Bomba
Ferdinand II, king of the Two Sicilies, 1810–59
Ferdinand’s oppressive reign sparked off numerous political disturbances, culminating in a popular uprising in Sicily in 1848. His response – a massive bombardment of several cities, especially Messina – earned him the nickname ‘Bomba’, while his son Louis was given the diminutive title ‘Bombalino’ for a similar attack on Palermo in i860.
Ivar the Boneless
Ivar, king of Dublin and York, c.794–872
Identifying the historical Ivar is problematic since he lived in an era in the no man’s land between possible fact and probable legend. According to the late tenth-century Chronicle of Aethel-ward and other sources, Ivar was the leader of the Danish ‘Great Army’ which invaded England in 865, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle names him as the brother of Halfdan the BLACK (see COLOURFUL CHARACTERS). Theories on the origin of his nickname abound:
• The sexual theory: he was impotent.
• The sarcastic theory: he was actually a giant.
• The scribal-error theory: some monk confused exos, meaning ‘bonelessness’, with the Latin exosus, meaning ‘detestable’.
• The hubristic theory: a ninth-century story tells of a sacrilegious Viking whose bones shrivelled up inside him after he had plundered the monastery of Saint-Germain near Paris.
• The medical theory: he was a disabled dwarf who suffered from brittle bone disease.
His deeds are similarly confusing. Was he really responsible, as some sources attest, for the murder of St Edmund, who was tied to a tree, filled with arrows and then decapitated? And did he and his men really slaughter babies as they went on their conquests, and practise cannibalism? The problems of separating truth from fiction remain.
Boney see Napoleon the LITTLE CORPORAL
Bonnie Prince Charlie
Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the English throne, 1720–88
Charles Stuart was a handsome young man and was very popular with some of the ladies of Edinburgh when he captured the city in 1745 as part of his vain attempt to secure the throne for his father, James the WARMING-PAN BABY. Some of the women went to great lengths to lay their hands on a lock of his hair, and miniature portraits of ‘the Highland Laddie’ were all the rage.
After his crushing defeat at the battle of Culloden Moor against ‘William Augustus the Bloody Butcher’, his popularity waned significantly. Popular legend has it that one Flora Mac-Donald helped him escape by disguising him as her maid Betty Burke, and as a result Charles ended his days in Italy not as a ‘Young Pretender’ but as an old, worn-out and unattractive alcoholic.
James the Bonny Earl
James Stewart, second earl of Moray, d.1592
Suspecting that James, the second earl of Moray, had been involved in a plot against his life, James the WISEST FOOL IN CHRISTENDOM issued a warrant for his arrest, and asked George Gordon, the sixth earl of Huntly, to oversee the matter. Huntly was more than happy to oblige since he hated the Bonny Earl with a passion. When he found James, who had holed up at his mother’s house on the coast of Fifeshire, Huntly did more than just arrest him. He set the building on fire, causing James to rush out and race to the beach where he was hacked down at the water’s edge.
James was a good-looking man (hence his appellation ‘bonny’) and it is said that when Huntly gashed James’s cheek with a sword, James proudly exclaimed, ‘You have spoilt a better face than your own.’ His distraught mother took the corpse to Holyrood Palace, where it lay exposed to the elements for months.
The Bonny Earl’s death has given rise to a new word in the English language. It originated in a mishearing of a line from the ballad ‘Geordie’, which records his murder:
Ye Hielands and ye Lowlands
O, whaur hae ye been?
They has slain the Earl o’ Moray,
And laid him on the green.
In an article for Harper’s Magazine in 1954 the American writer Sylvia Wright admitted that she had misheard the last line as ‘And Lady Mondegreen’ and had gone on to tell friends that she thought it unfair that James’s innocent wife had also been killed. And thus the term ‘mondegreen’, referring to a misheard song lyric, was born.
