History Main / AltarDiplomacy

** In the [[AllThereInTheManual audio-drama backstory scenes]], Emperor Charles tried to arrange this between a Britannian royal and someone from one of Japan's [[HereditaryRepublic important houses]], Kururugi or Sumeragi. Unfortunately, it ended up being the six-year-old Princess Nunnally, and Suzaku's father. So, of course, Nunnally's older brother Lelouch found a way to stop it from happening. Now, [[BestFriendsInLaw if it had been Suzaku and not his father]], [[ForWantOfANail it might have prevented the war...]] Of course, Charles's plans ''required'' conquering the [[{{Unobtainium}} sakuradite]] rich land of Japan so this was likely [[BatmanGambit on purpose]].

[[/folder]]

* Endless during the Spanish conquest of America, where the indigenous elites weaved alliances with the new power on board by marrying off their daughters to notable Spaniards, just like they used to do among them up to that point. Conquistadores themselves saw it as an absolute win, as many of them came from poverty in Spain, yet by this way they received free women, free high status in the native societies, and free rich inheritances added to what they conquered themselves (and often, they would even [[LoopholeAbuse capitalize]] on the indigenous custom of polygamy to keep married to natives wives by the native rite while marrying others by the Christian rite, although generally all children were legitimized). Almost all notable conquistadores did it with native noblewomen, such as Alonso de Ojeda with the Coquivacoan Isabel, UsefulNotes/HernanCortez with the Aztec princess Isabel de Moztecuma, Pedro de Alvarado with the Tlaxcaltec María Luisa, UsefulNotes/FranciscoPizarro with the Inca ladies Inés and Angelina Yupanqui, and many others.

** And the supreme champion within the dynasty is [[UsefulNotes/CharlesV Karl V von Habsburg]], who through his own marriages and those of his parents inherited Austria, the Habsburg Netherlands, the crown of the Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom of Spain (which included roughly half of Italy and an increasing chunk of America). In fact, he inherited so many realms that he couldn't manage them all, so he finally abdicated and split his possessions in two, giving the Spanish crown to his son UsefulNotes/PhilipII and the Austrian (and by extension Holy Roman) crown to his brother Ferdinand (and thence to his nephew Maximilian and his wife, Karl's daughter Maria). And thanks to Karl's marriage to the daughter to the King of Portugal, Isabella, Philip II got to inherit ''that'' kingdom too along with Spain. Philip II tried to add England (and Ireland and Wales) as well, through marriage to UsefulNotes/MaryTudor, but failed to produce an heir.[[note]]Philip later [[UsefulNotes/AngloSpanishWar15851604 tried to take England by force]] during the reign of [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethI his widow's sister]], but it didn't work.[[/note]] Eventually, the Spanish Habsburgs decided not to allow another family to take their holdings through the same means, and started marrying among themselves (and occasionally their Austrian cousins) only. Within a few generations, this inbreeding drove them extinct--and passed the Spanish throne to another family (the French House of Bourbon) [[{{Irony}} based on one of the few outside marriages they had allowed]] (between Philip IV's daughter Maria Theresa and UsefulNotes/LouisXIV--though not before the Austrian Habsburgs [[UsefulNotes/WarOfTheSpanishSuccession tried to nab it for themselves]]).

* After the defeat of UsefulNotes/RichardIII at Bosworth Field, [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseofTudor Henry Tudor]] married the daughter of UsefulNotes/EdwardIV, Elizabeth of York, uniting the warring houses of Lancaster and York. Historians consider this the end of the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses, though rebellions continued through the reign of Henry and Elizabeth's son, UsefulNotes/HenryVIII. Interestingly, Richard III had planned an alliance with Portugal with himself marrying a Portuguese princess and Elizabeth of York marrying the future king of Portugal. This would have drastically changed pretty much all of European history and beyond had it happened.

This is essentially marriage as a negotiation tactic--or more precisely, as the final step which seals a contract they already negotiated.

** Don Chinjao has planned to have his grandson Sai, the leader of the Happo Navy, to marry the daughter of the general of the Nippo Navy as a bridge for the two navies to merge and become stronger. Sai in the end decides not to, though, and his grandfather says he's proud of him.
** This is the driving force behind the ArrangedMarriage between [[spoiler:Vinsmoke Sanji]] and Charlotte Pudding. The groom's dad is the EmperorScientist Vinsmoke Judge, the bride's mother Charlotte "Big Mom" Linlin is the Queen of Whole Cake Island and one of the Four Emperors. The goal of the groom's family is to gain military might, since they know that they'll likely soon be declared an outlaw nation. [[spoiler:Too bad Big Mom was using Pudding as a HoneyTrap and planning to kill all the Vinsmokes during the wedding itself in order to steal their research.]]

