Royal Love Stories

It's Valentine's Day once again and as everyone else in this planet thought this day as a celebration of love and a day to talk nothing but love and affection, let's have a run down of royal love stories that caught worldwide interest.

EDWARD VIII and WALLIS SIMPSON

Who could forget the love story between a King and a commoner that intrigued the whole world in 1936? Their love story might not want to be remembered by the British royal family as something very romantic but let's bring it out once again to take a look back how Mrs. Simpson changed the face of the British monarchy and how she had influenced the only voluntary abdication by a British King all because of LOVE.

Wallis Simpson was nowhere ideal, not even near from it, when talking about the characteristics and qualifications of a suitable Queen Consort. At the time she met Edward, who was still Prince of Wales, she was already divorce and on the verge of separating from her second husband. She was American and worst, a commoner. So disgraceful to the standard of the British royal family that they called her as "disgraceful" and unholy.

By then, no British Kings ever married a commoner with no aristocratic background. Divorce was considered sacrilege and no divorce people were allowed to join the company of the monarch. Wallis Simpson was a real threat to the prestige of the British crown. Giving her unsuitable background, she never deserved to be called Queen of the British Empire.

But Edward was totally besotted with this "disgraceful" woman that few months after his accession, he began discussing the possibility of marrying her much to the horror of the royal family,especially his mother, Queen Mary.

When the commonwealth ministers reported that the public would never accept Wallis Simpson as their Queen, Edward decided to give up the throne to be with his lover. Eleven months later after he ascended the throne as Edward VIII, he voluntarily abdicated and went to live in exile for the rest of his life.

Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson's love affair lasted for their lifetime. They did not have any children but they were reportedly happy and spent for the most part of their union in France. The King was made Duke of Windsor by his brother and successor, King George VI, and never regretted his decision to abandon the British throne for the woman he loved. Wallis Simpson paid a high price for the acrimonious crisis she created in 1936, She was never fully accepted in the British royal family and was never accorded with the style of Her Royal Highness, she was only referred as a wife of British Duke not born of royal blood.

But the couple had no brush of regrets for the sacrifices they made in the name of love. They traveled extensively and lived happily for the rest of their lives until the Duke of Windsor died in 1972 from throat cancer. Mrs. Simpson died in 1986.

NICHOLAS II and ALEXANDRA

Unlike the arranged marriage tradition of European royals prior to the 20th century, the future Russia's Tsar, Nicholas, had set his eyes in marrying the young Princess Alix the day he met her in Darmstadt when she was 12. For Nicholas, it was love at first sight. Alix was the youngest surviving daughter of Princess Alice, second daughter of Queen Victoria of England, and Grand Duke Louis of Hesse.

Nicholas first met Alix, one of the favorite granddaughters of Queen Victoria, at the wedding of her older sister, Princess Elizabeth, and his uncle, Grand Duke Sergei. In 1894, they met again in Coburg, Germany, at the wedding of their mutual cousin, Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh, to Alix's brother, Ernst of Hesse. Almost everyone in the family attended including Queen Victoria, Emperor William II of Germany and King Edward VII of England.

Nicholas proposed but Alix reportedly turned him down because she did not want to convert to Russian Orthodox religion. She finally yielded when her first cousin, William II of Germany intervened, urging her to accept the proposal of the Tsarevitch. Death struck the family of the Romanovs when Nicholas's father, Tsar Alexander III, died in November that year. At 26, he found himself the new emperor of Russia, a role he was quite unprepared to take. That moment he needed someone to be at his side, and who else to look for but the woman he was so devoted and in-love with, Princess Alix. The original wedding plan was supposed to be in 1895, but the Tsar cut it short and declared he wanted to marry Alix weeks after his father's death, so they married on November 26, 1894.

All through out their marriage, Nicholas was so devoted with his wife and would yield to all her wishes, which, according to some historians, partly attributed to the downfall of the Romanovs. In 1917, Nicholas was forced to abdicate, and he, his wife and five children were held under house arrest by the revolutionists until they were massacred on the early morning of July 17, 1918 in the mountain of Yekaterinburg.

VICTORIA AND ALBERT

It was during their marriage that Windsor Castle earned a moniker of being "The Most Romantic Castle in the World". Victoria was only 18 years old when she ascended the British throne in 1837 following the death of her paternal uncle, William IV, who had no legitimate children. As monarch should get married to provide the throne with legitimate heirs, her maternal uncle, Prince Leopold, who would become King Leopold I of Belgium, found her match in her first cousin, also a nephew of Leopold, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Victoria fell in-love with the young German prince the moment she saw him, and by most accounts, he to her. Historical records would claim that it was Victoria who proposed to Albert in 1839 at Windsor Castle and he gladly accepted. They got married on February 1940 and Windsor Castle became their favorite country home. Victoria was known to have loved her Prince Consort through out her life and when he died suddenly on December 14, 1861 from typhoid fever, she never gotten over his death and wore black for the rest of her life.

Victoria increasingly became melancholic following her husband's death and gradually gave up her social life, she lived in seclusion at Windsor Castle for the most part of her life. She would spend long vacation days at Osborne, a royal retreat house in Isle of Wight which was one of the favorite royal residences of Prince Albert. Victoria and Albert had nine children, most of whom married into the powerful European royal court, The current royal houses of Spain, Denmark, Norway and Sweden directly descended from Queen Victoria. She died in 1901 after reigning in Britain for more than 63 years.

MARIA THERESA AND FRANCIS I

Their marriage was an arranged one, however, it was noted that their relationship was based on affection and love. Maria Theresa was the only Queen Regnant of Austria and the House of Hapsburg and her ascension to the throne triggered the Austrian War of Succession. Her husband became Holy Roman Emperor. Despite being ravaged by war and preoccupied with political tension, Maria Theresa and Francis had an intimate marital relationship and were known to have consummated their marriage with burning passion.

In between war problems, the empress had given birth to 16 children, 13 of whom survived infancy including Queen Maria Antoinette of France and two Holy Roman Emperors, Joseph II, and Leopold II. Her happy home life was ended on August 18, 1765, when her husband died. Maria Theresa was extremely devastated and her life was never been the same again. She had painted her room black, withdrew from social life and public events and, just like Queen Victoria, she wore a mourning dress for the rest of her life. She died in 1780.