Your wedding is meant to be one of the most special nights of your life. And your wedding night, well, that should be one of the most exciting. Of course, that's not always the case. Some of history's most famous figures had the worst wedding nights. For them, weddings were often less about romance than they were about political maneuvering and breeding new heirs. No wonder their wedding nights often ended in tears.
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We've compiled a list of eight royal weddings that didn't go to plan, and the reasons why. From mismatched expectations to comical mishaps, this journey through the annals of history sheds light on the human side of royalty, where the pursuit of marital bliss often encountered unforeseen challenges behind the palace doors.
1. King Henry Of Navarre - A Red Wedding
You know a Royal wedding is truly disastrous when it ends in a bloody massacre. That's just what happened when King Henry of Navarre married Margaret of France during the French Wars of Religion, a series of conflicts between the Catholics and Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants).
King Henry was raised a Huguenot, while his bride-to-be, Margaret, was raised a devout Catholic. But not just any Catholic, she was the daughter of Queen Catherine de Medici and sister of France's king. One might think a wedding would be a wonderful opportunity to unite the two sides.
But the Medici didn't think like that. Instead, they saw an opportunity, knowing that the wedding would bring many wealthy Huguenots to Paris to join in the celebrations. While the actual wedding night went off without a hitch, a few days later the queen sent some of her most loyal Catholics to Paris where they massacred 3,000 Huguenots. It later became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.
Amazingly Henry and Margaret stuck together, and Henry even got the last laugh. Twenty years later he became King Henry IV of France. As king he finally ended the Wars of Religion by converting to his Catholicism, famously stating "Paris is well worth a Mass." He then issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598, granting religious tolerance.
2. Catherine the Great and Peter III of Russia - The Wrong Kind of Toys
Catherine the Great and Peter III married on August 21, 1745. Their marriage wasn't a happy one and got off to a rocky start with the wedding night itself. We all know what's meant to happen on a wedding night but unfortunately for Catherine, Peter was more interested in playing with his toy soldiers (sadly not a euphemism).
Theirs was a marriage orchestrated more for political strategy than love, a frequent practice among royal unions. When Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst first arrived at court and changed her name to Catherine she did an excellent job of charming everyone but Peter. A famously eccentric and erratic ruler, he was more enthusiastic about getting drunk and playing with his toy soldiers than he was paying attention to his new bride.