Notorious Royal Marriages Quotes

“Motherhood had been metamorphosing Marie Antoinette into a more grounded and responsible woman. Her pregnancies had necessitated several months' absence from her usual round of gay amusements and she discovered that it was more fun to spend time with her children than it had been to play faro deep into the wee hours of the morning.
But her reputation as a frivolous, extravagant ninny and the marital issues in the royal bed had already demonized her in the eyes of the people at all levels of society.”
― Leslie Carroll, Notorious Royal Marriages

“Queen Jane Seymour's epitaph, inscribed in Latin, translated roughly to:
Here lies Jane, a phoenix
Who died in giving another phoenix birth,
Let her be mourned, for birds like these
Are rare indeed.”
― Leslie Carroll, Notorious Royal Marriages

“It was a popular theory at the time that death didn't automatically end a marriage because the spouses would eventually be reunited in heaven. The most pragmatic reason for the Church's view was that England was a land-based society and property was inherited upon the death of a spouse, so a remarriage threatened the inheritance of any issue from the previous union.”
― Leslie Carroll, Notorious Royal Marriages

“Victoria was, at the time, far more empathetic and forgiving, chiding Albert for his narrow view of humanity. 'I always think that one ought always to be indulgent towards other people, as I always think, if we had not been well brought up and well taken care of, we might also have gone astray.”
― Leslie Carroll, Notorious Royal Marriages