From USA Today-A British royal marrying an American divorcee in 1936 threw the British monarchy and the Church of England into crisis, but that didn’t happen when Prince Harry decided to marry Meghan Markle.
The announcement in London on Monday that Prince Harry is engaged to the American actress ended fevered speculation about the couple and was accompanied by statements of delight from Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and his father, heir to the throne Prince Charles.
It was so very different from the last time a British royal wanted to marry an American divorcee. That 1936 engagement led to the abdication of the king, Edward VIII, who decided he would rather give up the throne than divorced Baltimore socialite Wallis Simpson.
The sticking point in 1936 was the rule on divorce and remarriage in the Church of England, of which the monarch of the United Kingdom is head. The church’s ban on remarriage for a divorced person whose previous spouse is alive applied to King Edward, and still held for Queen Elizabeth’s sister, Princess Margaret, in 1953. She was told she could not marry the man she loved, Capt. Peter Townsend, because the Church of England would not countenance it.
More here-
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/11/27/prince-harry-marry-divorced-american-and-church-fine/899944001/
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