The Good, the Bad, and the Unready: The Remarkable Truth Behind History's Strangest Nicknames
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The GOOD, the BAD
and the UNREADY
The Good, the Bad and the Unready is a hugely entertaining and highly original investigation into the vainglorious, unfortunate and sometimes downright insulting names that pepper the history books, from Brandy Nan to Fulk the Surly, and from Hugh the Dull to Magnus Barelegs. Anyone with a love of the quirky side of history will enjoy the capricious world of noble nicknames, where military tacticians can be celebrated for their drinking habits (Michael the Drunkard), successful diplomats can be mocked for their diminutive stature (Ladislaus the Elbow-High), and a vicious tyrant can be kowtowed to (John the Good).
Revd Robert Easton (childhood nickname Ridiculous Robert) has spent years gathering together the best and worst nicknames given to the rich and powerful over the centuries, and The Good, the Bad and the Unready is the result: a uniquely irreverent look at both history and the inventiveness of the English language.
Charles the Silly and Wenceslas the Worthless
at Rheims in 1398.
The GOOD, the BAD
and the UNREADY
[ The Curious Stories Behind Noble Nicknames ]
REVD ROBERT EASTON
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published in hardback as Fat, Bald and Worthless 2006
Published in paperback as The Good, the Bad and the Unready 2008
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Copyright © Revd Robert Easton, 2006
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
9780141903590
To
Harry the Dirty Dog
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
The GOOD, the BAD and the UNREADY
List of Entries by First Name
Bibliography
Index
Preface
I was in the British Library last year searching for material on Charles III, the sixteenth-century duke of Lorraine, and on the reason for his nickname ‘the Great’. The catalogue revealed the existence of a work with the promising title The House of Lorraine by one Rachel Lindsay, and so I ordered it from the stacks, only to find it was a Mills and Boon romance set in Paris. ‘Held close in his arms, her head against his breast,’ began the last paragraph, ‘Nicole no longer felt any anger against him… everything that had happened in the past was suddenly of no importance.’ While Lindsay’s House of Lorraine might not be the best source of information on Charles III, and the heroine’s easy dismissal of the past might be a little over the top, her words were a healthy reminder that, as The Good, the Bad and the Unready demonstrates, recorded history is a veritable minefield of contradictions and injustices.
How cruel of history, for example, to give the well-meaning if naive Anne Boleyn the perpetual moniker ‘the Great Whore’. How unjust of it to label for eternity the magnificent Charles II of France not for his devotion to Church and nation but as ‘the Bald’, for his supposed lack of hair. How kind, on the other hand, has ‘nickname history’ been to others. Take for example the repulsive king Edward II of England, who, given his spoilt childhood, his callous and cruel indifference to all his subjects (including his wife), and his woefully inept military strategy, was perhaps one of the most embarrassing monarchs in English history. That he is known as ‘Edward Carnarvon’, referring to the castle where he was born, rather than ‘Edward the Atrocious’ or ‘Edward the Vile’, is surely a travesty of nickname justice.
But that’s the point. There is no justice in nicknames. Sometimes they are conferred upon an individual on a whim, sometimes after considerable reflection. Sometimes they are bestowed sarcastically; sometimes they couldn’t be more serious. A person may be known for a physical attribute over which they have no control, or for an act of cruelty or generosity entirely of their own making. Nicknames. We all have them, whether we know it or not, and more to the point, whether we like it or not.
The English essayist William Hazlitt observed that a nickname is ‘the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man’. ‘Archibald the Loser’ and ‘Hugh the Dull’ would surely concur. ‘John the Perfect’, on the other hand, might disagree. Thomas Haliburton, the nineteenth-century humorist, meanwhile, noted that ‘nicknames stick to people, and the most ridiculous are the most adhesive.’ ‘Elizabeth the Red-Nosed Princess’ and ‘Wilfrid the Shaggy’ would probably nod their heads in agreement.
And yet I would suggest that nicknames (‘bynames’, ‘soubriquets’, ‘cognomens’, ‘monikers’ or ‘epithets’ –while they all mean slightly different things, they are used for the most part interchangeably) should not be disregarded as mere onomastic trivialities, but celebrated as adding colourful detail to history – history that can so often be presented as bland and dull. The first three kings of Portugal, in many history books, are listed as
Alfonso I
|
Sancho I
|
Alfonso II
when they could be referred to as:
Alfonso the Conqueror
|
Sancho the Settler
|
Alfonso the Fat
This book pays homage to the humble yet capricious nickname. It champions and delights in a system of nomenclature that pays no heed to social status nor indeed to historical accuracy. It rejoices in a world where monarchs do not have numerals after their names but appellations such as ‘Bald’ or ‘Worthless’, and where nobles are prominent not for their military genius or diplomatic success but for their moral fibre or the size of their nose.
