Certainly the goal, if not the reality, of a huge number of arranged marriages in the past. A marriage alliance will hardly pan out if the linchpin people don't like each other.
Ancient
Pompey the Great married Julia, the daughter of his political ally Julius Caesar, in an effort to shore up their waning alliance. Despite the significant age difference between the two, they were so caught up in each other that many of Pompey's colleagues found it indecent. It is worth noting that Pompey and Caesar's true antagonism to each other didn't arise until after Julia's death, an event that seems to have devastated both men.
Vipsania Agrippina, the daughter of the famous military commander Agrippa, was betrothed to the future emperor Tiberius when she was less than 1 year old. Despite this extremely political start, once they actually got married, they fell in love and were very happy together. Unfortunately, it ended badly, as Tiberius's stepfather/adoptive father, Augustus ordered him to divorce her for his stepsister Julia, while Vipsania was pregnant with their second child, no less.note His stepfather could do that; the paterfamilias of a Roman family had absolute authority over his children even when they were adults, especially the female ones, and especially when he was also the emperor. When Tiberius saw Vipsania after the divorce, he actually burst into tears, which is a sign of how much he loved her because Roman men did not show emotion in public.note Unless they were lawyers trying to win a court case, in which case Manly Tears were occasionally fashionable, but now we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Medieval to early modern
Llewelyn ap Gruffudd, the last native Prince of Wales before it was conquered by the English, arranged a marriage for himself with Eleanor de Montfort, daughter of Simon de Montfort, because the latter was helping him to defend his crown and position. It turned out to be a genuine love match, despite an age difference of more than 20 years; Llewelyn is almost singularly unique among the Welsh princes for never having been known to take a mistress, and when Eleanor went the Death by Childbirth route bringing Princess Gwenllian into the world in 1282, Llewelyn lost it. He was persuaded by his younger half-brother Dafydd to enter a dangerous campaign against the English, something he had been steadily resisting in Eleanor's lifetime, and died in the fight. (Dafydd, who then took possession of the infant princess and claimed regency, is believed by many historians to have been instrumental in luring his brother into the trap which killed him. He was eventually captured and ultimately Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves by becoming the first person in recorded history to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.)
Behold, The Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabel I of Castile. Following the recommendations of their advisors (and, on Ferdinand's part, his father), they mutually arranged their marriage for purely political reasons—their marriage would unite the Castilian and Aragonese branches of the House of Trastámara and place all the Christian kingdoms of Iberia (save Portugal) under a single royal line. However, they were both young, reasonably attractive, and made a good team, and by all accounts, they got along tremendously (although not good enough to keep him from taking mistresses). Additionally, at least four of their five children and their most famous grandchild all had marriages like this—with the twist that it never ended well:
The eldest, Isabel, was betrothed to Afonso, the heir to the Portuguese crown, through a treaty in 1480. When they met in 1490, they quickly fell in love and had a happy marriage. However, it was short, because Afonso died under mysterious circumstances (he fell from his horse even though he was an excellent rider, and his Castilian valet had disappeared without a trace) that benefitted Isabel's parents. Isabel became grief-stricken, and the only reason she did not enter a convent was that her parents wouldn't allow it. She would eventually marry Afonso's uncle, King Manuel I of Portugal, but she died giving birth to their only child, Miguel. Miguel then died less than a month short of his second birthday, to the deep sadness of her parents (and their political disappointment, as they had hoped Miguel would unify the Iberian kingdoms). Isabel's younger sister, Maria, became Manuel's next wife; theirs was the only marriage involving the Catholic Monarchs' children that ended up as a boring late-medieval/early-modern royal marriage characterised by neither great love nor great tragedy.
Their only son, Juan, was betrothed to Margaret of Austria as part of an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximillian I. The two of them fell in love quickly and, apparently, spent a lot of time in bed together. However, an illness took him before their first anniversary.