Albert the Braided see Albert the ASTROLOGER
Brandy Nan
Anne, queen of England, 1665–1714
At the age of eighteen, Anne married Prince George EST-IL-POSSIBLE? of Denmark. She bore him seventeen children. Eleven were stillborn, five died in infancy and the only other, little William, duke of Gloucester, died of hydrocephalus in 1700 at the tender age of twelve. Some have suggested that this series of misfortunes was what drove Anne to drink, bringing about her nickname ‘Brandy Nan’.
Brandy Nan
A common contemporary portrayal of Anne was that of a dull, massively overweight, heavy-drinking queen with a duller, fatter husband who, not to be outdone, possessed an almost unlimited capacity for hard liquor. It was a depiction that gained further currency when some humorist wrote the following graffiti on her statue in St Paul’s churchyard, which used to have a gin shop directly in front of it:
Brandy Nan, Brandy Nan,
Left in the lurch
Her face to a gin-shop
Her back to the church.
Some would counter, however, that this is an unfair character sketch, resting primarily on Jacobite malice. The duchess of Marlborough, otherwise known as QUEEN SARAH, makes it clear that while Anne’s husband ate and drank heavily, Anne herself did not drink to excess, preferring hot chocolate last thing at night. For her gout, however, she did take laudanum on toast floating in brandy.
The Battle of Bravalla
The battle of Bravalla, as recorded by the medieval historian Saxo Grammaticus, took place around the beginning of the eighth century. The Danish king ‘Harald Wartooth’ fought his nephew Ring, whom he had made sub-king of Sweden. In the fighting, the aged and blind Harald was clubbed to death by his own charioteer, a man called Brun, who some suspected was the god Odin. Saxo Grammaticus lists a number of the most notable nobles who fought on each side. They include:
On Harald’s Side
Olvir the Broad
Gnepia the Old
Tummi the Sailmaker
Brat the Jute
Ari the One-Eyed
Dal the Fat
Hithin the Slender
Hothbrodd the Furious
On Ring’s Side
Egil the One-Eyed
Styr the Stout
Gerd the Glad
Saxo the Splitter
Thord the Stumbler
Throndar Big-Nose
Hogni the Clever
Rokar the Swarthy
Rolf the Woman-Lover
Sven of the Shorn Crown
Thorulf the Thick
Thengil the Tall
Birvil the Pale
Thorlevar the Unyielding
Grettir the Wicked
Hadd the Hard
Roldar Toe-Joint
Rafn the White
Blihar Snub-Nosed
Erik the Story-Teller
Holfstein the White
Vati the Doubter
Erling the Snake
Od the Englishman
Alf the Far-Wanderer
Enar Big-Belly
Mar the Red
Grombar the Aged
Berg the Seer
Krok the Peasant
Alf the Proud
Othrik the Young
Frosti Bowl, also known as Frosty Melting-Pot
The Swedes, under Ring, won, losing only 12,000 men to Harald’s 30,000.
In an emphatically drunken age, Anne, some contest, was a comparatively sober individual with a sober outlook on life. Deeply religious, she loathed the Whig politician Lord Wharton on account of his lecherous immorality; rumour has it that, as well as chasing married women, he once defecated in a church pulpit. Rumour has similarly tarnished the reputation of Anne, a decidedly ordinary person with her fa
ir share of weaknesses who became known as little more than a gargantuan old soak.
British Kings of the Dark Ages
From the Roman invasion of 55 BC until approximately AD 900 the first names, let alone nicknames, of kings of Britain are more often matters of conjecture and legend than fact. Some names and nicknames can be found in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, although this too is thought to be as much the stuff of legend as actual history. Geoffrey’s work was completed in 1136 and, among other things, provided the basis for the stories of King Arthur. Below is a list of those kings from this period that were accorded nicknames.
