What is Morganatic Marriage?
Up until the last century, royals married other royals. Marriages between royal families were necessary to maintain alliances, heal tensions and acquire more territory. Most royal marriages were negotiated between the families while the intended spouses were children. Often, these would be brides and grooms had little or no say in their marriage partners.
Some royal rebels bucked this practice. Most often, a man, particularly a man who had already produced heirs, would enter into what is called a morganatic marriage, also called left handed marriages. This term refers to marriages that were conducted between two people of unequal rank. There were few morganatic marriages between royal women and commoner men, as women often had less discretion in making marital decisions on a whole.
The children produced from morganatic marriages were not seen as equal to the children produced from typical royal marriages. Morganatic children were often stripped of any succession or inheritance rights. Some morganatic children were given lesser titles, often by their half siblings or uncles, which would give them a degree of nobility. Very few morganatic children ever gained a throne.
Morganatic marriages were largely a Germanic practice. In England, there were accepted marriages between royals and members of the nobility. The first example of this would be King John. As a youth, he was married to Isabella, Countess of Gloucester…