Juana, their third child and (after the business with Isabel and Juan) heiress to the unified kingdom, married Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy, through the same alliance that married Juan and Margaret (Philip was Maximilian's only son and heir). The marriage turned out this way... too much. They literally fell in love at first sight,note Hardly surprising, considering they were both teenagers, of similar temperaments, and, oh yeah, attractive — he wasn't called Philip the Handsome for nothing, and Juana was by all portraits and accounts a stunning pale redhead. and they begged to have the marriage formalized the day they met so they could get it on right away. They had six children (including Holy Roman EmperorCharles V, the ruler of the first "empire on which the Sun never sets"). Eventually, things happened, and Juana started to get jealous—but she still loved Philip deeply. But then he died young, and her grief and her jealousy had some kind of wicked party in her head with a familial disposition towards insanity (in fact, it was something of a minor miracle that both of her parents were sound of mind, given that both were members of the ridiculously-inbred House of Trastamara). Hence the epithet "the Mad" - her father Ferdinand had to become Regent of Castile upon his daughter's ascension instead of ruling jointly until she inherited Aragon upon his death. She also carried around Philip's dead body on her travels, another reason for her to be considered mad. And she had him buried so that she could see his tomb from her bedroom's window. Poor mad girl indeed. Phillip the Handsome's death would require a trope of its own.
Perhaps Ferdinand and Isabella's most famous child was their fifth, Catalina—known to history as Catherine of Aragon. Betrothed to the English heir Arthur, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Henry VII of England, she went ahead and married him; we'll never know how good that marriage could have been, as Arthur died shortly after the wedding, which they probably didn't consummate. However, Arthur's younger brother, the new heir Henry, was a well-educated and boisterous-but-goodhearted young man, and Catherine apparently found him charming, at least in an amusing-boy way. The English court (after some hemming and hawing) thus decided it would be best if Henry married his brother's widow—even though this required special dispensation from the Pope. The marriage was very happy for the better part of its 24-year existence (although not happy enough to keep Henry from taking mistresses)—but of course, we all know how it ended...
The aforementioned Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor—son of Juana the Mad and Philip the Handsome—initially selected his very competent cousin Isabella of Portugal (Manuel I and Maria's eldest daughter) to be his wife for purely political reasons. When they met for the first time (to finalize the agreement), however, they fell intensely in love with each other almost at once. They honeymooned for several months at the Alhambra in Granada, where he ordered the seeds of a red carnation, which delighted her. He then ordered thousands more to be planted in her honour, establishing it as Spain's floral emblem. As a sign of how happy the marriage truly was, he remained faithful to her for as long as she lived. Despite their mutual affection, their marriage was not easy due to his constant absences. She wrote to him regularly, but often spent months without receiving letters, and he was even absent when she died. He was so distraught that he retired to a monastery for two whole months of mourning.note He would later return to the monastery after too many years fighting the Wars of Religion in Central Europe led him to abdicate the throne completely. Even on a practical level, her death was a big blow - she had been ruling Spain as regent during his absences and there were few people he could trust as much as his very competent wife to take care of business there. He never emotionally recovered from her death; wearing black for the rest of his life and never remarryingnote though he had an affair long after her death. In her memory, he commissioned portraits, which he kept with him whenever he was. As he was dying, he held the same cross she had held as she had passed.
In Spain, Ferdinand VI married the Portuguese princess Barbara of Braganza in an arrangement with Portugal, while his stepsister Mariana Victoria married Barbara's brother, the future king Joseph I. He was 16 and she was 18. While he was disappointed by her at first because she wasn't very beautiful in looks or proportions, they got to know each other better when they were stuck at house arrests, partly because of Ferdinand's cold stepmother Elisabeth Farnese, who was ambitious and only cared about the future of her biological children. Barbara shared her husband's love for music, and despite they only had a stillborn son, they were happy together. Ferdinand was lonely and had never known a mother's love due to his mother passing away when he was 5 months old; he had also suffered his brothers' deaths and their lack of contact with his father Philip V. As a result, Barbara was a good influence on him and filled the void in his heart, and he valued her precious advice. When she fell ill and died in 1758, Ferdinand was heartbroken. He stopped signing documents a month after her death, he ate less and less and fasted more and more, became mentally unstable, neglected his hygiene, became thinner and paler with time and tried to commit suicide multiple times, asking weapons to stab himself with or poisons to inhale, which the guards always refused. After losing his beloved Barbara, poor Ferdinand lost his will to live without her, and he reunited with her in death one year later, depressed and malnourished at 45 with no children to whom he could pass the crown, so his stepbrother Charles III became king.
Speaking of Charles, he married Maria Amalia of Saxony in 1737. Their marriage was arranged, and she was 13 when they married, while he was 21. He fell in love with her, and they shared a competence with the affairs of State, a love for hunting, and both promoted cultures. They lived happily and faithfully for years, with thirteen children, and were very popular in Naples. Maria Amalia died just one year after her husband became King of Spain, and it was a hard blow for him. Charles III stated that before his wife died, she never upset him once. Pious and disciplined, Charles never remarried and survived her by 28 years.
