"Skeletons" in the closet and secrets in the fate of 11 crown princes and princesses

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Oftentimes, people think of aristocrats and members of royal families as exalted and highly impressive personalities who have overcome a lot in order to finally be on the throne. Of course, some of the princes and princesses were quite nice and nice people. But others, on the contrary, stood out from the crowd for their actions, follies and atrocities, which many still remember to this day.

1. Princess Isabella of Parma was obsessed with her daughter-in-law

Isabella is said to be a very intelligent girl with an interest in philosophy and mathematics and a musical talent. She was meek, with pleasant manners, but often suffered from melancholy, which led her to a deep depression after the untimely death of her domineering mother in 1759.

Shortly thereafter, Isabella was sent to Vienna to marry Archduke Joseph II, the eldest son and heir of Empress Maria Theresa. The young man at first sight fell in love with a charming girl, which cannot be said about Isabella. Nevertheless, she managed to conquer the imperial court thanks to her youthful beauty and charm. Her somewhat gloomy nature was probably much more to the taste of the Viennese than her frivolous Parisian mother.

Soon, Isabella became a close friend of her husband's sister Maria Cristina (Mimi). Their friendship was very peculiar, which is why many assumed that there was more than just friendship between the two girls.

Maria Cristina and Isabella were equally serious and shared a mutual interest in science, mathematics, art and music, so it should come as no surprise that they became close friends and spent several hours a day alone with each other.

One of Isabella's letters to Maria Cristina says:

2. Prince George, Duke of Kent led a riotous lifestyle

George was the cheerful and charming younger brother of Edward, Duke of Windsor, who infamously abdicated the throne in order to link his life with the notorious Wallis Simpson.

He, like his brother, loved to hang out at various kinds of parties and could revel day and night, charming both women and men. And about his riotous lifestyle and sexual preferences, they gossiped at every corner, talking about the fact that the young prince prefers women, men and alcohol. He was credited with numerous novels with socialites, actresses, bankers, princes and even spies.

One of the most notorious and scandalous events in the life of George was his lingering affair with the playwright Noel Coward, which could deplorably affect the reputation of the royal family. The secret services knew about the secret connection of lovers, and that these two walked the streets of London disguised as women. And once Georg and Noel even managed to be arrested on suspicion of prostitution.

However, these were only flowers, and all the worst began after Georg met Kiki Preston, known as the "Silver Syringe." who he is and where he is from. He lost all interest in life, and all that interested him was drugs.

3. Gian Gastone Medici led a riotous lifestyle

Gian Gastone Medici was deeply unhappy and depraved. Perhaps he would not have turned into a libertine if he did not have such a hated and unwanted marriage. The union arranged by the father of the Italian duke was doomed from the start. The chosen woman, Anna Maria, was a widow with no desire to remarry, and Jan, 23, was an inveterate gay. Many homosexual princes managed to continue the family line, but this will not happen with Gastone. For two years he lived almost completely separate from his hated wife.

According to historical reports, he often went to Prague, where his lover / pimp would find poor students who came to frolic with the Duke in exchange for cash.

In addition, Jan got drunk and ended up in seedy taverns, where he gladly participated in fights. What he didn't spend on booze or prostitutes, he lost at cards.

In the end, he had to return to Florence and change his father, but he did not intend to rule. Instead, he spent whole days in bed. Gastone paid young men and women to keep him company, doing whatever he wanted, from amorous pleasures to beating him.

Ultimately, his room literally reeked of dirty bodies, as he rarely left it. Several times, when he had to attend official dinners, he got drunk to such an extent that he felt sick right in front of the distinguished guests. This went on for almost ten years until Gastone died in 1737.

4. Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, could not stand being looked at

Filippo took over from his brother Giovanni in 1412. It was not a great start, considering that Giovanni was killed for incompetence, extreme cruelty, and possibly insanity.

But Filippo coped well with the task assigned to him. He reorganized public finances, introduced the silk industry, and waged an almost constant but successful war against his neighbors. Any would-be assassin never dared to kill the newly-made ruler, so he died of natural causes thirty-five years later.

