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

by Robert Easton

  He loved to watch people being boiled alive in copper cauldrons. He delighted in peeling the skin off the feet of Turkish prisoners, covering their wounds with salt and then bringing goats to lick their soles. Once, some Ottoman ambassadors refused to remove their turbans as a sign of respect for him, so he had their turbans nailed to their heads.

  But his favourite modus operandi was impalement. The people of Brasov earned the dubious distinction of being the most popular victims of this form of execution, and the hills surrounding their town carried more stakes than anywhere else in the principality. Here, it is said, Vlad impaled women and their suckling babies on the same stake and then wined and dined with Carpathian vultures among the cadavers. Here, a Russian narrative tells us, a boyar who was unable to endure the smell of coagulating blood any longer held his nose in a gesture of revulsion, upon which Vlad ordered a stake, three times as long as normal, to be prepared. He then presented it to the peasant saying, ‘You can live up there yonder, where the stench cannot reach you.’ The poor man was immediately impaled and his body left to rot in the sun.

  The mechanics of impalement are cumbersome. A sharp stake is thrust through the victim’s rectum, and then forced through the body to emerge either through the eye or throat. The stake is then planted in the ground, leaving the victim hanging in agony. Stories of Vlad’s impaling some 100,000 people in his lifetime are therefore highly improbable. If a tenth of the tales of his brutality deserve any credence, however, Vlad was one of the most barbaric men of the Middle Ages, and any gory scenes in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula are the lightest of entertainments in comparison.

  Ferdinand the Inconstant

  Ferdinand I, king of Portugal, 1345–83

  The story of this woefully perfidious king is a tale of three women who had something in common. Ferdinand, also known as ‘the Handsome’, initially intended to marry Leonor, daughter of the king of Aragon, but under the provisions of a political treaty was compelled to snub her in favour of Leonor, the daughter of the Castilian ‘Henry the Bastard’. Ferdinand then rocked royal society by jilting Henry’s daughter in favour of the beautiful Portuguese noblewoman Leonor Teles de Meneses. While one may not admire his inconstancy with women, one cannot but be impressed with the constancy of their names.

  Louis the Indolent see GALLIC PRACTICE

  Elizabeth the Infamous

  Elizabeth, empress of Russia, 1709–62

  Elizabeth Petrovna was known throughout the courts of Europe as ‘1’Infame Catin du Nord’, or ‘the Northern Harlot’, but her reputation as nothing but a trollop is unwarranted. What one can say with certainty is that Elizabeth was a woman of passion.

  • She was a passionate patriot. Like her father Peter the GREAT, she was held in the highest esteem by her army and her first years of power showed her to be an astute, if painfully procrastinating, governor of Russia.

  • She was a passionate hostess. The beautiful, popular and vivacious Elizabeth provided guests at court with lavish feasts and entertainments. Childless herself, she adored holding children’s parties, serving up miniature food on miniature plates on miniature tables.

  • She was passionate about her appearance. One of her weaknesses was fine clothes, and unlike most she had the means of indulging it. On her death 15,000 dresses were discovered in her wardrobes.

  • She was passionate about matters spiritual. Elizabeth was extremely religious, yet also extremely superstitious. If a fly, for instance, settled on her pen or paper when she was on the point of signing a bill, the document would be put to one side for another day.

  • She was a passionate sensualist. The French ambassador found her disgusting, alluding in various dispatches to her deplorable indolence, her delight in being surrounded by riff-raff, and her ‘voluptuous vanity’. Her favourite luxury, we are told, was to lie in bed and have her feet scratched by her ladies-in-waiting.

  Elizabeth the Infamous

  Irish High Kings

  Beginning with the extravagantly named, and probably legendary, ‘Slainge the Firbolg’ of about 2000 BC, royal cognomens in Irish genealogies make intriguing reading. Most Irish histories start with the fourth-century AD king ‘Niall of the Nine Hostages’, but there is sufficient evidence to trace high kings back several centuries before him. Some of these kings were given nicknames, and below is a list, beginning at AD 1, of those so honoured.

