Royal scandals are nothing new. Recently the History Channel put together a list of 8 Royal Scandals. Since you may be unfamiliar with them, the next couple of blogs will share 2 each!
8 Infamous Royal Scandals (PART 3)
5. The Kotze Scandal, 1891 Within two years, another royal hunting lodge became the scene of a sex scandal that would make even the fictional Lady Whistledown blush. The court of the last German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was rocked in 1891 when the Kaiser’s sister, Princess Charlotte, invited members of the aristocracy to Jagdschloss Grunewald to indulge in orgies. Private details about partygoers and the sex acts they performed were made public in a series of anonymous letters that included graphic drawings. Outed individuals subject to this blackmail included the king’s own master of ceremonies, Leberecht von Kotze.
Kotze was briefly imprisoned by the emperor. Upon his release, he began to challenge the men who had been at the private parties to duels, hoping to root out who had betrayed him to the public. He eventually died in one of the duels. Historians point to Princess Charlotte as the likely whistleblower, though the true author has never been confirmed.
6. Edward VIII’s Abdication, 1936 Edward VIII was the first English monarch to abdicate the throne voluntarily. He gave up the crown in 1936 after his choice of bride-to-be caused a national scandal.
Wallis Simpson, an American heiress, had been divorced twice and was technically still married to her second husband when she began her affair with the heir to the British throne. The Church of England condemned remarriage after divorce, and when Edward became king in January of 1936, he also became the Head of the Church of England, prompting then-Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to threaten to have his cabinet resign if Edward married Simpson.
The King’s choice of partner was debated in Parliament and made front page news across Britain. Edward VIII abdicated the British throne on December 10, 1936. In a radio broadcast a day later, he explained his choice to his subjects: “I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of king, as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.”
Some scholars have contested that the marriage scandal was a front for a more troubling trait in the king: His Nazi sympathies. After marrying Simpson on June 3, 1937, the former king spent part of his honeymoon in Nazi Germany, where he met with Gestapo founder Hermann Göring, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, and even Hitler himself.
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