To the epithets ‘the Corsican General’, ‘the Eagle’ and ‘the Nightmare of Europe’, ‘the Violet Corporal’ was added when Napoleon was banished to the island of Elba in 1814. Napoleon vowed that he would return to France when violets were flowering, and his supporters wore the flower in their lapels to demonstrate their loyalty. And he was true to his promise, arriving at the Tuileries in Paris in March 1815, when the violets were in full bloom. After his defeat at the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon allegedly asked to visit the grave of his wife, Josephine, before he was exiled to St Helena. He picked a few violets growing around her headstone and put them in a locket which he wore until his death six years later.
Little Father see Alexander the EMANCIPATOR
Catherine the Little Mother of all the Russians see Catherine the GREAT
Louis the Locksmith King see the BAKER AND THE BAKER’S WIFE
Edward Longshanks see Edward the HAMMER OF THE SCOTS
Archibald the Loser
Archibald Douglas, fourth earl of Douglas, c.1369–1424
Archibald lost so many battles and was so unlucky a general that he gained the nickname of ‘Tine-man’, or ‘the Loser’, as well as the sympathy of the historian David Hume of Godscroft, who wrote that ‘no man was lesse fortunate, and… no man was more valorous.’ Archibald lost more than battles, however. In 1402 he lost an eye when fighting Harry HOTSPUR at the battle of Homildon Hill; later that same year he lost favour with Henry BOLINGBROKE of England when he joined Percy’s rebel forces; and finally, on 14 August 1424, he lost his life while leading the French and Scottish troops against the English under John with the LEADEN SWORD in the battle of Verneuil in Normandy.
Ptolemy the Lover of his Father see PTOLEMAIC KINGS
Ptolemy the Lover of his Mother see PTOLEMAIC KINGS
Philip the Lucky see GALLIC PRACTICE
[M]
Macedonia’s Madman see Alexander the GREAT
Charles the Mad see Charles the SILLY
Joan the Mad
Joan, queen of Castile and Aragon, 1479–1555
As early as 1499 a Spanish priest reported his concern that the young wife of Philip the HANDSOME was ‘so frightened that she could not hold up her head’, but the first clear signs of her extreme neurosis did not appear until three years later, when she would apparently run up curtains like a cat. Many chroniclers believe that her mental imbalance lay in her profound jealousy of her good-looking but inept husband, whom she suspected of having numerous affairs. Such suspicion was highly justified. Philip was a playboy whose calculating advisers, one ambassador reported, would ‘take him from banquet to banquet and from one lady to the next’. When the lusty Philip died aged twenty-eight, Joan went completely insane and refused to have her husband buried. Instead she traipsed his corpse from monastery to monastery (avoiding convents, where she assumed that Philip might seduce the nuns) in the expectation that he would rise from the dead.
Otto the Mad
Otto, king of Bavaria, 1848–1916
Incurably insane when he came to the throne in 1886, Otto invoked his ‘royal prerogative’ to shoot a peasant every day. His courtiers-cum-guards duly obliged. Using a gun loaded with blanks, the monarch would take a pot at a palace servant dressed as a serf. On hearing the report of the gun, the courtier would topple ‘dead’ into the nearest bush.
Rupert the Mad Cavalier
Rupert, prince of the Palatinate, 1619–82
Charles the LAST MAN could not have been happier when his nephew Rupert offered his services shortly before the outbreak of the English Civil War. His reputation as an intrepid soldier and horseman during the Thirty Years War had preceded him, and Charles swiftly put the 23-year-old in charge of the royalist cavalry. Once in office Rupert set about making crucial changes to the tactics of the cavalry charge.
Beginning at the battle of Edgehill, Rupert specified that, unlike before, the royalist horse would not use their firearms until they had broken through the opposing ranks. This meant that the cavalry literally charged at the enemy, making contact with them when at a gallop. The shock of such a thundering attack was a major reason behind his many victories.