* To Princess Fiona in ''WesternAnimation/Shrek1'': Farquaad sends Shrek to rescue her so he can marry her and officially call himself king. It is later revealed in ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2'': Fiona had been betrothed to Prince Charming so that he might one day become king of Far Far Away. [[spoiler:This was for her father to repay the Fairy Godmother for turning him human so he could be with Fiona's mother]]. Neither of these marriages took place as Fiona ends up falling in love with and marrying Shrek.
* It happens in ''WesternAnimation/CorpseBride'', albeit between a NouveauRiche family and a noble but bankrupt OldMoney family rather than between countries. The fiances Victor and Victoria are dreading it as they want to MarryForLove... until they see each other and it's LoveAtFirstSight. They would have been happily married right then and there had Victor not messed up the marriage proposal and decided to rehearse by placing the ring on a stick that was actually the finger of a murdered bride. Cue the titular Corpse Bride trying to keep him for herself.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie2TheSecondPart'', this is eventually revealed to be the motivation of Queen Watevera's plans; by marrying [[WesternAnimation/TheLEGOBatmanMovie Batman]], who she perceives as the leader of Apocalypseburg, she believes it will finally unite their warring worlds in peace.

** There's also an allusion to the fact that Henry's parents married for diplomatic reasons as well. [[note]]In real life, Francois I was the one who made a reluctant Spanish marriage; being forced to marry Charles V's sister in order to get out of captivity. Incidentally, neither of his two queens was named Marie. However, both marriages were unhappy.[[/note]]

** Exploited by Jacob's sons, who were angry that the prince of Shechem raped their little sister Dinah and asked for her hand in marriage from her family, [[ValuesDissonance this was considered an apology for assault back than]]. They accept the marriage, on the grounds that an alliance between their burgeoning tribe and the city-state of Shechem would be advantageous to both... OnOneCondition: namely, that every male be circumcised like them. The Shechemites do this, and while the men and boys of the city are recovering, Jacob's sons go in and slaughter them, take the women and children as plunder, and rescue Dinah from the prince's tent. Jacob is not happy that they did this, however; he was upset that no one would trust their tribe after his sons had [[AggressiveNegotiations taken advantage of diplomacy]] to RapePillageAndBurn an [[MisplacedRetribution entire city]].
** {{Inverted}} in the Literature/BookOfEsther, though. A [[WorldsMostBeautifulWoman very beautiful]] [[GuileHero and very clever]] Jewish young woman named Esther was taken as a harem concubine by King Ahasuerus of Persia, eventually becoming his favorite, and used her connection to the king to protect the Jews from a genocide instigated by his EvilChancellor Haman.

* Some adaptations of ''Myth/RobinHood'' have shades of this, as Robin was a Saxon and Marion a Norman, a century and a half after the Norman conquest of Saxon England.

** During their take on ''Cinderella'' Agatha, playing the protagonist, points out the diplomatic opportunity cost of letting princes simply marry some random girl they meet at a ball. Later, Gil and Tarvek (sharing the prince's role) comment that if this ball scheme of theirs doesn't work they'll have to marry the mole princesses.

** Also a bit of an UnbuiltTrope: The Egyptians seem to have studiously kept these foreign wives well away from the succession; they always made sure that the seniormost members of the pharaoh's harem were Egyptian royals and nobles. (While some Egyptologists in the 20th century suggested for various reasons that one or both of Akhenaten's most famous wives--Nefertiti and Kiya--might have been foreign,[[note]]And in particular that one or the other was Tadukhipa under a different name[[/note]] modern consensus is that both were of thoroughly Egyptian stock.) The closest any foreigner ever came to inheriting the Egyptian throne[[note]]Setting aside dynasties of foreigners who seized the throne by force, of course.[[/note]] was with Amenhotep III himself, whose mother ''seems'' to have been of at least partial Nubian ancestry, but then by that point Nubia had been annexed to Egypt for generations and the Nubian elite almost completely Egyptianized culturally. And it seems to have been widely known in the Ancient Near East that the Egyptians did this. So what we usually think of as the reason for royal marriage alliances--that the heir to the throne will have a blood tie to the allied state--goes out the window, and it seems that, when dealing with the Egyptians, the ancient powers of the Egyptians saw sending a bride to the land of the Nile as more of a friendly hostage situation than trying to forge permanent family ties to the Egyptian royals.