The Earliest Kings
Beli the Great
Lucius the Great
Macsen the Leader
Coel the Old (better known as Old King Cole)
Gurgust the Ragged
Northern Britain
Bran the Old
Morcant Lightning
Merchiaun the Lean
Eleuther the Handsome
Dunaut the Stout
Mynyddog the Rich
South-west Wales
Tryffon the Bearded
Aircol Longhand
North-west Wales
Cadwallon Longhand
Maelgwyn the Tall
Rhun the Tall
Idwal the Roebuck
North-east Wales
Brochfael of the Tusks
Cynan the Cruel
Cyndrwyn the Stubborn
Minor Kingdoms of Wales
Rhun Red Eyes
Gwrin of the Ragged Beard
Glitnoth Longshanks
Gwrgan the Great
South-west Scotland
Dumnagual the Old
Rhydderch the Old
West Scotland
Fergus the Great
Eochaid the Yellow-Haired
Domnall the Pock-Marked
Ferchar the Long
Eochaid Crooked-Nose
Aed the Fair
Eochaid the Poisonous
East Saxons
Sigebert the Little
Sigebert the Good
It appears that Mercians, Northumbrians and West Saxons, until Alfred the GREAT, were not interested in nicknames.
The Bread-Soup King see Louis the KING OF SLOPS
Haakon the Broad-Shouldered
Haakon II, king of Norway, c.1147–62
Much was placed on the small but broad shoulders of Haakon when he was elected king of Norway at the tender age often. His main concern was the claim of ‘Inge the Hunchback’ to the throne, but that fell away in 1161 when Inge died after losing his temper. His death occurred when he and his men were ranged against Haakon’s across an ice-covered river. Incensed by accusations of cowardice, Inge’s champion, one Gregorius Dagsson, raced forward, fell through the ice and was slaughtered as he tried to clamber back up. In a rush of blood to the head, Inge furiously hurtled towards the enemy and was also killed. Haakon’s relief was short-lived, however. Another pretender, Magnus Erlingsson, defeated and killed him in battle the next year. Haakon was fifteen years old.
Ptolemy the Brother-Loving see PTOLEMAIC KINGS
Robert the Bruce
Robert I, king of Scotland, 1274–1329
Allegedly inspired by the determination of a spider that he saw in a cave while gloomily assessing his military fortune, Robert won a famous victory against the English in 1314 at the battle of Bannockburn. The origins of his epithet ‘the Bruce’ are regrettably less colourful. Originally thought to be of Flemish extraction, his ancestors settled in Brus, near Cherbourg, in Normandy. One of these forebears, also called Robert, came over to England in the early eleventh century and served as right-hand man to Prince David, later King David ‘the Saint’, during his stay at the court of Henry BEAUCLERC (see NOBLE PROFESSIONS). For obvious reasons he was known as ‘Robert de Brus’, and the name of his descendants was anglicized to ‘the Bruce’.
David the Builder see Noble PROFESSIONS
Bungy Louis see Louis the KING OF SLOPS
Leo the Butcher see NOBLE PROFESSIONS
George the Button-Maker see FARMER GEORGE
[C]
Edward the Caresser
Edward VII, king of England, 1841–1910
In an allusion to his ancestral namesake Edward the CONFESSOR, Edward VII was dubbed ‘the Caresser’ for his womanizing ways. His parents, Victoria the WIDOW OF WINDSOR and Albert the GOOD, were determined to prevent him from becoming wayward or profligate like so many of his relatives, and so must have been very disappointed with both their son and his epithet. Britain, on the other hand, thought he was rather special.
After a regimented childhood during which his good looks had women wrapped around his little finger, Edward, or ‘Bertie’ as the prince was known, was sent to Cambridge University, where he lodged some four miles outside town to minimize any frivolous or dissolute behaviour. Four miles proved a mere step for Edward, who rapidly developed Rabelaisian appetites for food, cigars, gambling and female company. Midway through his studies he was sent to Ireland, where he was enlisted in the army. Here he also signally failed to reach expectations, most notably when Nellie Clifton, a local ‘actress’, was found one night in his quarters.
