“I, Diana Frances, take thee, Philip Charles …” With these words, Princess Di wed Charles Philip, who in turn promised, “all thy goods I share with thee” — instead of his own goods, that is. The Archbishop of Canterbury, presiding, overlooked the couple’s flubs, unsurprised that the stars of Britain’s biggest-ever nuptials should be suffering from jitters. Their slip-ups were minor, in the context of the Royal Family’s history: much worse things have happened at their weddings.
It’s hard to imagine, what with the minute-by-minute stage-managing of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s upcoming ceremony, but Royal weddings were once shambolic, and sometimes dangerous for those involved.
At age 19, on his wedding night, Alfred the Great, having prayed to God to replace his hemorrhoids with something less painful, was struck by a worse illness (undiagnosed at the time, but likely Crohn’s disease); it plagued him for the rest of his life. “If only I’d stuck with the hemorrhoids!” he is said to have lamented.
In 1042, King Harthacanute was drinking to the health of a bride at a wedding when he had a convulsion, keeled over and died. In 1285, at Jedburgh Castle, a ghost is said to have appeared at the feast of Alexander III’s second wedding — never a good sign in Scotland — and a few months later, when the king was riding home to his wife, he was thrown off his horse and perished.
Other Royal weddings have gone wrong because of misrepresentation. In 1307, Edward II made no pretence of caring for his new 12-year old bride, Isabella, and he upset her relatives and his own barons when he openly kissed the knight Piers Gaveston. (Twenty years later, Isabella would get her revenge and depose him.) Henry VIII felt he’d been hoodwinked by Hans Holbein’s rather-too-flattering portrait of his betrothed, Anne of Cleves, when he actually met her in 1540. Nonetheless, he went ahead with the marriage so as not to cause an international incident, but skipped the traditional bedding ceremony and later had the union annulled.
When introduced to Caroline, his bride-to-be, for the first time in 1795, George IV retreated to his apartments for brandy, feeling “unwell” from the sight of her; apparently she, in turn, was unimpressed with his girth. Lady Jersey, one of George’s many lovers, was appointed Caroline’s lady-in-waiting; she purposely made her mistress look ridiculous. On the day of their wedding, George got so plastered he had to be supported by two dukes during his vows, and he wept balefully during the ceremony. That night, he passed out by the fireplace — but not, apparently, before siring a daughter.
At least George had been able to calm his nerves. Not so with his grandmother, Augusta Saxe-Gotha, when she wed Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1736: the smallpox-marked 16-year-old, who had just arrived from Germany that day, apparently clutched the queen’s skirt in terror, and then vomited on it. At the feast afterwards, Frederick ate copious amounts of jelly (apparently believing it to be an aphrodisiac), and at the bedding ceremony — a public preparation for consummation — he wore a nightcap taller than a grenadier’s hat; perhaps his efforts were in vain, as Augusta is said to have slept well.
Frederick’s son, George (later George III), also married a teenager on the first day she arrived from Germany; Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz grew frightened when she saw his palace, but at least George spared his shy bride the public bedding.
Thankfully for William and Kate, these days, the nation has no place in the bedrooms of the state. And they’re both old enough, wise enough, and — let’s hope — in love enough that they know what they’re getting into. But any mishaps will be repeated immediately and endlessly on the Web. At the time of writing, one betting firm is giving 19-to-1 odds that William will drop the wedding ring — not really that high for a right royal screw-up. No pressure, young Wills: only the world is watching.
没有评论:
发表评论