Despite all the merits of Filippo, he had complexes and shortcomings, which he was ashamed of. The History of the Italian Republics says that Filippo was so funny, caricatured, overly ugly that he could not bear the humiliation of being looked at. He hid from people in his own palace and never showed himself to his soldiers.

When important persons came to him, he refused to meet with him, so as not to appear in his eyes and not see dislike in them. At least so it seemed to him. Instead of living in the real world, he became a neurotic recluse who dreamed of only one thing, so that he would never meet with anyone again.

5. Maria Louise Elizabeth of Orleans had a strong attachment to her father, alcohol and games

There are many reasons to feel sorry for Maria Louise, the granddaughter of Louis XIV. According to the Mad Monarchs, her mother ignored her from the moment she was born. Maria got married at fourteen, got pregnant five times in ten years, and all the children died. But this is only a small part of what happened in the life of Maria Louise.

She had a very close relationship with her father, Prince Philip II of Orleans. It started when she was six years old, and she got so sick that she almost died. The father himself looked after her. She recovered and they have been inseparable ever since. During her first pregnancy, she had to lie down all the time, so Philip visited her for several hours a day. It was rumored that they had an incestuous relationship and they never parted. The pamphlet accused her of being pregnant with her father. Philip probably did not help the case when he painted Marie in the nude.

The princess was also a violent alcoholic who was drunk all the time (her autopsy revealed that by the age of twenty-four she had severe cirrhosis of the liver).

Her other vice was gambling, and she lost obscene amounts of money in singles. She also hosted scandalous dinners and invited her priest so that he could see all the bad things she did and she would not have to confess and regret what she did.

6. Princess Charlotte of Prussia was a blackmailer

Princess Charlotte was the older sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II (the villain of the First World War), so she had very good connections. In 1891, she invited a group of aristocrats, the brother-in-law of the Kaiser and a member of the government, to a secluded hunting lodge. Once everyone arrived, the party got pretty crazy. They drank and danced, of course, but it all turned into literal orgies, where participants experimented with many different positions and more.

And everything was fine exactly until someone sent blackmail letters to the participants. In case they forgot what they were doing, the correspondence included a description of the events and even illustrations attached to them. Historians believe that the controversial Charlotte (who was subsequently treated by a psychiatrist for many years) sent threats and that she could invite people to an orgy only to lure them into a trap. In the end, everyone at court started talking about what had happened. As a result of the dispute, one person was arrested and the other was killed in a duel. But Charlotte got off with a slight fright and continued to behave horribly, doing various kinds of lewdness.

7. Princess Srirasmi is crazy about her dog

Unlike the rest of the people on this list, Srirasmi is still alive. However, she will never become Queen of Thailand because her husband Maha Wachiralongkorn drove her out before ascending the throne. But this was not such a big surprise for her, considering that she was his third wife.

Before they broke up, they had an interesting life together. This is perhaps best illustrated by their relationship with the Fu-Fu poodle. They seemed to be strangely obsessed with the adorable dog. Opponents of the prince posted a scandalous video from the party, which was organized in 2001, on the network. (The Guardian says it was Srirasmi's thirtieth birthday, while the Daily Beast claims the party was in honor of Fu-Fu himself.)

The then princess galloped around, completely naked except for a thong, while many courtiers looked at her. She even sank to the floor and ate the cake next to the dog.

The video caused a lot of condemnation and controversy in the world, but people in Thailand were not allowed to talk about it because they have extremely strict laws that prohibit speaking anything bad about the monarchy. Any dissatisfaction and negative statement about the prince / princess could lead to prison.

Despite the fact that Srirasmi did not receive custody of Fu-Fu during the divorce, the dog continued to be in the spotlight. He was appointed Chief Marshal of the Air Force, and his funeral procession lasted four days with all due honors.

8. Bloody Countess Elizabeth was a sadist

Countess Elizabeth was the niece of the Polish king and one of the most famous sadists of all time.

