“Her description of her father, the old earl, touched something romantic in Edwin’s generous heart. He was never tired of asking how old he was, was he robust, did a shock, a sudden shock, affect him much? And so on. Then came the evening that Gwendolyn loved to live over and over again in her mind when Edwin asked her in his straightforward, manly way whether – subject to certain written stipulations to be considered later- she would be his wife, and she, putting her hand confidingly in his hand, answered simply that – subject to the consent of her father and pending always the necessary legal formalities and enquiries – she would”.
(from “Lord Oxhead’s Secret” by Stephen Leacock in “Literary Lapses”)
Money and marriage – are they unmixable like oil and water or is money the mortar that holds a marriage together? Or am I trying to put together two totally different categories like the Kansas corn harvest and Swedish glassware or industrial machinery and Friedrich Nietzsche?
There is no doubt that there is money in romance. The romance industry is growing at 16.25% year-on-year according to the Wall Street Love Journal, but is it genuine blue-chip romance, or is it fake speculative romance? Can too much money poison a marriage?
King Henry VIII tried marriage six times but in stock market terms, his marriage portfolio showed high volatility, a number were delisted and generally they under-performed. His problem? Masses of money from the monasteries. Riches ruined his romances. Few people know that his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was heiress to the Aragon tarragon herb fortune and in fact was richer than Henry. This caused untold domestic disturbances for Henry during their 24 year of wedded blisters. Henry spent most of his time in his Counting House counting out his money while being jealous of Cathy’s private sovereign wealth fund. Catherine in turn spent most of her time in her Parlour eating bread and tarragon flavoured honey. Unfortunately no matter how many times Henry counted his money it never added up to even a half of the wife’s pile. His nickname for her was Arrogant of Aragon because she began every day with a celebration in song of her overnight capital gains, written by the Songwriter Royal Sir Bob De Lun. It was along the lines of “The 12 days of Christmas” but instead of describing sentimental possessions like partridges in pear trees, it listed her assets in ascending order from farthings to sovereigns to five pound notes. The refrain was “….. and a million acres of Wales”. It was a bit tedious really and dangerously arrogant, even for an Aragon. Her daily rejoicing in her riches and her addiction to bread and honey and her growing weight problem ruined her marriage to Henry. The king tried to palm her off on Sir Bob, but he was too busy writing endless verses of “All along ye Royal Watchtower” to notice. Besides, he was often travelling around Merry England on Ye Never Ending Toure and Catherine didn’t fancy life on the road where one village inn was as rat infested and flea ridden as the next and the PA systems were rubbish.
King Henry eventually married Jane Seymour, a British American actress who went on to star in a 1990s TV series called “Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman”. In this role Jane adopted three children of a midwife friend who carelessly died of a rattlesnake bite. These children should have been adopted by King Henry to add to his tally of royal heirs but unfortunately he had died 450 years earlier of complications due to chronic pomposity. With hindsight this may have been for the best as one of the children was called Brian.
This name has been officially banned from Royal use since the time of King Brian. King Brian Boru was a 10th century Irish king who hated everything English and who completely defeated all the English thoroughbreds in the St Leger Stakes as a three-year-old at Doncaster in 2003. The royals have banned all Brians since then.
King Croesus of Lydia, the one who invented gold coins, was famous far and wide for his fabulous wealth. Not content with his inherited riches, he saw the writing on the palace wall and invested heavily in Phrygian property trusts and Mysian biotech stocks in the early sixth century BC and became the ancient world’s first bazillionaire.
But how did he go in the romance race? Looking high and low for love, he eventually married the servant girl who kneaded his bread dough. However marriage brought him no joy. His wife Buntolia went through more and more dough and King C. had to liquidate his assets at the bottom of the market, just as the gold price crashed. The Persians, sensing a fiscal weakness in the Croesus balance sheet, invaded Lydia and burnt down all of Buntolia’s bakeries. Unable to cope with a breadless, doughless existence, she committed suicide. King Croesus was burnt at the stake by the invading Persian king and all-round bully Cyrus the Great in 546 BC.
Though still rich, but loveless and wifeless, his last words were reported to be: “I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love”.