His marriage to Princess Alexandra of Denmark did not appear to diminish his sexual appetite, and a long list of mistresses included society belle Lillie ‘the Jersey Lily’ Langtry, Daisy ‘Babbling’ Brook and French tragic actress Sarah Bernhardt, otherwise known as ‘the Divine Sarah’ or ‘Sarah Heartburn’. Once, when Bernhardt was playing Fedora in Paris, Edward confessed that he had always wanted to be an actor. Few in the audience the next night would have noticed that the corpse of Fedora’s dead lover was in fact none other than the heir to the British throne.
For all his misdoings and dalliances, the British liked their prince immensely, especially after the death of his father, when Victoria slumped into a life of mourning. In a drab and dismal court, ‘Bertie’ was a splash of colour. His practical jokes raised giggles in a palace bereft of laughter, and his fashion sense and love of the good life set the trend for an English society eager for fun. In later life ‘Bertie’ –now Edward – helped to orchestrate the entente cordiale with France, and in recognition of his diplomatic efforts he was dubbed ‘the Peacemaker’. He was also known as ‘the Uncle of Europe’, and this was almost literally true as he was uncle to the German kaiser, the Russian tsar and the king of Spain.
Less laudatory was another of Edward’s nicknames, ‘Tum Tum’, which referred to the monarch’s corpulence. On one occasion the chubby Edward gently admonished Sir Frederick Johnstone, one of his guests at Sandringham, with the words, ‘Freddy, Freddy, you’re very drunk’, to which Johnstone allegedly retorted, ‘Tum Tum, you’re very fat.’ The king did not appreciate the remark.
Great Britain, on the other hand, did appreciate Edward. As the foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey wrote, the bubbly king ‘had a capacity for enjoying life… combined with a positive and strong desire that everyone else should enjoy life too’.
Edward Carnarvon
Edward II, king of England, 1284–1327
Given his inept soldiery (his ill-disciplined troops lost the famous battle of Bannockburn to Robert the BRUCE), his alienation of the nation’s nobility, or even his alleged homosexuality, Edward could have been nicknamed many things. As it is, his soubriquet, like that of Henry BOLINGBROKE, derives from the castle in which he was born – in Edward’s case Carnarvon Castle in North Wales. Edward also died in a castle, namely Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, where he was hideously murdered on the orders of his cruel wife, Isabella the SHE-WOLF OF FRANCE.
The Catholic Kings
Ferdinand II, king of Aragon, 1452–1516
Isabella, queen of Castile and Aragon, 1451–1504
The marriage of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile in 1469 united the two largest provinces of the lberian Peninsula and paved the way for the eventual unification o
f Spain. The Moorish kingdom of Granada finally capitulated to the couple in 1492, and two years later Pope Alexander VI granted them the title ‘Reyes Catolicos’, or ‘Catholic Kings’, signifying that Spain, united under their dual monarchy, was now subject to the Catholic faith. Both monarchs took their religion very seriously indeed.
Underneath Ferdinand’s cold and flinty exterior burned an ardent passion for the Virgin Mary. Unfortunately for his subjects (especially those of the Jewish faith) this zeal was accompanied by a cold and flinty determination to spread his religious beliefs, and in tandem with Isabella he established the notorious Spanish Inquisition to ensure that Catholicism was followed religiously by all.
The austere Isabella ‘la Catolica’, meanwhile, considered herself a moral role model to her subjects. Appalled at their ‘lack of faith’ and ‘inordinate luxury’, she promoted frugality and devotion. Despite her immense wealth, for instance, she personally mended one of Ferdinand’s tunics seven times, and whenever he was out of town she took great pains to have it known that she slept surrounded by her daughters and ladies-in-waiting.
The couple’s faith was sorely tested by the misfortunes of their offspring. Of their five children, their son John died in his late teens (his death popularly ascribed to his physical passion for his young wife), their daughter Catalina (Catherine of Aragon) had her marriage annulled by BLUFF KING HAL, and poor Joan, heiress to the throne after the death of her brother, married Philip the FAIR and then went stark raving mad.
The Good, the Bad, and the Unready: The Remarkable Truth Behind History's Strangest Nicknames Page 4
