The Good, the Bad, and the Unready: The Remarkable Truth Behind History's Strangest Nicknames

by Robert Easton

  These were just two of several voyages of exploration during Manuel’s tenure that heralded the beginning of an era in Portuguese history of unprecedented imperial wealth, power and vitality. By 1503 Manuel enjoyed virtual control of the spice trade, so much so that Francis the FATHER OF LETTERS was known to call him ‘the Grocer King’.

  Unfortunately, as a direct result of this international expansion, domestic corruption went unchecked and Portugal’s agricultural and industrial welfare was neglected. Manuel’s despotic nature, furthermore, as well as his deceitful kowtowing to the demands of Isabella and Ferdinand (see the CATHOLIC KINGS) to rid Portugal of its Jewish population, led to untold horrors and the severe depletion of his country’s learning, science and artistry.

  Manuel is buried in the Jerónimos Monastery together with Vasco da Gama, the man who principally made his rule, and the lives of many (but certainly not all) of his subjects, so happy.

  Henry the Fowler

  Henry I, king of Germany, c.876–936

  ‘Heinrich der Vogler’ was so named because he was found hunting wildfowl when informed of his election to the throne. Using this principle, Elizabeth II of Great Britain may (or may not) go down in history as ‘the Rhino Watcher’, as that was her precise activity high in a fig tree at Treetops Hotel in the Aberdare Forest game reserve in Kenya when she became queen.

  Merfyn the Freckled

  Merfyn, king of Gwynedd, c.780–844

  Merfyn’s spotty face is better known to history than his birthplace. According to bardic tradition, he came from ‘the land of Manaw’, which refers either to the Isle of Man or to a region on the banks of the Forth. Once he had arrived in the Welsh principality, he allied himself to the royal house of Powys by marrying a woman called Nest, and for nineteen years held his position against all rivals and Danish invasion with such authority that, on his death in 844, Merfyn ‘Frych’ was able to hand over the kingdom of Gwynedd to his son ‘Rhodri the Great’ in robust health.

  [G]

  Victor Emmanuel the Gallant King

  Victor Emmanuel II, king of Italy, 1820–78

  Victor Emmanuel’s popular nickname was ‘Guaff, in reference to his podgy, upturned nose, but the statesman Massimo d’Azeglio thought this to be no epithet for a monarch, and tried to convince nineteenth-century Europe that he was in fact a re galantuomo – a gallant gentleman king. But it was something of an uphill struggle. For while Victor Emmanuel could be charming when he wanted to be, there are ample records of his decidedly ungallant behaviour. At formal banquets, for instance, he would regularly sit in morose silence and not say a word. He was often tactless towards his subjects in central and southern Italy, speaking to them in French, the language of his Piedmont home, rather than in Italian. Moreover, he was notorious for his boasting. Once he bragged to Victoria the WIDOW OF WINDSOR that he was a better politician than any of his ministers and that he was writing a book to prove it. In actuality, he was a source of consternation to his entire cabinet and, as one historian has put it, ‘was incapable of writing a single page of literate prose’.

  After a predominantly military education, in which his school reports were hardly effusive (Always asleep,’ complained one teacher; ‘Thoroughly bored and indolent,’ wrote another), Victor Emmanuel ascended the throne on the abdication of his distant and unloving father, ‘Charles Albert the Vacillating King’. In a reign almost devoid of honourable actions, one act of ‘gallantry’ is worthy of mention. In 1852 he took the momentous decision of handing the control of the government over to the ambitious and politically astute Count Cavour, whose skilful manoeuvrings over the next few years culminated in Victor Emmanuel’s becoming the first king of a united Italy. This, however, could not diminish the contempt with which he was regarded in certain circles. The British diarist Charles Greville, for instance, thought him to be ‘the most debauched and dissolute fellow in the world’, while the Tuscan politician Baron Ricasoli, who publicly praised his monarch, acknowledged in a private conversation that of the three qualities essential in a good ruler – bravery, honesty and education – Victor Emmanuel lacked them all.

