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

by Robert Easton

  Douglas was a good knight and much feared by his enemies: when near to the English, he dismounted, and wielded before him an immense sword, whose blade was two ells [seven and half feet] long, which scarcely another could have lifted from the ground, but he found no difficulty in handling it, and gave such terrible strokes, that all on whom they fell were struck to the ground.

  Manuel the Grocer King see Manuel the FORTUNATE

  James the Gross

  James Douglas, seventh earl of Douglas, c.1371–1443

  James the Gross was very fat and very lazy – on the face of it, a combination not conducive to the long-term success of a fifteenth-century Scottish earl. In a time of violent and premature death, however, James surprisingly lived into his seventies.

  Just how ‘gross’ was James the Gross? Well, he is recorded as carrying about him ‘four stane of talch and mair’ –in other words, some sixty pounds of fat. And there are convincing hints that his morals matched his physical grossness. Many suggest that it was James who was behind the infamous ‘Black Dinner’, at which a black bull’s head was reportedly served up to the sixth earl of Douglas and his younger brother as a portent of their murder that same night.

  Guaff see Victor Emmanuel the GALLANT KING

  Akbar the Guardian of Mankind see Akbar the GREAT

  [H]

  Wilfrid the Hairy see Wilfrid the SHAGGY

  Charles the Hammer

  Charles, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, c.688–741

  Charles’s victory at the battle of Poitiers of 732 turned the tide of Islamic advance in Europe and paved the way for Frankish unification under his son Pepin the SHORT and grandson Charles the GREAT. The victory also won him his nickname. The Chronicle of St Denis states that the name ‘Martel’, or ‘the Hammer’, was conferred on Charles for having hammered (martelé) the Saracens. ‘[A]s a hammer of iron, of steel, and of every other metal,’ the chronicle gushes, ‘even so he dashed and smote in the battle all his enemies.’

  Frederick the Hammer of Christianity see Frederick the WONDER OF THE WORLD

  Thomas the Hammer of the Monks

  Thomas Cromwell, first earl of Essex, c.1485–1540

  After early careers as a soldier, accountant and merchant, Cromwell entered the service of Cardinal Wolsey and rose through the ranks to become BLUFF KING HAL’s chief minister. In 1534 he was appointed Henry’s vicar-general and the activities that earned him his nickname began.

  Thomas’s remit in implementing the Act of Supremacy of 1534 was the suppression of the monasteries and confiscation of their property and treasures, and this he carried out with such ruthless zeal that he was ruefully dubbed ‘Malleus monachorum’, or ‘Hammer of the Monks’. Initially, all monasteries with an income of less than £200 were dissolved and their contents sold. This did not inflate the royal coffers as much as had been expected, and so in 1539 Parliament passed a law handing all of the country’s monastic houses over to the king. Some abbots resisted Thomas and his policies, and Thomas hammered them hard. Richard Whiting, for example, was dragged by horses from his abbey in Glastonbury to the top of a nearby hill, where he was hanged, drawn and quartered. His head was shoved on a spike above the abbey gate, and his ‘quarters’ were boiled in pitch and put on display in four West Country towns.

  Although Thomas’s own religious views may not have been strong, his belief in the sovereignty of the king was absolute, and it was to foster his monarch’s links with the Protestant states of Europe that he arranged the marriage between Henry and Anne the MARE OF FLANDERS. Perhaps it was because he was brought up in a blacksmith’s forge, but Thomas’s inability to detect Anne’s equine attributes proved his undoing. Henry thought his new wife resembled a horse, and Cromwell was summarily accused of treason and beheaded.

  Edward the Hammer of the Scots

  Edward I, king of England, 1239–1307

  The inscription on Edward’s tomb in Westminster Abbey reads, ‘Edwardus Primus Malleus Scotorum hicest’ –‘ Here lies Edward I, Hammer of the Scots’. Scots are quick to remind anyone who would care to listen that while Edward may have hammered their nation, he never conquered it.

  On his return from the Crusades (where his wife, Eleanor of Castile, had saved his life by sucking out poison from a dagger wound) Edward quickly subdued Wales and its king ‘Llewellyn the Last’, and then turned his attention to England. Here his reformation of the legal and tax systems, and establishment of the country’s first formal parliament, won him the titles ‘the English Justinian’, ‘the Lawgiver’ and the rather cumbersome ‘the Father of the Mother of Parliaments’. With both Wales and England now under his sway, Edward finally began his campaign against Scotland in earnest.

