The whole thing rapidly became ridiculous. As it became clear that Teutberga, for whatever reason, couldn't have kids, Lothair began a long-running campaign to get rid of her and marry Waldrada instead. But Lothair already had a mistress, Waldrada, who bore him a son. Lothair II, a king in the Carolingian dynasty in Europe, married the noblewoman Teutberga in 855 AD for political reasons. (Hans Holbein painted a very accurate portrait of her, which convinced Henry to marry her before he'd met her - but somehow, in person, the magic was lost.) Anne, however, got a good deal: she lived quietly in England for the rest of her life, and Henry regarded her as his sister and asked her advice on political matters. Later, Henry had a much more conventional split - from poor Anne of Cleves, whom Henry apparently simply didn't like the looks of. The decision to divorce Catherine set the Reformation into motion, and made England a non-Catholic country - and frankly, that's as intense a set of consequence as any breakup between two people has probably ever caused. But in order to do it, he had to break with the Catholic Church in Rome, and declare himself head of a new religious order that he invented, the Church of England - which, of course, permitted divorces. King of England Henry VIII decided to divorce Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn, as anybody who watches The Tudors knows.

King Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves He then only allowed Caroline to see them after one of the children died. George, however, was an all-around bad egg who refused to let his ex enjoy the rights she had won: after Caroline got custody, he sent the kids to a school in Scotland where the new custody law didn't affect them. Caroline then campaigned for fairer divorce laws, which helped speed along the passage of the Marriage And Divorce Act of 1857. It took three years, but in 1839 the Custody Of Children Act, which allowed wives to be given primary custody of children under seven, was passed in England. When the two broke up - George brought Caroline to court to allege that she had been having a sexual affair with Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister, but the claim was thrown out - Caroline mounted a campaign to assert her rights to the custody of her children. This was because the laws of the day determined that divorced or separated women were not allowed to keep custody of their children. Her husband, George Norton, was a member of Parliament who beat her regularly, but their three children kept Caroline from leaving. Caroline Norton and George NortonД¬aroline Norton is a little-known feminist hero and legal reformer - and all her work started because she wanted to escape a truly terrible marriage.

Your most out-there soap opera cheating scandal ain't got nothing on these breakups. We've got trickery, disguises, wars fought over conflicts about exes, and an entire new religion established just to get out of a marriage.

If you think Bobby Flay and Stephanie March arguing over her breast implants in divorce court is scandalous, wait till you get a load of these seven historical marital squabbles. And ancient Greek and Roman society both offered methods to easily get out of marriages - in fact, Romans seem to have basically invented no-fault divorce.Д«ut even within this long history of divorces, there are some that stand head and shoulders above the rest, purely due to their political consequences and high drama factor. Researchers have found divorce statements from the Tang Dynasty in China (an era which started in 618 AD) and 'divorce contracts' from ancient Egypt. It's been around in various forms for a great deal of human history. If we're talking famous breakups, there's one myth we need to get out of the way: noted six-time husband Henry VIII didn't invent divorce. In previous historical eras, when powerful people split up, the ramifications were much more severe than just having to give back the wedding presents. (I give Nikki Reed and Ian Somerhalder three years.) But divorces, annulments, and other methods of marital separation among the rich and famous aren't a new phenomenon - and in the past, these splits often led to wars, breakdowns, and legal showdowns, and decided the fate of entire dynasties. These days, it's so common for famous couples to break up, it's tempting to start a ' celebrity divorces' betting pool any time two well-known people exchange rings.

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