** Exploited by Jacob's sons, who were angry that the prince of Shechem a) raped their little sister Dinah and asked for her hand in marriage from her family, [[ValuesDissonance this was considered an apology for assault back than]]). They accept the marriage, on the grounds that an alliance between their burgeoning tribe and the city-state of Shechem would be advantageous to both... OnOneCondition: namely, that every male be circumcised like them. The Shechemites do this, and while the men and boys of the city are recovering, Jacob's sons go in and slaughter them, take the women and children as plunder, and rescue Dinah from the prince's tent. Jacob is not happy that they did this, however; he was upset that no one would trust their tribe after his sons had [[AggressiveNegotiations taken advantage of diplomacy]] to RapePillageAndBurn an [[MisplacedRetribution entire city]].

** Exploited by Jacob's sons, who were angry that the prince of Shechem a) raped their little sister Dinah and b) then had the nerve to ask for her hand in marriage. They accept the marriage, on the grounds that an alliance between their burgeoning tribe and the city-state of Shechem would be advantageous to both... OnOneCondition: namely, that every male be circumcised like them. The Shechemites do this, and while the men and boys of the city are recovering, Jacob's sons go in and slaughter them, take the women and children as plunder, and rescue Dinah from the prince's tent. Jacob is not happy that they did this, however; he was worried they would start a CycleOfRevenge.

* To Princess Fiona in ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'': Farquaad sends Shrek to rescue her so he can marry her and officially call himself king. It is later revealed in ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2'': Fiona had been betrothed to Prince Charming so that he might one day become king of Far Far Away. [[spoiler:This was for her father to repay the Fairy Godmother for turning him human so he could be with Fiona's mother]]. Neither of these marriages took place as Fiona ends up falling in love with and marrying Shrek.

A RebelliousPrincess (and occasionally RebelPrince) is often found [[RunawayBride running away from]] or fighting against an expectation that she will marry for her kingdom. TheDutifulSon is likely to go through with such a marriage, regardless of his own wishes. This may be a bone of contention between [[FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling carefree and responsible siblings]], one of whom does what's good for their family while the other can't give up their freedom to make this match. TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask, the EvilPrince, or even the WisePrince may arrange such marriages for themselves out of either responsibility or ambition. Corporate executives ([[HonestCorporateExecutive Honest]] or [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Corrupt]]) may see the good business sense in it.

* The [[UrExample earliest documented cases]] come from UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory: the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna_Letters Amarna Letters]] of the 14th century BC show that the Egyptian pharaohs married foreign princesses from Mittani (a kingdom in northern Mesopotamia) and Babylon as an assurance of the powers' mutual good intentions in Canaan, and it is undisputed that UsefulNotes/RamsesII (of the Nineteenth Dynasty, during the 13th century BC) married a Hittite princess to cement/shore up a peace treaty/alliance with Hatti.

* The [[UrExample earliest documented cases]] come from UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory: the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna_Letters Amarna Letters]] of the 14th century BC show that the Egyptian pharaons married foreign princesses from Mittani (a kingdom in northern Mesopotamia) and Babylon as an assurance of the powers' mutual good intentions in Canaan, and it is undisputed that UsefulNotes/RamsesII (of the Nineteenth Dynasty, during the 13th century BC) married a Hittite princess to cement/shore up a peace treaty/alliance with Hatti.

** The earliest clear example--coming directly from the Amarna Letters--involve brides from Mittani coming to the court of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. Mittani had historically been a rival/enemy of Egypt in the Great Power struggle over the Levant; Thutmose III in particular had made much of his campaigns against them. But by the time of Amenhotep III (Thutmose III's great-grandson), the geopolitical situation had changed, and Mittani was now an ally of Egypt. To shore up this alliance, Amenhotep married the Mittani princess Gilukhipa, daughter of Mittani King Shuttarna II, in c. 1378 BCE. This is mostly interesting because in c. 1352 BCE--yes, ''26 years'' later--Shuttarna's son Tushratta sent his own daughter Tadukhipa to join Amenhotep III's harem (yeah, Amenhotep III reigned that long). What's more, she may have married his son UsefulNotes/{{Akhenaten}} after he died.