  In 1296 Edward easily deposed the Scottish king, TOOM TABARD, but the following year his real troubles began when he faced the wrath of Scottish rebel William Wallace and his brave-hearted men. Wallace, who was known by the matching nickname ‘the Hammer and Scourge of England’, was eventually captured and hanged, drawn and quartered. Scotland, however, refused to cave in.

  Edward, who once ripped clumps of hair from the head of his son Edward CARNARVON, was not a peaceful sort, and he spent nearly a decade furiously trying to subdue his northern neighbours, but it was not to be. Trying to quell a rebellion led by Robert the BRUCE in the summer of 1307, he contracted dysentery and died near Carlisle, a short distance from a nation whose conquest he ached for but never achieved.

  The more popular soubriquet for Edward did not refer to his notable military exploits but rather to a notable physical characteristic. If this had been followed, the inscription on his tomb would have read, ‘Edwardus Primus praeditus pedibus longis hic est’ –‘ Here lies Edward Longshanks’.

  Ferdinand the Handsome see Ferdinand THE INCONSTANT

  Philip the Handsome

  Philip I, king of Castile, 1478–1506

  Philip had a long nose, long hair and long limbs. The inhabitants of the Low Countries, over whom he was ruler from 1482, admired the dashing appearance of this son of ‘Maximilian the Penniless’ and styled him ‘Filips de Schone’. Later, the inhabitants of Castile over whom he became king in 1502 similarly titled him ‘Felipe el Hermoso’.

  His people may have admired him, but his young wife, Joan the MAD, was absolutely nuts about him. Historians with an eye for the titillating recount how the couple behaved when they first met. As soon as they clapped eyes on each other, we are told, they immediately summoned a priest to marry them on the spot. The declaration of their union had barely left the minister’s lips before the couple raced into the royal bedchamber to consummate their marriage.

  Joan may have been madly in love with the good-looking Philip, but Philip was an inveterate womanizer with a bevy of mistresses. When he died still in his twenties – some say he caught a fever after playing a ballgame and then drinking too much cold water too quickly – many a woman mourned the loss of a sexy sovereign. Joan simply went completely and utterly insane.

  John the Handsome Englishman see John the SILLY DUKE

  Claude the Handsome Queen

  Claude, queen consort of Francis I of France, 1499–1524

  When Claude, the unattractive daughter of Louis the FATHER OF THE PEOPLE, married Francis the FATHER OF LETTERS, the French people cruelly called her ‘the Handsome’. According to one contemporary, the Seigneur de Brantome, she was ‘very small and strangely fat’ with an unattractive round face and a squint in one eye. She was also lame, clomping through court with a pronounced limp. The day after their marriage Francis went hunting, and for some years took little interest in his bride except as a mother for his children.

  Over time, however, both the king and the French people warmed to their queen. It was not just because she started to produce children at an admirable speed, nor because they had grown accustomed to her plain, slightly melancholic face, which in a good light made her look like a rustic Madonna. It was because this long-suffering queen was charming. Claude was an excellent moth
er who adored her husband (bearing his lecherous infidelities with virtuous resignation) and who was unfailingly kind to all who met her. When she died, worn out by childbearing, in 1524, she died universally beloved, with all France mourning the passing of a woman whom one chronicler described as ‘the very pearl of ladies… without stain’. From initial facetious disdain, therefore, the French recognized that in their bonne reine true beauty lay within. The fruit known as the greengage in English is called la reine-claude in French in her honour.

  Harald and the Hair Shirt

  Harald I, earl of Orkney, d.1131

  Paul II, earl of Orkney, d.c.1138

  The Orkneyinga Saga tells the story of a pair of half-brothers, ‘Harald the Smooth Talker’ and ‘Paul the Silent’. Together, the voluble Harald, and Paul, ‘a man of few words [who] had little to say at public assemblies’, ruled the islands. Sadly, in this case, opposites did not attract and the two men hated each other with a passion.

