plucked

Nothing to do wtih that. They were married young becuase it was a dynastic alliance.. wtih very young couples consummation was often delayed till they were a bit older.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

Anne Neville married Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales on December 13, 1470. She was fourteen.

 

[amaryllus]

These older men were not expected to or encouraged to be intimate with very young brides. Medieval people knew very well that was dangerous. They had mistresses enough anyway.

But are we talking just Europe? In 1744 Queen Heongyeong of Korea and her husband the Crown prince married when they were both 9 and she had her first child at 14. Children marrying children was the norm there.

 

[eejm]

Constance, the ruling princess of Antioch, was eight years old when she was kidnapped and married to Raymond of Poitiers in 1136. Constance's widowed mother, Alice, was told that she would be the one marrying Raymond. Embarrassed and powerless, Alice left Antioch permanently.


Charlotte of Savoy was somewhere between seven and ten years of age when she became the second wife of Louis XII of France in 1451. He ditched his very young bride in Burgundy when acceded to the throne without money or a way back to the French court.



Maria Pia of Italy married Luis I of Portugal in 1862 just before her fifteenth birthday. She had her first child, Carlos I, just before her sixteenth birthday.


Empress Matilda (daughter of Henry I of England) had just turned eight when she married Holy Roman Emperor Henry V in 1110.



Agnes of France was about eight when she married Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos in 1180.

 

[yukari]

If we count Asian royal, the youngest I can think of is Yoshiko-no-miya, daughter of Emperor Reigen. She married Tokugawa Ietsugu in 1715. He is 5 years old, she is one year old.

It's part of the deal between Imperial Family and Tokugawa shogunate so that the younger sons of emperor would be allowed to marry and not to be sent to priesthood as before.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

Mary de Bohun, Countess of Northampton was 11-12 years old when she wed Henry Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV of England, on July 27, 1380. Henry was thirteen.

 

[Moran]

Isabella of Hainault was about 14 year old in 1184 when Philip of France tried to get divorce because she was "childless", right? I think she was about 10 when they married.

 

[An Ard Ri]

Isabella of Hainault was about 14 year old in 1184 when Philip of France tried to get divorce because she was "childless", right? I think she was about 10 when they married.

Isabella gave birth to the future Louis VIII in 1187 but sadly died in March 1190 following the birth of twins ,who also sadly died soon after.
Incidentally Philippe II also tried to repudiate his second wife Ingeborg of Denmark!