  Gallic Practice

  The French people appear to have enjoyed the process of nicknaming their nobility. Unlike the flowery soubriquets favoured by the English, Gallic epithets intersperse the straightforward and appropriate with the highly inappropriate and sarcastic. French noble nicknames cannot therefore be taken on face value. Instead, one has to understand something of the person’s life in order to determine whether their nickname has been given without irony or with a liberal dose of Gallic humour. In the former category one can place such aristocrats as:

  • Charles the AFFABLE, who was delightful

  • Louis the FAT, who was obese

  • GOOD KING RENÉ, who wastruly chivalrous

  • Henry the GREAT, who was physically repulsive, but loved for his deeds

  • Louis the QUARRELLER, who argued a lot

  While in the latter, one can list such ‘dignitaries’ as:

  • John the FEARLESS, who lacked intelligence rather than fear

  • John the GOOD, who was very, very bad

  • Louis the WELL-BELOVED, who was a national laughing stock

  Below are some French nobility who do not appear elsewhere in this book. As with those mentioned above, their nicknames have been awarded capriciously – some with an element of truth about them, others not.

  Philip the Bold

  Philip III, king of France, 1245–85

  ‘Bold’ as well as ‘Daring’ he may have been in limited measure, but a further nickname of ‘Rash’ is also apposite for Philip for his ill-considered quasi-crusade against ‘Peter the Great’ of Aragon (see GREAT… BUT NOT THAT GREAT). At vast expense he led an imposing army over the Pyrenees towards Gerona, but soon his supply lines were cut and his army stricken with sickness, and Philip had to slope back home.

  Charles the Fair

  Charles IV, king of France, 1294–1328

  Historians of the time concur that, like his father Philip the FAIR, Charles ‘le Bel’ was one of the most handsome people in all Europe. They also agree that, like his father, he was one of the most morally reprehensible. Here, then, the nickname may be considered as both objective and derisive.

  Louis the Indolent

  Louis V, king of France, 967–87

  Louis, also known as ‘the Sluggard’, truly epitomized torpor, a man ‘qui nihil fecit’ (‘who did nothing’) except get embroiled in an argument with an archbishop.

  Louis the Just

  Louis XIII, king of France, 1601–43

  Two explanations have been proffered for Louis’s nickname. The first is that, given his dissolute lifestyle, it was bestowed sarcastically. The second, rather more unorthodox, reason is that Louis was so named because he was born on 27 September under the astrological sign of Libra, the scales. Had the English used such a system, his contemporaries Charles the LAST MAN (born on 19 November) and Rupert the MAD CAVALIER (born on 17 December would have been known respectively as ‘the Scorpion’ and ‘the Archer’.

  Philip the Lucky

  Philip VI, king of France, 1293–1350

  Philip ‘le Bien-Fortune’ was perhaps the unluckiest of all French monarchs. His fleet was crushed in 1340 at the battle of Sluys, his troops humiliated in 1346 at the battle of Crécy and finally, in 1349 and 1350, a quarter of his entire nation was killed by the Black Death.

  Henry the Warlike

  Henry II, king of France, 1519–59

  Henry was essentially a man of peace, better known for his womanizing than any warmongering. Contemporary historians dwell at length on his long-running affair with the beautiful Diane of Poitiers.

  Gambaron see Robert CURTHOSE

  John of Gaunt

  John, duke of Lancaster, 1340–99

  William Shakespeare is to be credited (or blamed) for this nickname. No one called the duke of Lancaster ‘John of Gaunt’ (a corruption of his birthplace o
f Ghent in Flanders) after he was three years old, but Shakespeare reintroduced the epithet in his play Richard II, in which he has John make the famous nationalist speech which ends with the words, ‘This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England’. John of Gaunt, meanwhile, is to be credited (or blamed) for introducing morris dancing to England from Spain.

  Emma the Gem of Normandy

  Emma, queen of England, d.1052

  One of the few portraits of Emma to survive (a self-commissioned work entitled In Praise of Queen Emma) depicts a woman with pretty eyes and an attractive oval face. The picture must have been fairly accurate since the French noblewoman garnered not only a unique nickname from an adoring nation but also offers of marriage from two kings.