  One day Harald came across Helga, his mother, and Frakok, his aunt, making a beautiful white shirt with gold thread. He asked the women who it was for and they replied that it was a special Christmas present for Paul. Deaf to their protests Harald quickly slipped it over his head. It was only then that the women were able to explain that this Yuletide gift was ‘special’ in that it had been dipped in poison. For his foolhardiness Harald died in agony. For their treachery Paul sent Helga and Frakok into exile.

  Harold Harefoot

  Harold I, king of England, d.1040

  Historical records such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle have little to say about Harold’s short reign except that he entered into a dispute with the Church over some lands at the southern port of Sandwich, and that he died in Oxford in 1040. We can deduce from his nickname, which derives from the Old Norse word harfotr, meaning ‘swift runner’, that he was fast on his feet and possibly fast on his horse when hunting. We can also deduce by what happened to his body after it was buried that Harthacanute, his half-brother, hated him.

  Harthacanute was the legitimate heir to the thrones of both Denmark and England. Harold agreed to act as his regent in England but quickly reneged on his promise and proclaimed himself king. Three months after Harold’s death Harthacanute arrived in England to claim the throne. Unable to take revenge on Harold when he was still alive, Harthacanute arranged for Harold’s body to be exhumed, torn apart and flung into a bog.

  Charles the Harlequin

  Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 1500–1558

  Charles the Harlequin

  While Charles V was certainly a fearless and indefatigable warrior, one of his epithets, ‘a Second Charlemagne’, would appear to be based solely on the two monarchs’ sharing the same Christian name. Whereas Charles the GREAT was a devout man of faith, Charles V spent his retirement at Yuste Monastery in Estremadura en- gaged in feasting rather than fasting. And whereas the real Charlemagne drank in moderation, this ‘Charlemagne’, according to one English traveller, drank ‘the best that ever I saw… his head in the glass five times as long as any of us, and never [drinking] less than a quart at once of Rhenish wine’.

  A second soubriquet, ‘a Discrowned Glutton’, is more apt. After a reign enmeshed in civil strife and foreign upheaval, Charles, who was already decidedly chubby, waddled away from it all and abdicated for a life of culinary overindulgence.

  A third nickname, ‘the Harlequin’, initially seems to be the most inappropriate of all. How could fellow nicknamee Francis the FATHER OF LETTERS liken Charles to a frivolous buffoon when in reality the emperor was a serious, phlegmatic character who rarely spoke since his misshapen jaw made him difficult to understand and, when he did, it was in German and mainly to his horse? The answer is that Francis was using the term ‘harlequin’ in its Old French sense, meaning ‘demon’.

  Amadeus the Hermit of La Ripaille see Amadeus the PACIFIC

  Frederick the Hesitater see Frederick the WISE

  Charles the Highland Laddie see BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE

  Holy Mother see Lady Wu the POISONER

  Hywel of the Horseshoes

  Sir Hywel ap Gruffyth, Welsh nobleman, b.c.1284

  Hywel was the son of the wet nurse of Edward CARNARVON. Edward was so impressed with his foster brother and boyhood chum – not least with his ability to break or straighten horseshoes with his bare hands – that he made him a knight of the realm.

  Harry Hotspur

  Henry Percy, English nobleman, 1364–1403

  Henry Percy, the eldest son of the first earl of Northumberland, earned his evocative nickname for the reckless courage he showed in battles along the Scottish Borders, including the 1402 victory over the Scots at Homildon Hill, a fight which was lost by Archibald the LOSER. In what turned out to be a rash and impetuous move, Henry conspired with Owen Glendower and others to dethrone Henry BOLINGBROKE, and was killed by the king’s troops at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403.

  Pepin the Hunchback

  Pepin, Frankish prince, d.811

  Despite his deformity, Pepin was initially designated as the future ruler by his father Charles the GREAT, but this was reversed when, thanks to Charles’s second wife, the young and fertile Hildegard, another son appeared. Pepin was not pleased with this arrangement and, together with some disgruntled magnates, entered into a conspiracy to seize the throne while Charlemagne was away at war. The plot, however, was discovered and Pepin, according to the biographer Einhard, was ‘cruelly scourged, tonsured and sent into a monastery, the poorest… in all the king’s broad domain’.

