7 Royal Divorces That Prove It's Not All a Fairy Tale

When the Prince of Wales married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, it seemed like a fairy-tale wedding to cement the next generations of the British royal family. As we all know, though, it didn't last for long. The couple were in conflict from the very start, made worse by their significant age gap and very different personalities. Although they stayed together long enough to have two sons — Prince William and Prince Harry — the couple couldn't make it last and chose to separate but not divorce at first.

Both began affairs in the early 1990s: Diana with officer Major James Hewitt and Charles with ex-girlfriend (and future second wife) Camilla Parker Bowles. In 1992, scandalous recordings leaked that revealed the depth of their marital woes, and the couple divorced in 1996. Diana lost her "Royal Highness" style but kept the title of "Princess of Wales" until her death in 1997.

After having a bit of a reputation as a playboy in his youth, Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson in 1986. Both age 26, the couple were high-spirited and less formal than some of their royal relatives. They had two daughters together: Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie. However, Andrew's military career and their relatively low income for a royal lifestyle caused fractures for the Duke and Duchess of York.

Like Charles and Diana, the couple first agreed to separate in 1992. However, pictures soon surfaced of Sarah with her financial adviser John Bryan, which caused a final rift (and is the reason Prince Philip still refuses to speak to Sarah even to this day). The couple divorced in 1996 but remained close: they still live together and raised their two daughters together as a perfectly content divorced couple.

As viewers of The Crown already know, the queen's sister, Princess Margaret, was not especially lucky in love. Her first love, with Group Captain Peter Townsend, failed when the government told Margaret she would have to give up her royal rights to marry the divorced Townsend. In 1960, however, it seemed like she had finally found her match: Antony "Tony" Armstrong-Jones, a society photographer whose cultured and modern tastes matched her own. Armstrong-Jones was given the title Earl of Snowdon, making Margaret the Countess of Snowdon.

The strong personalities that drew the two together, however, soon split them apart. Early in their marriage, they had two children: David, Viscount Linley, in 1961 and Lady Sarah in 1964. By the mid-60s, the Snowdons were drifting apart and cheating on each other, and their relationship turned bitter. They divorced in 1978. Tony remarried only months later, but Margaret, despite having a string of partners, never remarried.

Princess Caroline is the daughter of Princess Grace of Monaco, one of the ultimate "fairy tale" royals. But her own life hasn't been quite such a fairy tale, at least not her love life. At the age of just 21, she married Philippe Junot, a French banker. Their marriage fell apart after just two years in 1980, and they had no children. The marriage was later annulled by the Catholic Church in 1992.

Although this was Caroline's only divorce, it was only the first of three marriages that ended sadly. She remarried in 1983 to Italian heir Stefano Casiraghi, and they had three children: Andrea, Charlotte, and Pierre, who were formally legitimized by the Catholic Church in 1992 after Caroline's first marriage was annulled. Stefano was killed in a boating accident in 1990, however. Caroline married for the third time in 1999 to Prince Ernst August of Hanover, but the couple separated in 2009 and have lived separate lives since then.

We don't talk much about the royal family of Luxembourg, but they've got the most recent royal divorce. Prince Louis, the third son of the reigning Grand Duke Henri, married Tessy Antony, a former army officer, in 2006. The couple have two children, Prince Gabriel and Prince Noah; Prince Gabriel was actually born prior to their marriage.

In 2017, the couple announced their intent to divorce. Tessy is likely to lose her royal titles upon the divorce, unlike her British counterparts. The couple will still have one more hurdle to clear after the divorce is finalized: if they wish to remarry in the Catholic Church, they will need an annulment declared too.