The 12 biggest scandals of the British royal family

Directly after his father died in 1936, Edward VIII took the throne. Less than a year later, he renounced it.

That's because he had fallen hard for Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who'd already been divorced once and was working through her second. His proposal of marriage caused social and political uproar, since the Church of England technically forbade Edward from marrying someone who'd been divorced. Eventually, Edward was forced to abdicate.

"I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King [...] without the help and support of the woman I love," he said in a radio address to the nation in December 1936. Edward and Simpson married in 1937 and stayed together Edward's death in 1972.

Source: BBC

Captain Peter Townsend was a Royal Air Force officer who served as an equerry – essentially an attendant to the royal family. He spent a great deal of time with Margaret, and before long, the two fell in love. The only problem was that he was married.

Things got even more scandalous in 1953 when Townsend divorced his wife and proposed to Margaret. But the rules of the Church of England forbade such a marriage. (After all, Margaret's uncle Edward VIII had to relinquish the throne in order to marry a divorcee.)

The relationship came to a heartbreaking close in 1955 when they called off the engagement. There was simply no way for Captain Townsend and Princess Margaret to have a happy ending.

Source: Vanity Fair

Not long after calling things off with Townsend, Margaret married photographer Anthony Armstrong Jones. A few years later, their union became a source of "growing public ridicule," according to the New York Times. They fought in public, Margaret took long vacations without her husband, and rumors swirled around her close friendship with a man 17 years her junior.

In 1976, the couple announced their separation, and two years later, they were officially divorced. Margaret became the first royal to divorce since Henry VIII, who reigned way back in the 1500s.

Source: New York Times, BBC

In 1992 — while Prince Charles and Princess Diana were still married — media outlets published the transcript of an conversation between Diana and an alleged lover named James Gilbey. In the conversation, Gilbey told Diana that he loved her and called her by the pet name "Squidgy" 53 times. That's how the scandal earned the memorable moniker "Squidgygate."

Later, in an interview, Diana confirmed that the conversation was real, but denied that it was adulterous in nature.

Source: The Telegraph

Not long after Diana's leaked phone call, Prince Charles (Queen Elizabeth's oldest son) had one of his own.

An Australian magazine published the transcript of a call between Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles — a longtime married friend. The transcript all but confirmed what many rumors had postulated: That Charles and Camilla were romantically involved.

In one of the more confounding parts of the conversation, the couple jokes about Charles turning into a tampon in order to "live inside" Camilla's trousers.

Later that year, Charles and Diana announced their separation.

Source: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian

In 1995, Diana sat down for a tell-all solo interview with journalist Martin Bashir to talk about the immense pressures of public life and her struggles with self-harm, postpartum depression, and bulimia. She also revealed that she knew about Charles' affair with Camilla. ("There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded," she famously quipped.) And Diana even admitted that she'd been unfaithful to Charles, saying that she had been "in love" with James Hewitt, her riding instructor.

A few weeks later, the Queen herself urged her son and daughter-in-law to divorce, and the following year, they made it official. Charles and Camilla, on the other hand, wed in 2005 and are still together.

Source: BBC, New York Times, TIME

Princess Anne, the only daughter of current Queen Elizabeth II, married Olympic equestrian Mark Phillips in 1973. But the couple spent large swaths of time apart and didn't appear to be happy — People magazine described the marriage as a "joyless sham."

Then, in spring 1989, a British newspaper obtained stolen copies of letters written to Anne by one of her equerries — a British naval officer named Timothy Laurence. Though the content of the letters wasn't made public, tabloids described them as "extremely intimate" and "too hot to handle."

In 1992, Anne announced that she was divorcing Phillips — and that she planned to marry Laurence. The two have been together ever since.

Source: People, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, BBC

Sarah Ferguson (popularly known as "Fergie") married Queen Elizabeth's son Prince Andrew in 1986.

Six years later, scandal erupted: Paparazzi photographers captured Fergie vacationing with an American financial advisor named John Bryan. In one photo — an image quickly plastered on the front page of The Sun — Bryan appeared to be licking Fergie's foot.

Things didn't go very well after that. Fergie and Andrew separated in 1992 (the same year as Charles and Diana!) and divorced in 1996.

Source: The Telegraph, BBC

Fergie's marital drama didn't end after the divorce. In 2010, a News of the World journalist posed as a businessman and said he got Fergie to accept a £500,00 (about $633,000) bribe in exchange for access to her ex-husband.

A video recording of their meeting was released to the media, and Fergie later apologized, saying she'd made a "serious lapse in judgment."

Source: The Guardian, Reuters

Prince Andrew served as the UK's trade envoy from 2001 through 2011, when he stepped down due to mounting criticism over some of his personal relationships.

Namely, he was close friends with an American financier and convicted sex offender named Jeffrey Epstein.

Source: BBC

After admitting to his father that he'd tried marijuana, a 17-year-old Prince Harry spent a day at the Featherstone Lodge rehabilitation center in London.

A statement from the royal family said the Harry had agreed to visit the clinic "to learn about the possible consequences of starting to take cannabis."

Source: The Telegraph

In January 2005, British paper The Sun published a front-page photo of Prince Harry wearing a Nazi armband, apparently at a costume party.

The prince, who was 20 at the time, quickly released a statement of apology that read: "Prince Harry has apologised for any offence or embarrassment he has caused. He realises it was a poor choice of costume."

Source: BBC