  A near-contemporary writer known as ‘Notker the Stammerer’ tells how Charlemagne later discovered another plot against his life and sought advice from his reluctantly monastic son. Pepin, weeding in the garden, apparently told his father’s envoys to report back precisely what he was doing, namely digging up useless weeds to enable other plants to prosper. Charles understood his son’s cryptic message and promptly got rid of his enemies by having them executed. He then rewarded Pepin by letting him move to ‘the most noble monastery then in existence’.

  In all likelihood, however, Notker’s story is a complete fabrication and Pepin actually died unreconciled and in abject poverty.

  [I]

  James the Ill-beloved

  James V, king of Scotland, 1512–42

  The whole of James’s upbringing was conducive to moral delinquency, and it was said that his stepfather, Archibald GREYSTEEL, actively encouraged him in a precocious career of vice. When he was still a teenager, he already had three illegitimate sons and, by the time he died, aged twenty-nine, he had sired seven children, all with different mothers.

  Considering his merciless treatment of the inhabitants of the Scottish Borders and Highlands, his treacherous double-dealings with BLUFF KING HAL of England and his vindictive domestic policy of taxation, it is little wonder that he was called ‘the Ill-Beloved’ and is generally understood to be one of the most unpopular monarchs who ever sat on the Scottish throne. ‘So sore a dread king,’ the duke of Norfolk wrote to Thomas the HAMMER OF THE MONKS, ‘and so ill-beloved of his subjects, was never in that land.’

  There was another side to James, however, a side that endeared him to many. Stories of ‘the King of the Commons’ wandering unknown among his subjects are widespread. Perhaps the best known tells how a miller called Jock Howieson rescued the (incognito) king from a gang of thugs and washed and dressed his wounds. James introduced himself as ‘the Gudeman of Ballangiech’, a tenant farmer on one of the royal estates, and, in gratitude, invited Howieson to Holyrood Palace. James promised the miller that he would catch a glimpse of the king, whom he would recognize as the only person wearing a hat. Once they had arrived at the palace, with James still in disguise, a group of courtiers all removed their hats and bowed, at which Howieson, who was wearing a cap himself, exclaimed, ‘Then it must be either you or me, for all but us are bareheaded!’ For his Good Samaritan kindness, Howieson received the freehold of a royal farm.

  But such romantic
events were mere interludes in what was otherwise a dark reign steeped in iniquity. The circumstances of James’s death were fittingly sad. On hearing that his forces had suffered a disastrous rout at the hands of the English at Solway Moss, James climbed into bed, turned his face to the wall and died, indifferent to the birth of his daughter Mary the MERMAID the week before.

  Ill-Fated Henry see Henry the MARTYR

  Jamshid the Illustrious

  Jamshid, king of Persia, fl. eighth century BC

  To Jamshid, the fifth monarch of Persia’s Pishdadian dynasty, we owe much. Legend credits him with nothing less than the introduction of the solar year and the invention of most of the arts and sciences on which civilization is based. It is to one of his wives, however, that we owe the discovery of the properties of wine. Suffering from a painful illness, she drank the juice of some fermented grapes in the mistaken belief that it would prove lethal. On the contrary, she fell into a deep sleep and woke up the next morning with a hangover – but cured.

  Perhaps it was the drink, but in later life Jamshid elevated his own status to that of a god, and for his pride he was put to a barbaric death. A Syrian prince named Zohak hunted him down and had him strapped between two boards and sawn in half with the backbone of a fish.

  Ptolemy the Illustrious see PTOLEMAIC KINGS

  Yung-cheng the Immortal

  Yung-cheng, emperor of China, 1678–1735

  On 8 October 1735 Yung-cheng the Immortal died.

  Vlad the Impaler

  Vlad Tepes, prince of Wallachia, c.1431–76

  As one might suspect, the origins behind Vlad’s nickname are not for the queasy.

  In the middle of the fifteenth century the province of Wallachia in southern Romania was self-governed under Turkish suzerainty. It was a brutal time and Vlad, who called himself ‘Dracula’, meaning ‘Son of the Dragon’, was the most brutal prince of all. He ruled the province three times. The six years of his principal reign, between 1456 and 1462, were predominantly occupied with combating the Turkish forces of Mehmed the CONQUEROR and quashing repeated rebellions by the Saxon citizens of Brasov. During this period he supposedly put 20,000 people to death, and his methods of maintaining sovereignty were nothing short of stomach-churning.