  Her first husband, Ethelred the UNREADY, was delighted with his beautiful bride and as a wedding present gave her a large chunk of southern England. Her new subjects were similarly delighted and called their new queen ‘the Gem of Normandy’. For a while the gem shone brilliantly among her new countrymen. Her popularity dipped but then soared when she was first accused and then cleared both of being an accessory to the murder of her son, Prince Alfred, and of ‘misconduct’ with the bishop of Winchester. Legend has it that she proved her innocence by walking unhurt over nine red-hot ploughshares in Winchester Cathedral. A few years later, however, the gem lost much of her lustre when she fled back to Normandy – some chroniclers say because she was disgusted with her husband’s drunkenness and lawlessness.

  Ethelred died in 1016 and the following year Emma regained much of her shine by marrying ‘Canute the Great’ (see Great… BUT NOT THAT GREAT), with whom she reigned for a further eighteen years.

  Nicholas the Gendarme of Europe see Nicholas the IRON TSAR

  Gloriana see GOOD QUEEN BESS

  Alexander the Glorious

  Alexander III, king of Scotland, 1241–86

  Alexander’s reign began in sad circumstances and ended in tragedy, but the middle years were comparatively glorious. His father, Alexander the Peaceful’, died when Alexander was a boy, and at ten young Alexander found himself married to Margaret, the daughter of Henry III of England. The alliance that this marriage caused was initially an uneasy one, but after some ugly squabbling and sabre-rattling a pact was drawn up that was beneficial to both nations.

  With his relationship with England pleasantly cordial, Alexander was able to focus his attention on the north. In 1261 he offered to buy sovereignty of the Hebrides from ‘Haakon the Old’. Haakon, however, was not selling, and instead of making a deal with Alexander he invaded Scotland, claiming the Isle of Man as well as the Hebrides for himself. Some claim that a Viking, trying to sneak ashore stealthily and catch some Scots by surprise, yelped when he trod on a thistle, thus revealing his whereabouts and securing the thistle’s status as the national emblem of Scotland. The Viking conquest fizzled out, the aged Haakon caught a fever and died, and Alexander was able to purchase all of the Western Isles for a gloriously paltry sum.

  A string of personal tragedies then knocked the stuffing out of the king. Alexander’s eldest son died at the tender age of twenty, a second died aged only eight, and his daughter died in childbirth. Finally, while galloping back from a council meeting in Edinburgh, his horse slipped and hurtled off a cliff with him still in the saddle. Alexander and his horse plunged to their deaths; Scotland plunged into a period of bleak and bloody ignominy.

  Athelstan the Glorious

  Athelstan, king of the English, 895–939

  Son of Edward the ELDER (and, scandal-mongers would have us believe, of a humble shepherd’s daughter to whom Edward had taken a fancy) Athelstan was the first Saxon king of all England. He was tall and handsome, a courageous soldier and an avid collector of art and religious relics who was generous both to his subjects and to the Church. His greatest legacy, however, has to be his judicial reforms. Extant law codes tell of his drive to reduce the punishments meted out to young offenders and also suggest the existence of a corps of skilled scribes – perhaps the beginning of a civil service. His nickname possibly stems from a eulogy by an anonymous German cleric who compares him favourably to the Frankish Charles the GREAT: ‘King Athelstan lives,’ he writes, ‘glorious through his deeds!’

  Philip the Godless Regent

  Philip II, duke of Orleans, 1674–1723

  When Philip became regent to the five-year-old Louis the WELL-BELOVED, so began one of the most liberal, irreligious and debauched decades in French history. The stifling hypocrisy of the court of Philip’s uncle Louis the SUN KING was replaced with a rich mixture of scandal and candour. Banned books were reprinted, the Royal Library was opened to all and tuition fees at the Sorbonne were scrapped.

