Love rather than the crown. Prince Harry and his wife Meghan announced Wednesday evening that they would give up their prominent role in the royal family, to settle part of the year in North America and become "financially independent". A thunderbolt on the British court, already shaken this year by the revelations around Prince Andrew, entangled in the Epstein scandal. But which is reminiscent of other great events of the Windsor saga.
Edward VIII's Abdication
For Jean des Cars, historian of the great dynasties of Europe, and author of the "Dictionary in love with monarchies", the announcement of Harry and his wife is a direct mirror of the episode of the abdication of Edward VIII. "A terrible memory for the British," said the specialist interviewed by the Parisian.
Today, the event was reportedly filmed by cameras around the world. In 1936, it was on the BBC that King Edward VIII, Queen Elizabeth's uncle, abdicated live a few months after the start of his reign. The short-lived sovereign wants in fact to marry in just marriage with Wallis Simpson, an American twice divorced.
A scent of scandal took hold of the kingdom: his previous marriages were far from the taste of the time. Above all, Wallis drags a reputation "appalling", assures Jean des Cars. Which closed all doors for him in Buckingham Palace and in the circle of the royal family.
To be able to unite with this woman, Edward VIII must therefore renounce the throne. "The decision of Harry and Meghan refers directly to this nightmare, assures the historian. Because, once again, it is an American who takes over ”. The two spouses will then live an exile in France, and will reveal affinities with Nazi Germany. The year after their marriage, those who in the meantime have become the Duke and Duchess of Windsor visited Adolf Hitler in Munich.
The upset loves of Princess Margaret
The Queen's younger sister, Princess Margaret, known as "turbulent, intelligent, funny and lively", will pay the consequences of this trauma. After the crowning of her sister, the queen, in 1953, she fell madly in love with the group captain Peter Townsend, fighter pilot with the Royal Air Force and hero of the Second World War.
But his status of divorced and father makes any union impossible for the couple, unless Margaret renounces all her rights. At the time, opinion was ready: 96% of Britons answered yes to the Daily Mirror question : "Do you approve of Margaret's marriage to the one she loves?" But that will not be enough. 20 years after the Willis Simpson affair, the royal family is still traumatized. Reason of State takes precedence over their love and, in 1955, the rupture is pronounced.
The Lady Di drama
The accident of Princess Diana in August 1997, in Paris, under the Pont de l'Alma traumatized the whole world. And more, the silence of Queen Elizabeth at that time. An unfair lack of compassion for this popular princess whose life ended tragically after a more than tormented royal life. She started in 1981, when she married Prince Charles. Despite this union which saw the birth of William and Harry, if the Queen's son remains faithful to someone, it is his mistress and love of always Camilla Parker-Bowles.
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Diana is deeply unhappy at court, and the couple's setbacks really began to be publicized in the early 1990s, before a pronounced separation in 1992 and the gradual erasure of Diana. One thing Harry has in common: his complicated relationship with the tabloid press, which has tracked him all his life, one of the reasons put forward by his son for escaping the royal shackles.