For his own part Rupert was considered something of a fearless lunatic, gleefully riding into every fresh encounter with nothing but military glory on his mind. Amazingly, he was never wounded badly, and eventually retired to Germany where he dabbled in the printmaking business.
Madame Deficit see the BAKER AND THE BAKER’S WIFE
Madame Veto see the BAKER AND THEBAKER’S WIFE
Charles the Madman of the North
Charles XII, king of Sweden, 1682–1718
At the outset of the eighteenth century Charles XII of Sweden waged the Great Northern War against Denmark, Poland and Russia, and a succession of victories won him the title ‘the Alexander of the North’. His reckless disregard for his own safety, however, coupled with the wholesale defeat of his army at Poltava in 1709, earned him the nickname ‘the Madman of the North.
Some have hailed Charles as a hero and the inspiration behind all attempts to restore the country’s imperial status. According to the poet Esaias Tegner, he was ‘Svea’s [Sweden’s] greatest son’. Others have gone so far as to claim he was something of a superman, battling like Odin against evil forces. Voltaire glorified him as ‘the only person in history who was free from all human weakness’. A third element, on the other hand, has condemned him as a slightly unhinged, unyielding fool, whose refusal to make peace prior to Poltava, when Sweden had the upper hand, brought disaster upon the nation.
Francis the Maecenas of France see Francis the FATHER OF LETTERS
Philip the Magnanimous
Philip II, king of France, 1165–1223
Under Philip, known by some as ‘Philip Augustus’ because he was born in August, France doubled in size. The count of Flanders, Henry CURTMANTLE and John LACKLAND all surrendered lands to him during a reign marked by military success. His nickname, however, reflects his domestic accomplishments rather than his territorial gains. Philip paved the main roads of Paris, continued construction of the magnificent Notre-Dame Cathedral and built the Louvre (as a fortress, not as an art gallery). Trade privileges won him the support of the merchant class, and fair taxation earned him the appreciation of the nation’s workforce.
Not everyone was a recipient of Philip’s magnanimity, least of all his second wife, Ingeborg of Denmark. Philip married Ingeborg, daughter of ‘Waldemar the Great’, in 1193. For reasons that are not entirely clear (the English chronicler William of Newburgh suggests that he was furious that he did not receive ‘the ancient right of the King of the Danes in the English kingdom’ as his dowry) he hastily repudiated his marriage. When Ingeborg protested, Philip confined her to a convent.
Philip then asked the pope for an annulment on the grounds that the marriage had not been consummated. Again Ingeborg protested, claiming that it had been consummated, and that she was the rightful queen. Deaf to her claims and in defiance of the pope, Philip married a Bavarian noblewoman called Agnes of Meran. Once more Ingeborg protested. This time the pope agreed with her complaint and in 1200 demanded that Philip take Ingeborg back as his wife. Philip did so, but far from magnanimously, waiting thirteen long years before releasing her from her duties as a nun.
Edmund the Magnificent
Edmund I, king of the English, 921–46
A monk by the name of Florence of Worcester styled Edmund both as ‘the Magnificent’ and as ‘the Deed-Doer’, and although the king did indeed do deeds – and great deeds at that – Edmund himself would have been the first to agree that neither the start nor the end of his reign was particularly magnificent.
His rule began with a serious military setback when Olaf, the Norse king of Dublin, captured the kingdom of York shortly after Edmund’s succession. Over the next few years, however, things improved territorially. Edmund drove Olaf back to Ireland, crushed a revolt of ‘Idwal the Bald’ and pushed Scottish insurgents back beyond N
orthumbria. The succession of his family line was guaranteed, meanwhile, with the birth of future kings Edwy the FAIR and Edgar the PEACEABLE.
His sons were barely toddlers when Edmund died abruptly and in a decidedly undistinguished manner. While celebrating the feast of St Augustine in Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire, the king recognized a thief called Leofa, whom he had exiled six years earlier. An argument started, a brawl ensued, and Edmund was fatally stabbed in the stomach.