  Philip was a Renaissance man, a talented painter who enjoyed acting in plays by Molière and composing music for opera. As for his ‘godlessness’, there is no doubt. A professed atheist, he celebrated religious feast days by holding orgies at Versailles, and when forced to attend Mass, would read the works of Rabelais hidden inside a Bible. New Orleans, a city not known for its prudishness, was named in his honour.

  Albert the Good

  Albert, prince consort of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, 1819–61

  In late November 1861, after a miserably wet day inspecting the buildings for the new military academy at Sandhurst, Albert, the prince consort of Queen Victoria, returned home with a bit of a cold. A few days later, following a visit to Cambridge to admonish his wayward son Edward the CARESSER, the cold had developed into something of a severe chill. Within a fortnight he was dead of typhoid fever.

  Two years before Albert’s death, the Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson had dedicated his work Idylls of the King to the prince with the lines:

  Beyond all titles, and a household name,

  Hereafter, thro’ all times, Albert the Good.

  And Victoria the WIDOW OF WINDSOR was now determined that her late husband should be known as ‘the Good’ because of his modest, gentle devotion, both to his wife and to his adopted country. She accordingly arranged for a number of his speeches to be published, commissioned an immense biography to be written, and impressed Tennyson to join in the hagiographical chorus.

  Albert the Good

  Sadly for Victoria, England simply did not see Albert in the same light as she did. Yes, he had earned much popularity at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851, but in general his subjects simply could not forgive him for being a foreigner, a German with disconcerting un-English manners and tastes. Some scoffed at his continental dress while others castigated him as the tool of the Russian tsar.

  Be that as it may, Albert clearly did possess a genuine tenderness that brought out the best in many people. Even Napoleon III, ‘the Man of December’, was compelled to write favourably about the prince after walking with him in the garden at Osborne House. ‘One goes away from him,’ he acknowledged, ‘more disposed to do good.’

  Haakon the Good

  Haakon I, king of Norway, c.920–c.961

  Haakon was a Christian, and on becoming king he attempted to introduce the religion to his subjects, going so far as to invite missionaries from England to his country. But as soon as he gauged the response of his subjects to the idea (they hated it) he promptly embraced his pagan religion of old.

  Chroniclers deemed Haakon to be ‘good’ not by dint of his faith but because of two other factors. First, he was a good administrator, eager for peace and order and energetic in his reform of the military and judicial system. Second, he was a good soldier. One contemporary poet records how, in the middle of a battle against the Danish, Haakon ‘threw off his war-gear [and]… joked with his men’. Perhaps due to his skimpy battledress, Haakon was mortally wounded while attempting to drive back a third Danish invasion in 960. He was given a lavish pagan funeral.

  Hywel the Good

  Hywel, king of Wales, c.882–950

  Hywel, the only Welsh king to be named ‘Dda’ or ‘Good’, occupied a period in Welsh history remarkabl
e for its stability and harmony. His secret seems to have been his diplomatic good sense in recognizing and respecting the culture and principles of organization of his English neighbours. The first recorded act of his reign, for instance, is a visit to Edward the ELDER to pay him homage. This, however, may be a decidedly English appraisal of Hywel’s reign. In Welsh history he is renowned as a great national lawmaker.

  John the Good

  John II, king of France, 1319–64

  John the Good was bad through and through, with the fifteenth-century chronicler Pierre Cochon describing him as ‘the worst and cruellest king who ever lived’. Why his contemporaries called this son of Philip the LUCKY (see GALLIC PRACTICE) ‘the Good’ is a matter for conjecture. Perhaps it was because of his devotion to the chivalric code – he founded the Order of the Star, a decidedly second-rate rival to the Order of the Garter. Or perhaps it was due to his alleged generosity to the poor – once, we are told, he gave a purse of money to a milkmaid whose pails were knocked over by his greyhounds.

  These acts, however, cannot mask a reign of aggression and duplicity. At the outset of his reign, for instance, John alienated his entire nobility by executing the charming and much-loved Constable of France, the Comte d’Eu. He then turned his attention abroad to his two bitter enemies, Edward the BANKRUPT of England and ‘Charles the Bad’ of Navarre, and spent the following years making and breaking truces with both.