English and British Royal Marriages


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Wasn't Joanna a nun at this stage?

It didnt seem to stop the proposals oddly enough :D

Richard wasn't the only one who sought her hand after she became a nun. Charles VII of France was another of those suitors.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG208398


Interesting enough Joanna's father was a prime example such marriages existed. Alfonso V of Portugal was married twice. His second wife was his niece Joanna of Castille. His daughter Joanna was the child of his first wife though.

But there are no cases of English royals making such a marriage I am aware of.
 
Although Joan lived in a convent, she was never a nun as her father refused to allow her to take vows. She entered the convent in response to a marriage proposal from Archduke (later Emperor) Maximilian in 1472. She returned to court in 1480.

Prior to Maximilian's proposal, King Louis XI of France had wished to marry her to his younger brother Charles Duke of Berry but this proposal was also refused after Joan pointed out that if her brother died she would be the heir and throne would pass to foreigners.

It has been stated that King Charles VIII of France extended a marriage proposal in 1485 but there is no evidence and historians are skeptical. At that time he was already betrothed to Margaret of Austria, who had been sent to be raised at the French court. Charles only broke the engagement to marry Anne of Brittany in 1491.

Joan herself only seriously considered Richard III's proposal. Richard sent an emissary to open marriage negotiations on March 22, 1485, just six days after the death of his wife Anne Neville. Richard also proposed that his niece Elizabeth of York marry Joan's cousin Manoel Duke of Beja. Because Joan was a direct descendant of Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt and wife of King John I of Portugal, Richard may have seen the marriage as a way of winning Lancastrian support.

Negotiations were still underway when Richard was killed at the Battle of Bosworth on August 22. Joan was reluctantly acquiescent, under enormous pressure from her brother the King who enlisted her aunt's help. Supposedly she had a dream where "a beautiful young man" told her Richard had "gone from the living." The next morning she told her brother the King that she would marry Richard if he were still alive. If not, her brother was not to press her again to marry. Shortly afterward, the Portuguese court received word of Richard's death.

According to some Portuguese authorities, after winning the English crown Henry Tudor offered marriage, but again there is no evidence.

In 1486 Joan received a second marriage proposal from the now-widowed Emperor Maximilian but she refused and returned to the convent, dying there in 1491.

Source: Barrie Williams, "The Portuguese Connection and the Significance of the 'Holy Princess,'" The Riccardian, Vol. 6 (March 1983), pp. 138-145.
 
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It seems Joan entered the Convent to avoid marriage proposals!
 
As an American I have a question that I don't understand. Didn't Henry the 8th break from the Catholic Church and form The Church of England so he could get divorced, since the Catholic Church didn't allow it? But then Edward VIII had to abdicate the throne because Wallace Simpson was a divorcee and wasn't allowed to marry her and Queen Elizabeth wouldn't let Margaret marry Peter Townsend because he was divorced. I don't get this?
 
As an American I have a question that I don't understand. Didn't Henry the 8th break from the Catholic Church and form The Church of England so he could get divorced, since the Catholic Church didn't allow it? But then Edward VIII had to abdicate the throne because Wallace Simpson was a divorcee and wasn't allowed to marry her and Queen Elizabeth wouldn't let Margaret marry Peter Townsend because he was divorced. I don't get this?

None of Henry's "divorces" were actually divorces; they were annulments. A divorce ends a legal marriage; an annulment declares the marriage wasn't legal and never existed. So while it seems hypocritical for the then-subsequently established Church of England to frown on divorce for centuries, it's actually a different thing that didn't apply to Henry and his infamy.
 
Annulments to bring a convenient end to royal marriages weren't unusual in medieval and early modern times. A "pre-contract" meant that you weren't free to marry someone else, and, also, you weren't meant to marry within "seven degrees of affinity" (dispensations were applied for and granted, but could usually be conveniently declared invalid if it suited).


As most princes and princesses were related, and there'd have been negotiations for them to marry various different people before a match was agreed on, it was easy enough to claim that a marriage was invalid, grease a few palms to get the church authorities to agree, declare that any children of the marriage were still legitimate as both partners had entered into the marriage in good faith, and that was that. That was considered OK, but a modern divorce wasn't. It sounds strange, but that was how it was!


Catherine of Aragon's nephew, Charles V, was the most powerful man in Europe at the time that Henry was seeking to end his marriage, pretty much had the Pope captive due to the Italian Wars, and wasn't about to let his auntie be shoved aside. If things had been different, maybe the Church would have agreed to annulling Henry's marriage as it had agreed to annulling so many other marriages.
 