Perhaps one of the reasons for Elizabeth's cruelty is her family. According to the story, when she was a child, her uncle taught her Satanism, and her aunt introduced her to different facets of pain. By the time she was fifteen and married Count Nadadi, Liz was already having serious head problems. She asked her new husband to build her a torture chamber according to her strict requirements, and he agreed.

The Countess began to torture her maids. She stuck pins under their nails or tied them up, covered them with honey and left them to be devoured by insects. In the end, she began to kidnap the peasants, and then the daughters of the nobility. Elizabeth thought that human blood would keep her young and healthy, so she did things like cut pieces of poor girls' flesh, eat them, and take baths with their blood.

Thanks to her connections, she remained unpunished for a long time, but in the end she was tried on eighty counts, including murder charges, convicted and locked in a windowless room, where she died three years later.

9. Spanish crown prince Don Carlos was a moral monster

Don Carlos might never have become king, but Verdi made him a hero of the opera, so that's something.

Don Carlos is said to have been ugly from birth. He was humpbacked and had one leg much shorter than the other. As he grew older, he developed more slowly than it should, both mentally and physically. These problems could have stemmed from the fact that his family was so inbreeding that he only had four great-grandparents instead of the usual eight.

His mental problems led to severe behavioral difficulties. Even as a child, he enjoyed hurting animals and girls. Don Carlos roasted rabbits alive and once crippled over twenty horses. He also enjoyed spanking women, some of whom were paid after he hurt them. He could attack anyone, and among his victims were servants, courtiers and a cardinal. One day, Carlos made a shoemaker eat a pair of boots that he didn't think were good enough. The prince's demeanor only worsened after a head injury when his tantrums and rampage took on a bad name at court. To the great happiness of many, he was never able to find a woman who would marry him and give birth to his heirs.

10. Princess Alexandra Amalia of Bavaria suffered from glass syndrome

Princess Alexandra's Bavarian family was not famous for its mental toughness in the mid-1800s. Her father was famous for his eccentricity and loved to write terrible poetry about the most bizarre and trivial things. Her nephew, Ludwig II, was obsessed with building castles to the point that he effectively ruined the country. So it's no surprise that the princess herself was pretty weird.

If history is to be believed, it didn't start so badly. In her youth, she was simply obsessed with cleanliness. She wore exclusively white clothes so that she could see any dirt that got on her. But one day, when she was twenty-three, she went completely crazy.

Alexandra paced her family's palace, but not like an ordinary person. Her relatives noticed that she very carefully walks on tiptoe and sideways sneaks in the door. She seemed to avoid touching anything. They asked her what happened. The princess said she had just discovered that as a child, she managed to swallow a life-size glass grand piano. He was still inside her, and if he broke, she would have to be very careful.

Surprisingly, she was not the only aristocrat in history who thought they were made partly or entirely of glass. It was such a popular misconception that it made it into medical books and plays. Modern psychologists believe that this was one way for influential people to try to express how fragile and sophisticated they are.

11. Sado, the crown prince of the Joseon Dynasty was a criminal

A study published in the Journal of the Korean Neuropsychiatric Association found that 18th century Korean Crown Prince Sado suffered from mental illness. They indicate that he has had dire symptoms, including depressed mood, anxiety, suicidal, violent behavior, and a stalking obsession since the age of thirteen. He also showed signs of OCD, as did the fact that he had vestiphobia (fear of clothing).

Living in a time when there was no medicine had a profound effect on Sado. He was a sick man. According to the Korean Dictionary of History and Culture, when the prince went on an unauthorized pleasure trip, his enemies at court told the king what his son was up to. The charges included tales of attacks on palace women, seducing nuns, and killing eunuchs, among other gruesome crimes.

His father was furious, and when Sado returned, he ordered him to kill himself by drinking poison. The prince flatly refused, so maybe he wasn't that crazy. But the king was determined. He ordered to lock his son in a box of rice without food or water, where he died eight days later.

Continuing the theme of royal intrigues - that happened in the British family.