  First Century AD

  Nuada the White

  Lugaide of the Red Stripes

  Conchobar of the Red Brows

  Crimthann the Modest Warrior

  Carbery Cathead

  Second Century

  Tuathal the Legitimate

  Fedlimid the Lawgiver

  Conn of the Hundred Battles

  Third Century

  Art the Solitary

  Fergus of the Black Teeth

  Fourth Century

  Eochaid Slave-Lord

  Niall of the Nine Hostages

  Sixth Century

  Domnall the Deceitful

  Colman the Celebrated

  Seventh Century

  Aed of the Ague

  Suibne the Little

  Finnechtae the Festive

  Eighth Century

  Aed the Handsome

  Niall of the Showers

  Ninth Century

  Aed the Dignified

  Aed White-Hair

  Flann the Fox

  Early Tenth Century

  Niall Black-Knee

  William the Iron Arm see the SONS OF TANCRED

  Arthur the Iron Duke

  Arthur Wellesley, duke of Wellington, 1769–1852

  Was Wellington named ‘the Iron Duke’, as one Victorian biographer has proposed, after a steamboat that plied between Liverpool and Dublin? Or did the press dub him so after he installed iron shutters at Apsley House in 1828 to fend off an angry mob? Without question, Wellington himself would have preferred to believe the name derived from either the harsh discipline he imposed on his regiments or his rigid opposition to parliamentary reforms.

  After his famous victory at Waterloo in 1815 over Napoleon the LITTLE CORPORAL, and before any ferrous appellations had become common currency, Wellington had been variously heralded as ‘the Great Duke’ and ‘the Saviour of the Nations’. His most popular nicknames throughout his life, however, celebrated neither his military success nor his political character, but his vast and unmistakable nose. Supporters and critics alike knew him as ‘Conky’, ‘Old Nosey’ and ‘Beaky’, while even poets were fascinated by his immense aquiline proboscis. ‘Proud Wellington,’ wrote Byron, ‘with eagle beak so called / That nose, the hook where he suspends the world.’

  Iron-Hand

  Götz von Berlichingen, German knight, 1480–1562

  No metaphor in use here. The Germans named their hero ‘Iron-Hand’ precisely because he had an artificial iron hand, replacing one that had been blown off at the siege of Landshut in 1505.

  Ernest the Iron-handed

  Ernest, duke of Austria, 1383–1424

  Ernest’s uncompromising and relentless warring against his brothers Frederick and Leopold accounts for his epithet, but in a wonderful uxorial nickname transference it is Ernest’s wife who really deserves this soubriquet. Cymburga, a Polish noblewoman, was the perfect partner for the adamantine Ernest. Historians record that she could crack nuts with her fingers and drive nails into wood with her bare fist.

  Edmund Ironside

  Edmund II, king of England, c.993–1016

  The sixteenth-century antiquary William Camden states that Edmund’s nickname derived from his valour on the battlefield. Others claim, however, that the king was so called because he wore his armour all day, every day. He undoubtedly had use for it, fighting no fewer than five battles with ‘Canute the Great’ (see GREAT… BUT NOT THAT GREAT) within a year of occupying the English throne. At the battle of Ashingdon, a chink in his battered iron armour was found, and Edmund received a fatal wound.

  Frederick Ir
ontooth

  Frederick II, margrave of Brandenburg, 1413–71

  At the turn of the fifteenth century Berlin was an unhygienic outpost of the Holy Roman Empire, bogged down in lawlessness and ravaged by plague. In 1411 Sigismund the LIGHT OF THE WORLD asked the noblemen of the House of Hohenzollern to quash the province’s robber barons and restore law and order. This they did with admirable speed. When, however, the young Frederick assumed control of the region, some of the more arrogant burghers presumed his inexperience spelled liberality. Not so. Frederick immediately disbanded the courts, seized private property and ‘bit off’ the hand of anyone who dared to take liberties; hence his nickname ‘Dent de Fer’.

