Love hurts
If you’re moping over your disappointing love life, I’ve got just the book to cheer you up. It’s ‘‘Royal Affairs — A Lusty Romp Through The Extramarital Adventures That Rocked the British Monarchy.’’ The author is Leslie Carroll (2008, New American Library).
After you read it, you’ll realize that nothing you’ve been through is so bad after all.
A woman unlucky in love you might be, but the odds are you won’t marry a very important man who, when he gets tired of you, has you put on trial on false charges, makes sure you’re found guilty, and then orders that your head be chopped off. Remember Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn?
You might be in love with a jerk, but surely you won’t fall for a guy who’ll beg you for months to become his mistress, have 10 kids with you, borrow thousands of dollars from you which he doesn’t repay, and then take the kids and leave you virtually broke. He was William IV, who ruled England from 1830 to 1837, and she was Dorothy Jordan, an actress.
And I know you are not the kind of man who would agree to marry a girl just because she’s the correct religion (Protestant), even though you're already secretly married to a woman you really love (but she’s Catholic, and a future king of England can’t marry a Catholic), and even though an intermediary sent to arrange the marriage says the lady stinks — she wears filthy, smelly undergarments ‘‘never washed or changed often enough’’ and she avoids baths.
But the British royal in question, George IV, goes ahead with the 1820 marriage to Caroline of Brunswick because if he does his father will pay all his debts. He gets very drunk to do so, and two aides hold him up so he can stagger down the aisle. He cries throughout the ceremony. The bride beams. Smelly as she might be, she finally got her man.
There are lots more royal romps cataloged in this entertaining, enormously readable book.
So, as you can see, Charles, Diana and Camilla, in acting out their real-life soap opera, were just doing what comes naturally — if you’re a British royal.