A number of cases of Altar Diplomacy between conquistadores and native noblewomen turned out to be this, like Alonso de Ojeda's marriage to the Coquivacoan Isabel, or Vasco Núñez de Balboa's to Anayansi, or Gonzalo de Sandoval to Isabel of Tizatlan.
As with all tropes associated with royalty, the monarchies of the various British kingdoms are rich in examples of this one:
William I, more commonly known as William The Conqueror, married Matilda of Flanders sometime in the early 1050s. He was a bastard and she was from a very storied family that ruled over a geographically strategic area so he originally wanted to marry her to shore up his own position. However, she spurned him at first believing he was beneath her. She changed her mind after he allegedly pulled her from her horse by her hair on the way to church in a fit of rage for turning him down. Whether or not this story is true, their marriage was personally successful. They truly loved each other and she bore him at least nine children, four of whom were sons. She became a trusted partner and companion to him, even ruling in his stead for long periods of time. Despite his descendants having a reputation for licentiousness, note Their son Henry I had roughly two dozen children with only two of them being legitimate. it would seem that he remained faithful to her for the 30 some odd years they were married. There’s no record of him ever having a mistress or illegitimate child and her death is said to have destroyed him. He only outlived her by four years, although he died from internal wounds caused by a horseback riding accident and not ill health.
Henry III was devoted to his queen, Eleanor of Provence, whom he was married to so England could forge alliances in southern France to strengthen their slipping grip on Gascony.
Edward I was fortunate in having this with both his marriages.
With his first wife, Eleanor of Castilenote Incidentally, a paternal-line great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great aunt of the aforementioned Isabella of Castile. They were famously devoted to each other, having married quite young at 15 and 12 respectively as part of an alliance between his father, Henry III of England, and her half-brother, Alfonso X of Castile. Despite having only met each other the day before the wedding, Edward and Eleanor became virtually inseparable over their 36 years of marriage, and Edward was never known to have taken any mistresses. Utterly distraught when Eleanor died in 1290, Edward accompanied his beloved wife's body back to London and ordered the construction of memorial crosses at every place where Eleanor's body rested for the night, the Eleanor crosses, some of which still survive.
With his second wife, Margaret of France. Despite a 40-year age gap (he was 60, she was 20), they were said to have been extremely happy. She was kind and loving, and was a very Good Stepmother to his children by his first wife. She was known for her unjealous nature, attending memorial services for Eleanor with him and even naming their own daughter Eleanor after her. When he died, after just 8 years of happy marriage and despite her only being 28, she never remarried, famously saying, "When he died, all men died for me". She remained close to her stepchildren though, even attending the births of their children.
Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault are indicated by many historical records to have been this, complete with ten children. He has no record of illegitimate children during their marriage. She frequently governed England on his behalf while he was fighting in the Hundred Years' War.
Richard II and his first wife Anne of Bohemia, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, married basically as the result of a papal schism (the Roman Pope, Urban VI, urged an alliance against Team Avignon), and while the marriage was very unpopular initially — Richard had to lend his new brother-in-law (Emperor-elect Wenceslaus IV) a substantial sum to pay for Anne's journey to England, while Wenceslaus couldn't afford to provide Anne with a dowry — it was a huge success at the personal level, and Richard and Anne soon proved to be inseparable; they didn't even really maintain separate households, as was usual with medieval monarchs. Richard was, unusually for a medieval English king, genuinely interested in his wife's culture and indulgent of her large retinue, and although they were unable to have children, Richard never held it against Anne (the traditional practice at the time was to blame infertility on the woman). When she died, possibly of plague, in 1394, Richard was utterly devastated; he assaulted the Earl of Arundel for being late to her funeral and asking to leave earlynote Richard had some bad blood with Arundel, it must be said, and some of this involved Arundel having a history of disrespecting Anne, and he later had the palace of Sheen, where she had died, torn down. It is likely that Richard's grief for Anne contributed to the general instability he experienced in the final years of his reign, leading to his deposition and murder.
Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, parents of Henry VIII, also fell into this. Their marriage was arranged by their politically ambitious mothers Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville, who were jointly eager to oust Richard III: Margaret because her son was the least-implausible Lancastrian claimant, Elizabeth because she (probably correctly) suspected her brother-in-law the King of having her sons (the Princes in the Tower) murdered. Elizabeth's claim to the throne (being the eldest child of Edward IV and his senior heir after the death of her brothers) was a mite stronger than the young Tudor heir's (being a maternal-line great-grandson of a legitimised bastard grandson of Edward III), but Henry was a man and the Tudors were better able to raise an army (through their Welsh connections). By uniting the claims, they both had a better chance of success. The couple accepted it without much complaint and while they barely knew each other on their wedding day, they came to truly love each other within the first few years. It also helped that Elizabeth was the World's Most Beautiful Woman of the day of her day and while Henry was a bit miserly, he was pious and generally good-hearted. Elizabeth was not a particularly politically active queen, but he trusted her and respected her opinion above anyone else. Unlike their son, who was a known womanizer even after marriage, historians have never found any evidence to suggest Henry was unfaithful to his wife at any point in time; his only rumored illegitimate child was born at least a decade before their marriage. Notably, when Elizabeth died in childbirth on her 37th birthday, Henry was so depressed that he became gravely ill. He allowed no one but his mother to come near him for weeks and weeks. He was young enough that he could have remarried and was urged by his advisors to do so, but could never bring himself to do it. When he briefly tried to humor the idea, his description of what he desired in a new wife was basically just "clone of Elizabeth". He passed away from tuberculosis only six years after she did.
Mary, Queen of Scots, Henry and Elizabeth's famous great-granddaughter, was married three times. The second marriage went badly and the third was worse, but the first one by all accounts was this trope. She was sent to live at the French court when she was five years old in order to be raised alongside her future husband, the Dauphin Francis; they were married when they were in their early teens, and contemporary records all agree that the pair adored one another. Francis's father, Henry II, observed that from the moment they first met they spoke like they'd known each other all their lives, and that his son considered Mary the most beautiful creature in existence. A little over a year after they married, Henry died, and Francis and Mary became the rulers of France and Scotland jointly. Unfortunately, they never had children (and possibly never consummated the marriage, as there is reason to believe Francis II was impotent due to health problems), and the young king died of a cerebral abscess at the age of 16 after only one year as king. Mary grieved extensively and actually wore her mourning hood at her second wedding; she kept a picture of Francis with her for the rest of her life. She requested that after her death, her body be returned to France to be entombed with his, but she was denied.
Anne of Great Britain and Prince George of Denmark. The marriage was arranged by Anne's uncle Charles II and was a devoted and loving one despite the terrible back luck that Anne had with her several pregnancies.
The British monarchs of The House of Hanover produced three of these.note Queen Victoria and Prince Albert don't count. Rather than being set up by their parents or governments and falling in love after the marriage, they married because, of Victoria's multiple eligible royal suitors, Albert was the one she fell in love with. Not quite the same.
George II and his wife Caroline of Ansbach were Happily Married and devoted to each other. George particularly relied on Caroline's advice in politics, as she was universally acknowledged as a much shrewder player than her husband. They were happy even in spite of his constant philandering—she knew of and cleared all his mistresses ahead of time, vetting them for both personal flaws and potential political entanglements, though she veered him towards her ladies-in-waiting so that she could keep an eye on him. Caroline's high intelligence and competency in the affairs of State made her regent four times when George was away. He never remarried after her death: Caroline begged him on her deathbed to remarry when she was gone, but he was so certain no woman could replace her that he replied tearfully, "Non, j'aurais des maîtresses!" ("No, I shall have mistresses!").
George II's grandson and successor George III, despite only meeting Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz on their wedding day, was Happily Married to her. He and Charlotte were absolutely devoted to one another, even to the point where they would take walks together in the English countryside dressed as relatively ordinary gentry with absolutely minimal security. Unlike his grandfather and father—and most of his sons—he never took a mistress. Together they had fifteen children (eleven of whom lived past the age of 60).
