'Behind the Palace Doors': A Crash Course on Royal Scandals

Sure, some people sneered at "Waity Katie" Middleton for hanging around for years until college sweetheart Prince William was ready to pop the question. But she'll have the last laugh.

And because they knew each other for so long before getting engaged, Kate and William probably have a much better chance at living happily ever after than his predecessors.

Take the future King George IV. Upon meeting his bride for the first time, he was so appalled that he called for a brandy.

She wasn't too impressed either. "My God, is the prince always like that?" a mortified Princess Caroline of Brunswick asked. "I find him very fat, and nothing like as handsome as his portrait."

That's just one of the tales of marital woe in "Behind the Palace Doors: Five Centuries of Sex, Adventure, Vice, Treachery and Folly from Royal Britain," by Michael Farquhar. Random House is publishing the paperback on March 1, just in time for the royal wedding.

The book gives a crash course in royal history from the 1500s to the present -– from King Henry VIII to Queen Elizabeth II. But don't expect a dry recitation of dates and battles. This book is all about personal anecdotes and the relationships the royals engaged in -- or didn't enjoy.

Here are a few of the tidbits Farquhar shares with readers:

Queen Victoria, who gave her name to an era synonymous with prudishness, adored sex with her husband and rhapsodized about her wedding night in her diary. She and Prince Albert (who, Farquhar points out, was a bit uptight), liked to give each other statues and paintings celebrating the human form, and this impressive collection of nudes was displayed at their favorite home.

Hefty Henry VIII wouldn't sleep with wife No. 4 because he claimed her breasts sagged. He got a speedy divorce –- which turned out to be a lucky escape for her, considering that Henry had two of his other wives beheaded.

Wife No. 6, Catherine Parr, survived Henry, but the man she married after Henry's death wasn't much of a bargain either. When Katherine brought her young stepdaughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I, to live with her, her new husband got busy playing slap and tickle with the teenage princess, writes Farquhar, who is also the author of "A Treasury of Royal Scandals."

King James I (who was also King James VI of Scotland) was obsessed with handsome young men and burning witches. He wrote a treatise on witchcraft and actively encouraged a series of trials based on allegations that more than 300 witches had gathered to work spells against him. In fact, Farquhar says, the king was much put out when one defendant claimed to be pregnant –- which, if confirmed, would let her escape the death penalty.

King Charles II lost his virginity, at the age of 14, to a saucy nursemaid. After that seduction, the royal rogue went through a string of mistresses and sired so many illegitimate children that Farquhar quotes a courtier as observing: "A king is supposed to be the father of his people, and Charles certainly was the father of a good many of them."

George I was brought over from his native Germany to take the throne in 1714 because he was the nearest available Protestant. He was accompanied by two hideous women, both said to be his mistresses (although one was also his half sister) -- but not his wife. Years earlier, the wife had been detected in an affair and the vengeful George locked her up in castle for the rest of her long life. Her lover reportedly was hacked to death and his body stuffed under the floorboards of the palace.

The future Queen Anne was such a rotten kid that she helped her sister and brother-in-law take the throne from their dad, James II. She also struck out at the stepmother who had always been kind to her. When Queen Mary Beatrice became pregnant, then-Princess Anne began spreading a nasty rumor that queen was faking it. The cruel story spread so rapidly that when Mary Beatrice gave birth to a healthy baby boy, the infant was widely said to be an impostor who had been smuggled into her bed in a warming pan.

Anne herself would learn what it was like to be the target of rumors when her former friend Sarah Churchill, ancestress of both Winston Churchill and Princess Diana, accused her of carrying on a lesbian affair with a maid.

Edward VIII, who gave up his throne the throne to marry the woman he loved, had a thing for being dominated, Farquhar writes. The British people probably weren't thinking of whips and stilettos when they listened to the famous abdication speech on the radio. But Wallis Warfield Simpson, the future Duchess of Windsor, was "the perfect dominatrix" for the masochistic monarch, Farquhar says. Edward's friends were not so taken by Wallis' charms. Exclaimed one, "God, that woman's a bitch!"