Only 90 years ago, a divorcée scandal rocked the House of Windsor and forced a monarch to abdicate the throne. King Edward VIII, in love with the American, twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, abruptly end his tenure as sovereign of the Commonwealth and his brother Albert ascended to the throne as King George VI.
Prince Philippe’s romance with then-Princess Elizabeth raised eyebrows due to his Greek and German noble background, and their royal offspring took Elizabeth’s surname Windsor instead of his – Mountbatten. Princess Margaret was not allowed to marry the man of her choice, the divorced Peter Townsend, in 1952. Prince Charles loved the commoner Camilla Parker-Bowles but married (and later divorced) Lady Diana Spencer to follow tradition and protocol.
When Prince Charles finally wed Parker-Bowles in 2005, Queen Elizabeth II, as head of the Church of England, did not attend the wedding ceremony. She did, however, bestow Parker-Bowles with a title – Duchess of Cornwall, and in 2011 extended the same courtesy to the commoner Katherine Middleton, now Katherine, Duchess of Cambridge, whose father Michael has ties to aristocracy.
Now, Prince Harry, fifth in line to the British throne will marry a mixed-race, divorced, American actress at Windsor in May. Meghan Markle, who first