George III's third son William IV was originally reluctant to make a political marriage, choosing instead to live unmarried for twenty years with an unsuitable Irish actress (by whom he had 10 children). However, after that relationship ended, he married the German princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meningen as a political match—and a financial one (he had been deeply in debt before the marriage). The marriage got off to a rocky start: William famously treated the wedding ceremony as a joke, offending the pious Adelaide. However, with time, the marriage proved to be a happy one; William does not appear to have strayed much if at all, and he treated her as a confidante and advisor as well as a beloved wife (much as his great-grandfather George II had treated his great-grandmother Caroline). He even began to take going to church somewhat seriously. The British public noticed, and credited Adelaide for "taming" William (who had been somewhat unpopular as a prince because of his dissolute personal habits); this is why the capital of South Australia, founded in William's reign, was named "Adelaide". For her part, Adelaide was happy to treat her husband's illegitimate children almost as her own - especially the youngest ones, as none of her own children with William survived infancy. She also shared her husband's great affection for his niece and heiress presumptive Victoria; Victoria's mother's incessant snubs to Adelaide were the trigger for William's famous announcement that his only mission in life was to live just long enough to allow Victoria to become Queen without a regency. (He just barely did, to Victoria's eternal gratitude.)
Princess Mary of Teck (Elizabeth II's paternal grandmother) was engaged to marry Prince Albert Victor, second-in-line to the throne and her second cousin (her mother was Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, daughter of the youngest surviving son of George III, Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, and cousin of Queen Victoria), but he died of influenza six weeks into their engagement. Queen Victoria subsequently set up Mary with the new second-in-line, Albert Victor's shy younger brother George (the future King George V), and the couple were soon pressured into an engagement by their families. Nonetheless, they quickly fell in love and remained devoted to each other throughout their lives. Unlike his father (the notorious womanizer Edward VII), he never had mistresses and always wrote to her when he was away.
Ottoman Empire:
Beyhan Sultan(who is also a supporting character in Magnificent Century), was more loyal to her husband, Ferhat Pasha, than her family.
Ismihan Kaya Sultan's marriage started off poorly (she threatened her husband with a knife on her wedding day; and she was 13 while he was in his mid-fifties). However, according to Ottoman traveler Evliya Celebi, none of the princesses and their husbands got on as well as Kaya and Melek. She was also important to her husband’s career. When she died in childbirth aged 26, Melek reportedly wept uncontrollably on her coffin.
The marriage between Princess Elizabeth of Hungary and Landgrave Ludwig IV of Thuringia. It certainly helped that she went to live with his family when they were both children and got to befriend each other first, thus making them also Victorious Childhood Friends. Ludwig was a staunch supporter of Elizabeth's religious and charitable work, despite the disapproval of the rest of his family. After he died, she ran away from both her in-laws and her own family and preferred to become a nun rather than remarry. She was later named a saint.
The case of Elisabeth of Austria and Franz Josef spawned one of these - but not for Sisi and Franz Josef themselves. While they got along decently for royals, inasmuch as they didn't really fight (though he probably got two or three mistresses over the life of their marriage), Franz Josef was way more into Sisi than she was into him; as the free-spirited Sisi found the ultraconservative Franz Josef a little stiff. Instead, it was Helene of Wittelsbach, Sisi's older sister, whose Arranged Marriage with Prince Maximilian of Thurn and Taxis turned out to be very happy. Indeed, Nene was the onlyHappily Married one among the veryunlucky-in-love Wittesbach sisters until Maximilian died of kidney failure at the age of 36. Helene never remarried, and turned to philanthropy and managing the family businesses to ease her loneliness. The particularly ironic part of the whole thing is Helene was originally intended for Franz Josef.
Sarah Forbes Bonetta was forced into a marriage with James Pinson Labulo Davies, which she initially refused, citing the fact that she did not truly love him (or even know him). Eventually, she agreed to marry him, and they were Happily Married for nearly 20 years until her death in 1880.
, the last native Prince of Wales before it was conquered by the English, arranged a marriage for himself with Eleanor de Montfort, daughter of Simon de Montfort, because the latter was helping him to defend his crown and position. It turned out to be a genuine love match, despite an age difference of more than 20 years; Llewelyn is almost singularly unique among the Welsh princes for never having been known to take a mistress, and when Eleanor went the Death by Childbirth route bringing Princess Gwenllian into the world in 1282, Llewelyn lost it. He was persuaded by his younger half-brother Dafydd to enter a dangerous campaign against the English, something he had been steadily resisting in Eleanor's lifetime, and died in the fight. (Dafydd, who then took possession of the infant princess and claimed regency, is believed by many historians to have been instrumental in luring his brother into the trap which killed him. He was eventually captured and ultimately Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves by becoming the first person in recorded history to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.)