Every Dark Secret The Royal Family Wants Us All To Completely Forget

Many royal enthusiasts know that Prince Philip was born in Greece and that his family suffered several losses in his life. Philip's mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and his father moved to Monte Carlo with his mistress. Prince Philip's sisters all married, and he was left on his own.

He once explained, "It’s simply what happened. The family broke up. My mother was ill, my sisters were married, my father was in the south of France. I just had to get on with it. You do. One does."

Prince Philip's sisters each married German princes, and eventually they developed friendships and ties with Nazis. His sister Cecile and her husband joined the party, and his sister Sophie married a director of the Third Reich’s Ministry of Air Forces. Sophie even named one of her children Karl Adolf.

We all know that Prince Charles and his now-wife Camilla Parker Bowles carried on with an affair more or less the entire time he was married to Diana. What some of us might have forgotten is that when details of that affair leaked, they were pretty surprising.

Three months after Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation, a whole slew of secretly recorded adult phone calls between Charles and Camilla were released. Let's just say … they were pretty mortifying.

At one point, the transcript of a phone call reveals that things took a turn. Charles says, "Oh, God. I’ll just live inside your trousers or something. It would be much easier!" to which Camilla responds, "(laughing) What are you going to turn into, a pair of knickers? (Both laugh). Oh, you’re going to come back as a pair of knickers."

Charles then adds, "Or, God forbid, a Tampax. Just my luck! (Laughs)."

Well, OK then.

Prince Philip wasn't the only member of the family who had Nazi connections. King Edward VIII, the Queen's uncle, was especially close to his German cousins and fond of their culture. That was all well and good until the 1920s and 1930s, when Adolf Hitler came into power.

The initial improvement to the German economy gave way to a full-blown path of annihilation and devastation, which King Edward VIII was seemingly unbothered by. In fact, he told a German relative that it was "no business of ours to interfere in Germany’s internal affairs either re Jews or re anything else."

In 1937, a few months after he and Wallis Simpson got married, the pair traveled to Nazi Germany. While they went under the guise of looking into working conditions, they were greeted by the Nazi salute (and often gave it back). They went on to visit a training school for SS guards, had dinners with Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels, and met with Hitler himself at his home, Berghof.

Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon were first cousins of Queen Elizabeth. They were each born with mental disabilities and were hidden away at the Royal Earlswood Institution for Mental Defectives at the ages of 22 and 15. Their family also reported the girls as being dead in 1961 in an effort to hide their existence from the public.

Katherine and Queen Elizabeth were born in the same year, but because the family had little to no understanding of how to navigate mental disabilities, they lived incredibly separate lives.

She's happily married with a baby now, but Princess Beatrice has at least one very questionable relationship under her belt. In 2006, she dated Paolo Liuzzo, who was convicted of a number of dangerous crimes while they were together.

Beatrice's mother tried to diffuse the tension surrounding the situation with a statement: "We all have our own journeys and have to learn our way, but Beatrice is a sensible girl…with many friends including Paolo. We must trust her judgment."

Princess Anne was married to Mark Phillips from November 1973 to April 1992, and the two have two children together: Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips. But it turns out that Mark has another child out there, one who was reportedly conceived during the time he and Anne were married.

Mark Phillips is allegedly the father of a daughter named Felicity, who lives in New Zealand now but who apparently lived on the same 700-acre estate as Zara and Peter while they were growing up. Her mother, Heather Tonkin, attempted to have Mark claim paternity in the 1990s.

She told papers, "My ambition is to get Mark's public acceptance of her and to be able to enter his name on her birth certificate." He refused, but was paying her £6,000 a year for five years at the same time.

Many people are familiar with the story of Tsar Nicholas II and how he and his family members died. What you might not know is that Tsar Nicholas is a cousin of King George V, the Queen's grandfather, and that the pair were said to be very close.

Tsar Nicholas II requested asylum in Britain for himself and his family, but he was denied because the king worried the rise of political tensions in his own country. Sadly, we know what happened to the Tsar, his wife, and his children.

Prince Andrew has really proven to be a complicated figure in the royal family. His relationships with many people, including Jeffrey Epstein, have been scrutinized and analyzed, with quite a few of us walking away casting serious doubt as to Prince Andrew's moral character.

Princess Margaret famously fell in love with Peter Townsend and was so dedicated to the man that she planned to marry him. The marriage was ultimately canceled by the Queen, but not for the reason it probably should have been: When Margaret met Peter, he was married and worked for her family.

Princess Diana struggled while trying to find her place in the royal family, and her mental health needs were not met. The royal family has tip-toed around acknowledging its failures in relation to Princess Diana, but years ago they flat-out blamed her for everything that happened to her.

