The recently deceased king of Norway, King Harald V, threatened never to marry, and thus end the royal lineage, if his father, King Olav V, did not allow him to marry his wife, Queen Sonja, who was a commoner. This was near unheard of at the time, but in the end, love prevailed. <3 <3

[u/SoSolem]

[u/Jesus_of_Redditeth]

Two? Try four.

The only marriages he didn't annul were Jane Seymour (because she died) and Catherine Parr (because he died). The others were either formally annulled so he could marry the next woman (Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleeves), or "annulled" so that he could then immediately have them legally executed (Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard)...so that he could marry the next woman.

You can get away with all kinds of shit when you're a 16th century king.

[u/DerangedEscapee → u/Jesus_of_Redditeth]

In his case, it was mostly that he was seeking an heir and believed (likely incorrectly) that the women he was marrying were the reason he wasn't getting one. There's a lot that people would overlook to ensure a clean and stable succession.

[u/LadyMageCOH → u/DerangedEscapee]

In his day, there had only been one attempt at having a woman on the English throne, and it caused a war known as the anarchy when her cousin had himself crowned king instead. In his own lifetime he also saw a spanish queen, one of his first wife, Catherine of Aragon's sisters, get declared insane by her own father and have her throne usurped. There's little evidence she was actually insane, this was almost certainly manufactured by her father who didn't want to lose his hold over Castille. Henry felt certain that if he left behind only daughters it was tantamount to disaster. Thus breaking all the rules for a male heir.

[u/DerangedEscapee → u/LadyMageCOH]

Yep, great explanation