Britain's Royal Scandals

Few royal houses have been struck by scandals as violent as the British one. The current case involving former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is embarrassing enough - but it pales in comparison to what has previously shaken the Windsor dynasty.

George III's eight sons ruled over a court where etiquette was law. George III and Queen Charlotte raised their 15 children so strictly that as adults they struggled to form normal relationships with other people. The eight sons, led by the later King George IV, threw themselves into such a dissolute and scandal-ridden life that the monarchy was already under pressure in their own time. Only an unimaginable tragedy prompted George IV to ask his brothers to behave.

Edward VIII was King of Britain from 20 January to 11 December 1936 - barely a year. He abdicated because he was not allowed to marry American Wallis Simpson. The problem was not only her two previous marriages, but also her close relations to the German Nazi regime - including to the later Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Prince Charles and Diana Spencer married in the grand fairy-tale wedding in 1981. Diana was from the first day the most beloved member of the royal family, but the marriage harboured catastrophic secrets. When the couple divorced in 1992, skeletons tumbled out of the closet. The crisis reached its peak when Diana was killed in a traffic accident in Paris in August 1997.