Law Ammusement
Surreal law facts
The truth is always stranger than fiction.
The 3-year old bride
The French are different in their own right but when it comes to young brides, they make Sharia law look like choir boy law, no pun intended.
Anyway, Charles was a young French royal heir, while only 13, in 1482, he married an Austrian women, girl, infant, all of three years old, but with a sizeable dowry.
After the marriage, she moved to Paris and her care was entrusted to the King of France, Charles' father, Louis XI.
Months later, Louis XI died and Charles became Charles VIII of France. Since his marriage to the young Margaret had not been consummated (Pope Innocent VII later confirmed this), Charles VIII married someone else (Anne of Britanny) and returned Margaret to Austria in 1493 along with her dowry.
Ever weirder than all of this, Anne was only 14 when she married Charles. But since this new Queen of France had been previously married to Margaret's father, when she was only 13 (1490) that made her his mother-in-law!
Conservative lawyers
When Queen Mary II died of smallpox, in 1694, her widow, the bisexual King William III ordered all judges and lawyers to attend court wearing black gowns, as a token of public mourning for the Queen.
The order was never formally rescinded and, anyway, the lawyers liked having their own distinct uniform, and the stark, intimidating presence the garb gave them in court.
Even though the funeral for Queen Mary II is long over (!), lawyers around the world still wear black gowns in Court. In the British Columbia Supreme Court, during trials at which he acts as counsel to a party, the author has to wear a black gown, black pants and shoes, black vest but white shirt and white legal tabs.
Source: www.duhaime.org.