  Nicholas the Iron Tsar

  Nicholas I, tsar of Russia, 1796–1855

  Nicholas was a big baby. When his grandmother Catherine the GREAT clapped eyes upon him, she marvelled at this ‘colossus’ and whisked him away to her private quarters to raise him herself. But Catherine died five months later and Nicholas returned to the care of his somewhat indifferent parents. He grew to be strikingly handsome and was a big hit with the ladies when he visited England in 1816. With his Grecian nose, curly moustache and imperial bearing, he could have chosen almost anyone to be his bride. As it was he fell for and married the sickly Princess Charlotte of Prussia, whom he called ‘Mouffy’, and together they had seven children, including Alexander the EMANCIPATOR.

  In December 1825 Nicholas’s older brother Alexander died and, after putting down a small revolt by the so-called ‘Decembrists’, Nicholas was acknowledged as tsar of all Russia. It was a job he took seriously. Nicholas saw himself as something of a guardian against revolution, and his foreign policy of offering his nation’s services to suppress any regional uprising earned him the tag ‘the Gendarme of Europe’. The name ‘the Iron Tsar’, meanwhile, stems from his ferociously repressive national policies. Championing the mantra of‘autocracy, orthodoxy, and nationality’, Nicholas governed Russia as a police state, and woe betide anyone who stepped out of line. Spies were everywhere and punishments severe. Singing a mildly risque song at a private party, publishing a literary paper that challenged his supreme authority, or sporting a beard (if one was a nobleman) –all could be sufficient to earn a one-way ticket to Siberia.

  [J]

  John of Yesteryear

  Robert III, king of Scotland, c.1337–1406

  Robert’s nickname was ‘John Faranyei’, or ‘John of Yesteryear’, because his name as a child was John, but he switched it to Robert at his coronation. This ‘Robert’ did because he was all too aware of the miserable reign of John‘ TOOM TABARD’ Balliol and concluded that the name of John must be unlucky. However, if he thought a change of name would ensure a peaceful reign, he was sorely mistaken.

  In 1394 a horse kicked Robert so violently that he was left physically unable to oversee the day-to-day government of the kingdom. Reluctantly, he handed over the reins of power to his ambitious and corrupt younger brother, the duke of Albany, who immediately imprisoned Robert’s son David and left him to starve to death. Another of Robert’s brothers, Alexander the WOLF OF BADENOCH, meanwhile, had become the bandit ruler of northern Scotland, tyrannizing the Isles without fear of reprisal.

  The whole kingdom, wrote one chronicler, was ‘a den of thieves [where] murders… fire-raising and all other deeds remained unpunished’, and Robert knew he had been a failure. When James, yet another son, was captured by English pirates and sent to the Tower of London, it was all too much for him. He retired to his ancestral home and told Annabella, his wife, that he wanted to be buried in a dunghill with the epitaph, ‘Here lies the worst of kings and the most miserable of men.’

  Otto the Jolly

  Otto, duke of Austria, d.1339

  Except in battle, Otto der Fröhliche always had a smile on his face. He reigned – very happily – with his disabled brother Albert the LAME, joyfully marrying Anna, the sister of Charles the PARSON’S EMPEROR, and jovially accepting the added appointment of vicar of Germany when it was offered to him.

  Edward the Josiah of England see ENGLISH EPITHETS

  Aristides the Just

  Aristides, Athenian statesman, c.530–468 BC

  The process of ostracism in ancient Athens took the form of citizens scratching on a fragment of pottery the name of the man they wished to see banished. If more than 6,000 ballots were cast, the person whose name appeared most often was exiled for a period often years. And in 482 BC Aristides, a statesman known for his honesty, fairness and integrity – and consequently envied and detested by many – found himself a candidate for banishment.

  On election day an illiterate country bumpkin approached Aristides, whom he did not know, and asked him to write Aristides’ on his ballot. The statesman asked the farmer whether this Aristides had ever done him any wrong. ‘Oh no,’ came the reply, ‘in fact, I don’t even know who Aristides is, but I’m simply tired of hearing everyone call him “the Just”.’ Aristides dutifully wrote down his own name and was ostracized. Two years later, however, the statesman was invited back. Athens simply could not live without a man who so eminently displayed the virtues it held most dear.