While the word ‘nickname’ itself (deriving from eke name, meaning ‘also name’ or ‘additional name’) is only a few hundred years old, nicknames themselves are as old as the hills… or at least as old as the time since people have occupied hills. For nicknames have been around for as long as people have wanted to find an affectionate, familiar or spiteful way of describing each other. Before the fou
rteenth century, hereditary surnames were extremely rare and so people used soubriquets and epithets to tell people of the same name apart. In Viking culture, men called ‘Einar’ were two a penny; only one as far as we know rejoiced in the intriguing extra name of ‘Buttered Bread’. The eleventh-century Domesday Book often singled people out by profession or, as in the case of Roger ‘God Save the Ladies’, by other, less specific qualities.
The Good, the Bad and the Unready focuses on history’s nobility, a group of people who, on the face of it, have no need for nicknames. Mass acquaintance, however, and therefore public scrutiny, has provided no protection whatsoever from the slings and arrows of outrageous nickname fortune. Chroniclers, it seems, and the common people whom they cited, have felt compelled to comment via a nickname on those in power, even though they have needed no additional identification.
Some of these aristocratic nicknames are galling in their obsequiousness. Outlandish, hagiographical cognomens such as ‘Light of the World’ and ‘Father of Letters’ (as in the cases of the emperor Sigismund and Francis I of France respectively) fail to tell us much about the recipient, but instead only serve to highlight the fawning nature of their historians. Mercifully, these are in the minority. Other nicknames, meanwhile, give a fairly obscure figure of the past a more prominent place in history than might be expected. It is almost exclusively because of their nicknames, for example, that ‘James the Dead Man Who Won a Fight’ and ‘Black Agnes’ are known by more than a clutch of scholars and a few descendants researching their family history.
This book considers some 400 aristocratic individuals and considers whether their epithets fit the bill. Their nicknames fall into a number of loose categories.1 These include:
The Toponymic
Usually pretty uninteresting, and therefore rarely given much space in the following pages, these are names stating the geographical origin of the individual. They are not what one might call ‘true’ nicknames inasmuch as the aristocracy regularly conferred such names upon themselves: they denoted not only their place of origin (such as the linguistically aberrant ‘John of Gaunt’) or place of residence (such as ‘Henry Bolingbroke’), but also stated that they owned land and were therefore people of importance.
Where these nicknames were not self-conferred, as in the case of ‘Emma the Gem of Normandy’ or ‘William the Rake of Piccadilly’, the stories behind them are usually worth greater examination. But even this seemingly straightforward giving of names has its foibles. That there is a character called ‘John the Scot’, who wasn’t Scottish at all, reinforces the fickle nature of this genre.
The Physical (General)
A host of nobles in this book have nicknames which fall into this category, some deservedly, some without any merit whatsoever. These are nicknames that refer to an individual’s general appearance, for example ‘Philip the Handsome’, who was, by common consent, pretty good-looking, or ‘Richard Crookback’, whose disability appears to have been a certain playwright’s fabrication.
It’s hard, but fun, to imagine one of the more uncomplimentary of this species of nickname being used within earshot of its recipient. Only the bravest or stupidest of subjects, for example, would have addressed Henry I, king of Navarre, by his nickname of ‘the Fat’, even though by most accounts it was an entirely fair epithet. And though indeed vertically challenged, King Ladislaus I of Poland would surely not have thanked anyone who reminded him of his moniker ‘the Elbow-High’.
The Physical (Specific)
Here the nickname refers to one particular physical attribute or abnormality. A royal bouffant or aristocratic coiffure has often proved a rich quarry for the nicknaming fraternity, with many soubriquets, such as ‘William Rufus’, ‘Sven Forkbeard’ and ‘Boleslav the Curly’ commenting on the colour, style or quality of a person’s hair. Lack of hair, similarly, has not gone unmentioned, even when, as with ‘Charles the Bald’, its suitability is a matter of debate. ‘Haakon the Broad-Shouldered’ and ‘Antigonus the One-Eyed’ also fall into a category that singles out history’s leaders not by their deeds but by their deportment or deficiency.
The Moral
This is perhaps the most slippery of categories. Chroniclers sometimes conferred nicknames upon people not with cold, rational even-handedness but out of politically motivated whimsy. We therefore find the utterly repellent John II of France known to history as ‘the Good’ and the rather charming William I of Sicily wholly unjustly labelled as ‘the Bad’. The French, moreover, enjoyed the habit of nicknaming some of their monarchs sarcastically. Louis XV, for instance, was not ‘Well-Beloved’ at all, but universally considered a knave.
Some people, however, have clearly deserved their moral cognomen. Few would rush to the defence of Wenceslas of Bohemia for being dubbed ‘Worthless’, and Peter of Castile’s soubriquet of ‘Cruel’ was by all accounts entirely justified.