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Three of Henry's marriages were certainly annulled by the Church of England
Anne Boleyn
Anne of Cleves
Catherine Howard

The marriage to Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void by the Archbishop of Canterbury in May 1533 following pope's refusal to annul the marriage. Not sure if its classed as an annulment.
 
None of Henry's "divorces" were actually divorces; they were annulments. A divorce ends a legal marriage; an annulment declares the marriage wasn't legal and never existed. So while it seems hypocritical for the then-subsequently established Church of England to frown on divorce for centuries, it's actually a different thing that didn't apply to Henry and his infamy.

Thank you for the explanation. I didn't realize he was just seeking annulments and not divorces. But regardless...fast forward. If they had just allowed Charles to marry Camilla in the first place, perhaps it would have saved Diana years of misery being married to someone who never loved her.
 
That isn't what happened though. Camilla chose to marry someone else. Andrew Parker-Bowles. It never got to the point where anyone had to forbid Charles and Camilla from marrying.
 
That isn't what happened though. Camilla chose to marry someone else. Andrew Parker-Bowles. It never got to the point where anyone had to forbid Charles and Camilla from marrying.

Oh my understanding was that he was discouraged from marrying her because she wasn't "virginal," so she couldn't wait around forever and married someone else.
 
The Queen didn't stop Princess Margaret from marrying Peter Townsend. All Margaret was actually required to do was give up her place in the line of succession and, as the Queen had two children by then, that wouldn't really have affected Margaret's life in any way. Divorce was still frowned on in the 1950s, but that was a general social thing, not specific to either the Royal Family or the Church of England.


And, as Osipi said, Camilla got engaged to Andrew Parker Bowles whilst Charles was abroad for a while. She'd been seeing him on and off before she and Charles even met. The question of her marrying Charles hadn't arisen at that point. No-one was forbidden from doing anything.
 
I do believe "Uncle Dickie" and others kind of implied that to Charles that Camilla wasn't wife material but there was never anything formal put into action forbidding the marriage. I do think Camilla had her hopes on Andrew even while pursuing a relationship with Charles. As it happened, Charles and Camilla formed a life long best friendship kind of relationship that lasted even through the marriages of both. Charles is godfather to Camilla and Andrew's oldest son.

I do also believe that Charles and Camilla's long relationship held something that neither found with their spouses. The intimacy of being best friends. As far as I'm concerned, there was far more to Charles and Camilla's relationship than just the "adultery" that seems to surround it. They had and still have something that endures through the decades. There are all different kinds of love within a marriage but the ones that have a solid "best friend" foundation are the ones that endure the years.

Just my opinion of course. ?
 
But there are no cases of English royals making such a marriage I am aware of.

It's illegal here. For how relevant the Jacobite claim is any more, some people say that it's invalid anyway because the Bavarian line's descended from a marriage between Maria Beatrice of Savoy (the claimant via descent from Charles II and James II's sister) and her uncle, the Duke of Modena.

Not British royalty, but Prince Albert's dad married his niece, after divorcing his first wife.
 
Thank you for the explanation. I didn't realize he was just seeking annulments and not divorces. But regardless...fast forward. If they had just allowed Charles to marry Camilla in the first place, perhaps it would have saved Diana years of misery being married to someone who never loved her.

As others have stated, there is no proof that Charles planned to propose to Camilla when they first dated. Many biographies have alleged that, as Osipi stated, Uncle Dickie Mountbatten had counseled Charles that Camilla wasn't wife and queen material (which I do believe to be accurate- Dickie was also allegedly credited for counseling a young and impressionable Charles to have sexual relations with women while he was young, but to then marry a virgin).

I don't believe for a moment that the Queen would have allowed Charles, the heir, to marry a divorcee in 1981. However, I don't think Charles ever requested to marry Camilla. So no one technically forbade him. Camilla was also still married- we don't know that Camilla would have divorced her husband then either.

(Personally, in my younger years I couldn't fathom how Charles couldn't give up Camilla for Diana and their children. Now that I'm old I understand how rare his connection with Camilla is. But many people paid a price for it.)

[If you are interested in other British monarchs with divorce & marriage issues, King George IV had both an illegal secret marriage (to a Catholic! but prior to being King), and tried to have Parliament annul his legal marriage to Princess Caroline upon becoming King. He failed, but the King did physically prevent Caroline from attending his coronation.]
 
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