  Haroun the Just

  Haroun al-Rashid, caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, c.766–809

  Haroun was literally the stuff of legend, with his splendid court at Baghdad playing a central role in the book The Thousand and One Nights. His mother al-Khayzuran ruled there imperiously, and his wife ostentatiously lived in the lap of luxury, refusing to have anything but jewel-studded gold and silver vessels on her table. In comparison with these two women, Haroun himself was a rather unassuming man, content to listen to music, write poetry and watch the occasional cockfight.

  Legend also has it that Haroun al-Rashid – sometimes anglicized to ‘Aaron the Just’ –was so anxious that his subjects should be treated justly by his government that he would sometimes disguise himself at night and walk through the city bazaars, listening to people’s concerns and complaints.

  However, justice in eighth-century Arabia was meted out summarily. On learning of a scandalous relationship between his grand vizier and an Abbasid princess, Haroun had all the leading members of the vizier’s family executed. Accompanying the incognito caliph on his fact-finding strolls through Baghdad, meanwhile, were not only a few friends, but also, rather sinisterly, his executioner.

  Louis the Just see GALLIC PRACTICE

  Peter the Just see Peter the CRUEL

  [K]

  Christopher the King of Bark

  Christopher III, king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, 1418–48

  The good-natured, easy-going but none-too-enterprising Christopher enjoyed his beer far more than the vexing affairs of state, and discontent with his indolence increased exponentially when a string of bad harvests compelled his peasants to mix ground tree-bark with their flour to make bread. Out of sympathy, the king apparently joined his subjects in eating these ‘bark buns’ –a practice that may have contributed to his early death.

  Henry the King of Brave Men see Henry the GREAT

  Louis the King of Slops

  Louis XVIII, king of France, 1755–1824

  For much of his life Louis was a king without a kingdom, and Europe’s elite had little time for him. Occupied with the machinations of Napoleon the LITTLE CORPORAL, they dubbed this brother of Louis XVI ‘le Roi Panade’ –literally ‘the Bread-Soup King’. This was not a gastronomic nickname, however, but an economic one, suggesting that Louis, exiled and without a traditional royal income, was fiscally ‘in the soup’. E. Cobham Brewer, the compiler of the famous Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, translates ‘Roi Panade’, somewhat harshly, as ‘the King of Slops’.

  Modest, yet ever optimistic about the royalist cause despite Napoleon’s success, Louis spent nineteen years away from French soil waiting for the right moment to reclaim the throne. In the spring of 1814 it seemed that moment had come. The English stopped calling the chubby old gentleman who had been quietly living among them
‘Bungy Louis’ and instead hailed him as ‘the Desired’, encouraging him to consolidate the peace that Arthur the IRON DUKE had done so much to win for him.

  After the battle of Waterloo, Louis returned to France where, apart from the Hundred Days when Napoleon attempted to reclaim power, he spent the next nine years doing his level best to rule as a constitutional monarch. But it was hard work. Louis was in his sixties, obese and suffering from gout, and as his health grew more feeble, so did his influence. On his deathbed in September 1824 Louis is reported to have sighed morosely that ‘a king should die on his feet’.

  Louis Philip the King of the Barricades see Louis Philip the CITIZEN KING

  James the King of the Commons see James the ILL-BELOVED

  Edward the King of the Sea see Edward the BANKRUPT

  King Oliver see NOSE ALMIGHTY

  Richard the Kingmaker

  Richard Neville, sixteenth earl of Warwick, 1428–71

  Through his marriage to Lady Anne de Beauchamp in 1449, Richard Neville acquired not only the title of earl of Warwick, but also sizeable estates throughout England, making him one of the most powerful men in the country. His increased wealth and political influence enabled him to carve out for himself the role of kingmaker – instrumental in the fortunes of two men who were both vying for the English throne.

  Richard the Kingmaker

  First, Richard wielded his power to negotiate the deposition of Henry the MARTYR in favour of his own cousin Edward the ROBBER, but when Edward proved treacherously ungrateful, Richard drove him into exile and restored Henry to the throne once more. Richard’s military dexterity did not match his brilliant, manipulative political skill, however, and he was killed a few months later, fighting against Edward’s forces at the battle of Barnet.