Wife bewitched me, says E Cape royal

Senior member says wife does not act in respectful manner

● Never mind Megxit, the storm rocking one of SA’s royal households makes the Sussexes’ split from Queen Elizabeth look like a playground squabble.

A high-profile member of the royal family in the Eastern Cape is seeking a divorce from his wife, claiming she is divisive, does not treat him in the manner he should be treated and is hostile to his family and employees.

In court papers filed in the high court in Grahamstown on January 14, he also claims she has tried to bewitch him with muti. He says that before they married, she told him she was a medical doctor when she was not, claimed she had no children when she did, and promised he could take another wife of royal lineage, then changed her mind.

The Sunday Times may not name those involved, but the particulars of the claim reveal the royal has reached the end of his tether with the way his wife has treated him and those he holds dear.

The royal’s lawyers claim his wife’s “gross dishonesty and disrespectful conduct” towards him caused “much acrimony between them and this impacted negatively on their matrimonial relationship” and caused many quarrels between the couple.

They claim she had “obstructed” him from assisting family members who were dependent on him. She also treated his family “badly, is divisive and has been hostile towards the general assistants and workers employed in the great palace”.

“The defendant betrayed the trust of the plaintiff at the inception of the relationship and occasioned severe embarrassment to him and the entire royal family,” with her lies, the court papers read.

He claims that before they were married, his wife said she had no children. “But after preparations for [the] marriage had been finalised and could not be reversed without occasioning the plaintiff and his court much embarrassment, she disclosed to him that a child was born of her intimate relationship with a third-party adult male.

“She had a protection order against the father of her child to deter the plaintiff from probing into such relationship further, yet she thereafter misrepresented to the plaintiff that the father of the child had died, but the plaintiff later discovered that he was still alive.”

The papers also claim the wife “often absented herself from the matrimonial home without furnishing any reason” to her husband.

“The defendant frequently hurled vile abuse at the plaintiff and addressed him in a demeaning manner, even in the presence of family members.

“The defendant was not ever properly committed to her marriage ... but she participated therein as a means to the power which is attached to the position of being the wife of a [royal].

“Despite the defendant, in recognition of customary law, prior to the marriage of the parties, agreeing that the plaintiff is entitled to and should take a great wife of royal lineage, subsequent to such marriage the [wife] retracted her consent and embarrassingly threatened to strenuously obstruct any attempt by the plaintiff to take a second wife.

“The defendant has repeatedly attempted to bewitch the plaintiff and has frequently used ‘muti’ against him, at times in the presence of certain employees at the Great Palace.

“The plaintiff has accordingly lost all love and affection for the defendant.

“The marriage relationship between the parties has broken down irretrievably and there is no reasonable prospect of the restoration.”

The wife had until Friday to lodge her intention to contest the divorce application. It was not clear if she had filed notice.

She hurled vile abuse and addressed him in a demeaning manner Lawyers acting for a senior royal