In one chilling report, Princess Diana is said to have thrown herself down the stairs while pregnant with Prince William. She had morning sickness throughout the pregnancy and also struggled with an eating disorder. In the documentary Diana: In Her Own Words, she says, "Charles said I was crying wolf, and I said I felt so desperate and I was crying my eyes out. And he said: ‘I’m not going to listen. You’re always doing this to me. I’m going riding now.’ So I threw myself down the stairs."

Unfortunately, Prince Charles didn't seem very bothered.

"The queen comes out, absolutely horrified, shaking — she was so frightened. I knew I wasn’t going to lose the baby. Quite bruised around the stomach. Charles went out riding, and when he came back, you know, it was just dismissal, total dismissal. He just carried on out of the door."

Like her mother before her, Princess Anne is a big fan of dogs. Also like her mother, Princess Anne's dogs are known to be … less than friendly. Back in 2002, one of Anne's dogs bit two children while they were out walking. Anne went to trial over the matter, and things were not decided in her favor.

A lot of people know that Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were related, so it might not be surprising to learn that Queen Victoria, who provides the genetic link between the two, married her own first cousin. Victoria and Albert met when she was only 16, and she proposed to him five days into his trip to England.

Prince Philip was an important member of the royal family for decades, but he was also a problematic member of the royal family for decades. Before his death, Philip was known for casually saying all kinds of inflammatory comments, including many that were directly hurtful and even harmful.

Prince John was the youngest son of King George V, the Queen's grandfather. The young boy reportedly suffered from epilepsy, and the royal family deployed a familiar tactic to cope: by hiding the child away from public view.

Royal biographer Christopher Wilson has noted that some family trees completely leave out Prince John's name. "If they feel they have somebody that isn’t up to scratch, they want to write them out of the history books and this happened in the case of Prince John, the moment that he died, we hear no more about him."

Prince Charles and Princess Diana were married for 15 years, which is impressive considering the many ups and downs of their relationship. The pair were actually introduced through Diana's sister Sarah, whom Prince Charles dated prior to beginning his relationship with Diana. While not illegal or even technically wrong, the detail is a little startling and unsavory.

Zara Tindall is married to Mike Tindall, a former rugby player for England. While the pair have a generally low profile these days, that hasn't always been the case. Back in 2011, Mike appalled plenty of people when he participated in a "dwarf-throwing" contest at a club following a rugby win over Argentina. He has also been accused of cheating on his wife.

A spokesperson for the team seemed to chalk up the behavior to "boys will be boys," which likely was a disappointment to many of the team's fans. "Mike and several of the players were enjoying an evening out after he had led the team to a hard-earned victory over Argentina. Like all the lads he plays for England with a massive amount of passion and he was relaxing after a tough match."

Sarah Ferguson — or Fergie, as she's commonly known — is the ex-wife of Prince Andrew. Like her ex, Fergie has a few problems of her own. In one 2010 incident, she was accused of trying to sell access to her ex in exchange for cash. She requested $500,000.

Both Prince William and Kate Middleton would likely love to bury rumors that William cheated back in 2019, but the story somehow keeps popping up. Prince William was accused of having an affair with Rose Hanbury, a longtime family friend. This reportedly took place while Kate was pregnant with the pair's third child, Prince Louis.

That's not the first time Prince William has been accused of less-than-excellent behavior. In 2017, reports dropped that William danced in a suggestive manner with not one but two women while in Switzerland. One person at the club commented, "He was dancing so wildly that I did a double take when I first saw him and thought it must be a lookalike. But before long everyone realised they really were partying with Prince William."

Queen Elizabeth was known for racing horses, but did you also know that she loved to bet on the races themselves? She reportedly pulled in more than $6 million from her bets alone. Buckingham Palace insisted that she was above gambling, but these kinds of stories are difficult to deny.

Being Queen of England while also being a mom had to have been a tough road to travel, and it's highly likely Queen Elizabeth did her best. However, there are numerous anecdotes, articles, and even books that reference the idea that perhaps her best just wasn't good enough. It seems that Prince Charles and Princess Anne, her oldest two children, may have had a very different mother than Prince Andrew and Prince Edward did, possibly to their detriment.

In 2012, a report surfaced that alleges the Windors may not be the rightful heirs to the throne at all. The story goes like this: The remains of Richard III were discovered 500 years after he died. Once examined, researchers learned that he had no living descendants. This implies there was an affair at some point that essentially broke the genetic chain of the monarchy, which could mean quite a few kings and queens weren't actually in line for the throne.

While there is no direct evidence that Prince Philip ever cheated on Queen Elizabeth, there were rumors throughout their long marriage that he was unfaithful. The most significant of those rumors is that Prince Philip met dancer Pat Kirkwood quite a few times. She denied them, but the palace never did.

Prince Philip and the Queen actually met when she was only 13 years old. While the two didn't begin a physical relationship at that time, or even a relationship of note, they did begin exchanging letters. Prince Philip was 18, which certainly seems a little too old to be sending letters to a child.