The Animalistic
A small but select group, which divides on gender lines. Those few men who come within its remit, such as Louis the Universal Spider, have nicknames that generally portray them in a neutral if not positive light. Noblewomen, on the other hand, from the queen consort to Charles the Silly (‘Isabella the Great Sow’), to one of Bluff King Hal’s wives (‘Anne the Mare of Flanders’), are referred to as other members of the animal kingdom in less than complimentary terms.
The Military
‘Victorious’, ‘Fierce’, ‘Slayer of the Bulgars’… many nicknames understandably refer to the military prowess (real or otherwise) of history’s fighting nobility. Some are accurate, such as ‘Mehmed the Conqueror’, while others are way off the mark, as in the case of ‘John the Fearless’.
The Great
Dozens of people down the centuries have been dubbed ‘the Great’. Only some seventeen have earned their place in these pages for having an interesting story to support – or undermine – their epithet.2 With such a collection, one cannot help but be tempted to judge who exactly was the greatest. Catherine and Peter of Russia, Charlemagne and Henry of France must surely be in everyone’s top ten, if for nothing but sheer entertainment value.
The Occupational
From ‘Caulker’ to Astrologer’, ‘Baker’ to ‘Wizard’, occupations, often incidental to the main line of work of many nobles, have proved a rich mine for nicknames. Some, like ‘Troubadour’ and ‘Farmer’, hint at those professions that the rulers of nations would have preferred had history not demanded otherwise. Others, such as ‘Steward’, are marvellously misapplied.
The Behavioural
Into this category fall those nicknamees who are known by the content of their character rather than any specific deed or occupation. ‘Fulk the Surly’, ‘Erik the Meek’, ‘Louis the Indolent’… their potted biographies suggest whether they are deserved or not.
The Gem
Just occasionally there is a gem of a nickname that refuses to fall into any category, for example the enigmatic ‘Christopher the King of Bark’ and ‘Athelfleda the White Duck’.
This collection reflects the bias of history in that the percentage of female entries is miserably low. Those women who do appear do so not merely because of their bloodline but, as with their male counterparts, because of their military courage (e.g. ‘Black Agnes’) or beauty (‘the Fair Rosamund’) or cruelty (‘Elizabeth the Blood Countess’). That so many women have received dismissive nicknames – not least ‘Isabella the Great Sow’ and ‘Mary the Queen of Tears’ –reflects how much the nicknames of history’s nobility are the product of a male-dominated and occasionally misogynistic culture.
Leafing through this list naturally leads to the consideration of what nicknames current members of the aristocracy should be known by for centuries to come. The satirical magazine Private Eye has not been backward in coming forward with monikers for today’s British royal family. While Prince Charles enjoys the appellation of ‘Brian’, Her Majesty herself is referred to as ‘Brenda’. But these, I venture, will be short-lived, as was t
he nickname ‘Cheryl’ for ‘Diana the People’s Princess’.
What, therefore, might be the long-term soubriquets for today’s nobility? Will Prince Charles be known as ‘the Green’ for his concerns for the environment? Will Queen Elizabeth be hailed in perpetuity as ‘the Steadfast’ for her firm grasp of the British royal tiller for more than fifty years? Will Queen Beatrix of Holland be known for the colour of her hair or the quality of her reign? Only time will tell, because, as this book amply demonstrates, nicknames are never forced, but acquired.
The Good, the Bad and the Unready is by no means a comprehensive collection. Limited space prevents individual entries on ‘Olaf the Slippery’, ‘William the Delightful’ and ‘Charlotte the Warrior Lady of Latham’. Rather, it is a select miscellany where the depraved seventh-century empress ‘Lady Wu the Poisoner’ and ‘Poor Fred’, the hapless eighteenth-century prince of Wales, make interesting alphabetical bedfellows. Nor does this gallery give greatest attention to those individuals who have proven to be historically most significant. The focus is on nickname rather than place in history. The one-eyed Bohemian reformer John Zisca is thus given more space than King Henry VIII.
Emulating the chroniclers and the common people who, down the centuries, have bestowed epithets upon their nobles, this collection doesn’t let the truth get in the way of a good nickname or a good story. Instead it embraces the quirky, the fickle, and the occasionally downright wrong, with the same intensity that the love-stricken Nicole of The House of Lorraine embraces the man of her dreams.
Acknowledgements
During my Glasgow childhood, initiation into the semi-secret society of the ‘Excellent Eastons’ involved jumping off the roof of the potting shed in our garden into the compost heap alongside it. This I achieved, aged about seven, and joined my sibling band of ‘Marvellous Mark’, ‘Wonderful William’ and ‘Super Susie’. Nowadays, when I need to be humbled, my brothers and sister remind me that my nickname was ‘Ridiculous Robert’. Perhaps this early moniker was the embryo of this book.