Princess of Wales Anwers

1. How many Princesses of Wales never became queen?

Since King Edward I first gave the title Prince of Wales to his son in the 13th century, there have been 21 Princes of Wales but only 10 princesses because some princes died young while others did not marry until after they became king. Of those 10 Princesses of Wales, three never became queen. Joan of Kent's husband Edward the Black Prince died before his father King Edward III in the 14th century. Augusta of Saxe-Gotha faced the same situation with her husband Frederick Prince of Wales in the 18th century. Most recently, Lady Diana Spencer divorced the current Prince of Wales, thereby ensuring that she would not become queen. It remains to be seen whether the current Princess of Wales, Camilla Shand, who chooses to use the title Duchess of Cornwall, will become queen even if her husband ascends the throne. At the time of their marriage, it was announced that she would use the title Princess Consort.


2. Which Princesses of Wales became queen after the death of the Prince of Wales?
Two other Princesses of Wales also outlived their Prince of Wales, but subsequently married a king. The first was Anne Neville who was 14 when she married Edward Prince of Wales, son of the Lancastrian King Henry VI. When her husband died a few months later and his father was murdered weeks after that, Anne's father the Earl of Warwick rode the changing tide of the Wars of the Roses and quickly married her off the Yorkist King Edward IV's brother Richard Duke of Gloucester. When Edward IV's young sons disappeared in the the Tower of London, Richard became the infamous King Richard III.

In the next century, the 16-year-old Spanish Princess Catherine of Aragon was brought over to lend some more legitimacy to the newly instituted House of Tudor by marrying King Henry VII's son Arthur Prince of Wales. Soon after the wedding, bride and groom both became ill; she recovered but he did not. The next eight years in political, emotional and financial turmoil as her former father-in-law tried to figure out how to keep her dowry without necessarily keeping her since her political value dropped after the death of her mother Queen Isabella. Fortunately (or maybe not!), Henry VII died and his second son, the new King Henry VIII came to her rescue and made her his first queen. [Read more about Catherine of Aragon]


3. How many Princesses of Wales have been British?

Half of the Princesses of Wales were born in England: Joan of Kent, Anne Neville, Lady Diana Spencer, Camilla Shand and, less obviously, Princess Mary of Teck. Although technically a Germanic princess, the future Queen Mary was the daughter of a British princess, Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a first cousin of Queen Victoria. All four of the Teck children were born in Kensington Palace and the Teck family was considered part of the British royal family. In fact, when the British royals forsook their German names and titles, the Tecks did too. Queen Mary's two living brothers became the Marquess of Cambridge and the Earl of Athlone.

Even without her English birth, Mary of Teck was technically a British subject under the 1701 Act of Settlement, which granted that right to descendents of Electress Sophia of Hanover. Under this act, Princesses of Wales Caroline of Brunswick and Alexandra of Denmark could also lay claim to British citizenship.

4. How many Princesses of Wales never had children?
All of the Princesses of Wales have had children, although not always with the Prince of Wales. Anne Neville and Catherine of Aragon had children with their later husbands. Joan of Kent and Camilla Shand each had children with earlier husbands; Joan also had a couple with the prince. All of the others had children only with the prince.

5. How many Princesses of Wales were divorced?
Only Lady Diana Spencer was divorced from her Prince of Wales but several others had other marriages legally ended. Camilla Shand is divorced from her first husband, Andrew Parker-Bowles. Joan of Kent had one earlier marriage annulled. At age 12, she secretly married Sir Thomas Holland. About a year later, while he was on Crusade, her family forced her to marry the Earl of Salisbury. When Holland returned, he was stunned to find his wife married to someone else and took his case to the king and the pope. Much to Joan's relief, the pope ordered her to return to her first love and officially annulled the Salisbury marriage. Catherine of Aragon's later marriage to King Henry VIII was annulled against her wishes. Afterward, she was officially styled as the Dowager Princess of Wales as she had been during her earlier widowhood but she never acknowledged the dissolution of her marriage.

One other Princess of Wales was in perpetual danger of being divorced. Caroline of Brunswick's husband absolutely hated her. He launched two separate official investigations into her questionable conduct in order to find enough evidence to justify a divorce. Despite her crude, raucous behavior, his efforts were thwarted. Much to his dismay, she legally became his queen but he did not allow her to be crowned.
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A Note on Mary Tudor: Princess of Wales?
Several respondents included comments about the future Queen Mary I, oldest daughter of Henry VIII. Although he is infamous for his overweening drive to produce a male heir, in the 1520s, Henry seems to have accepted Mary as his heir, sending her to preside over Ludlow Castle in Wales just as his father had done with Arthur Prince of Wales a generation earlier. Mary was never officially created Princess of Wales, but she was referred to that way. During this period, Henry also explored numerous diplomatic marriage possibilities for her. By the 1530s, he had clearly changed his mind and even declared her a bastard with no royal inheritance rights. Before his death, he reinstated her to line of succession after her young half-brother.