The 12 biggest scandals of the British royal family

The British royal family is always making headlines — sometimes for rather unsavory reasons.

The past few generations of the House of Windsor have been dogged by scandals of nearly every variety, from tactless costume choices to explosive divorces and even an unprecedented abdication of the throne.

Thanks to gossip-hungry media outlets, much of their dirtiest laundry has been broadcast and published all across the world. 

Here are the stories behind 12 major scandals that captured the world's attention. 

King Edward VIII rejected the crown so he could marry a divorced American woman.

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

Princess Margaret fell in love with a married man.

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

Her eventual marriage to different man ended in a high-profile divorce.

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