** As an interesting corollary, for several centuries the Egyptians studiously refused to send their own princesses to foreign powers--the flow of royal ladies was always strictly one-way. This was apparently a matter of prestige--''they'' come to ''us'', not the other way around. (The aforementioned Tushratta, either not understanding this or understanding it but miffed about it, sent Amenhotep III several missives begging to be sent an Egyptian royal bride--or heck, even an Egyptian non-royal bride--as part of the Tadukhipa deal, arguing it was only fair; he eventually relented after several rounds of getting nowhere with this tack.) Quite the opposite way of thinking from the aforementioned Chinese ''heqin''.

** Also a bit of an UnbuiltTrope: The Egyptians seem to have studiously kept these foreign wives well away from the succession; they always made sure that the seniormost members of the pharaoh's harem were Egyptian royals and nobles. (While some Egyptologists in the 20th century suggested for various reasons that one or both of Akhenaten's most famous wives--Nefertiti and Kiya--were foreign,[[note]]And in particular that one or the other was Tadukhipa under a different name[[/note]] modern consensus is that both were of thoroughly Egyptian stock.) The closest any foreigner ever came to inheriting the Egyptian throne[[note]]Setting aside dynasties of foreigners who seized the throne by force, of course.[[/note]] was with Amenhotep III himself, whose mother ''seems'' to have been of at least partial Nubian ancestry, but then by that point Nubia had been annexed to Egypt for generations and the Nubian elite almost completely Egyptianized culturally. And it seems to have been widely known in the Ancient Near East that the Egyptians did this. So what we usually think of as the reason for royal marriage alliances--that the heir to the throne will have a blood tie to the allied state--goes out the window, and it seems that, when dealing with the Egyptians, the ancient powers of the Egyptians saw sending a bride to the land of the Nile as more of a friendly hostage situation than trying to forge permanent family ties to the Egyptian royals.

** The earliest clear example--coming directly from the Amarna Letters--involve brides from Mittani coming to the court of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. Mittani had historically been a rival/enemy of Egypt in the Great Power struggle over the Levant; Thutmose III in particular had made much of his campaigns against them. But by the time of Amenhotep III (Thutmose III's great-grandson), the geopolitical situation had changed, and Mittani was now an ally of Egypt. To shore up this alliance, Amenhotep married the Mittani princess Gilukhipa, daughter of Mittani King Shuttarna II, in c. 1378 BCE. This is mostly interesting because in c. 1352 BCE--yes, ''26 years'' later--Shuttarna's son Tushratta sent his own daughter Tadukhipa to join Amenhotep III's harem (yeah, Amenhotep III reigned that long) and may have married [[UsefulNotes/{{Akhenaten}} his son]] after he died.

** As an interesting corollary, for several centuries the Egyptians studiously refused to send their own princesses to foreign powers--the flow of royal ladies was always strictly one-way. This was apparently a matter of prestige--''they'' come to ''us'', not the other way around. (The aforementioned Tushratta, either not understanding this or understanding it but miffed about it, sent Amenhotep III several missives begging to be sent an Egyptian royal bride--or heck, even an Egyptian non-royal bride--as part of the Tadukhipa deal, arguing it was only fair; he eventually relented after several rounds of getting nowhere with this tack.)

* The [[UrExample earliest documented cases]] come from UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory: the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna_Letters Amarna Letters]] of the 14th century BC strongly suggest that the pharaohs of the Egyptian Eighteenth Dynasty exchanged princesses with the Kings of Assyria and Mittani as assurances of goodwill respecting the two Great Powers' intentions in Canaan, and it is undisputed that UsefulNotes/RamsesII (of the Nineteenth Dynasty, during the 13th century BC) married a Hittite princess to cement/shore up a peace treaty/alliance with Hatti.

* The film ''Dangerous Beauty'' revolves around a [[HighClassCallGirl courtesan]] in [[UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance Renaissance]]-era UsefulNotes/{{Venice}}, who took up the profession because [[DeliberateValuesDissonance social custom dictated]] that she, a commoner, could not marry her beloved, a powerful nobleman. Later, he lets her know that he is getting married to someone else, the daughter of another powerful nobleman, whose influence would be very helpful to the city-state. [[TakeAThirdOption They still manage to be together because he is her favorite client.]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Monstress}}'': The Baroness of the Last Dusk [[spoiler:(Tuya)]] arranges to marry the Sword of the East (Maika's aunt) on the grounds that she doesn't trust her further than she can throw her, and she needs an actual guarantee in order to secure the alliance between the Dusk and Dawn courts.