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, 1495–1566
Under Suleiman, the Ottoman Empire reached its apogee, a golden age when its administration, culture and military might were simultaneously at their zenith. The imperial fleet controlled the Mediterranean, his army besieged Vienna, and artists, poets and theologians bustled among the new ornamental public buildings which graced Istanbul, the proud capital city of an empire of some 30 million people.
Suleiman the Magnificent
In the West Suleiman was ‘the Magnificent’, so named not only for his military conquests but also for the splendour of his court. Suleiman ruled there with absolute authority, drinking perfumed water from jewelled cups and watching the antics of dwarves. His life was a composite of suspicion (like Abdul the DAMNED he changed his bedroom every night), opulence (he seldom wore his clothes more than once) and pomp. At a funeral for one of his children (whose death, incidentally, he had ordered) Suleiman commanded that a special ointment should be put into the eyes of the horses which drew his chariots, in order that they should be seen to ‘weep’.
In his own country he was known as ‘Kanuni’, ‘the Lawgiver’, a leader who, assisted by his grand viziers, set up a remarkable administration and developed a flourishing economy. Using a detailed book of regulations, he divided his vast dominions into several districts, appointed a specific portion of his army to each region, and spelled out the function of each soldier down to the last man.
On Suleiman’s death, control of the empire passed into the hands of his son Selim II. There was no rivalry for the succession since Suleiman had arranged for his other children to be murdered. As his nickname ‘the Sot’ would indicate, Selim oversaw the gradual implosion of the empire that his father had striven so hard to build.
Margaret the Maid of Norway
Margaret, queen-elect of Scotland, 1283–90
When Alexander the GLORIOUS plunged off a cliff to his death, the Scottish royal line was catapulted into crisis. Who would be the next monarch? Edward the HAMMER OF THE SCOTS was duly consulted and he declared that little Margaret, then living in Norway, was to be the next queen, and furthermore that she would marry his son. So, Margaret said farewell to her father ‘Erik the Priest-Hater’ and set sail to succeed her grandfather as ruler. But it was not to be. The rough crossing from Bergen to Scotland proved too much for the little six-year-old maid, and she died on board during a storm off the Orkney Islands.
Malcolm the Maiden
Malcolm IV, king of Scotland, 1141–65
In 1152 red-blooded Highlanders were unimpressed with their effeminate-looking new king, and were in rebellious mood when the slim and fair-haired Malcolm ceded English lands, so hard won by ‘David the Saint’, to Henry CURTMANTLE. Malcolm possessed a kind and gentle disposition, and his vow of celibacy, an oath made much to the chagrin of his mother, gave rise to his nickname. But he was no pushover, and he put down all civil uprisings with swift and brutal efficiency.
Malcolm died after a short illness aged twenty-four. Scotland came under the jurisdiction of his younger brother, William the LION, a man whose fiery temperament was much more to the liking of the kingdom’s northern residents.
Joan Makepeace
Joan, queen of Scotland, 1321–62
In accordance with the terms of the peace treaty of Northampton, Joan, sister of Edward the BANKRUPT of England, was married in July 1328 to David, son of the Scottish king Robert the BRUCE. The couple enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, the distinction of being the youngest royals ever to wed. Joan had just turned seven and David was only four and a half. Although we do not know for sure whether they liked each other’s company, one thing that is certain is that the only product of their thirty-four years of union was Joan’s nickname.
Ptolemy the Malefactor see PTOLEMAIC KINGS
Henry the Man-Milliner
Henry III, king of France, 1551–89
Henry ‘le Mignon’ of France was a spineless, effeminate dandy who spurned public affairs of state to pursue his private passions of fashion design and the training of dogs, parrots and monkeys. ‘Maximilien the Iron Duke’ was aghast at the sight of this coxcomb of a king caked with cosmetics and drenched with perfume. ‘I shall never forget,’ he wrote, ‘his fantastic equipage. He had a sword at his side, a Spanish hood hung down upon his shoulders… and a basket full of little dogs hung to a broad ribband about his neck.’ While Henry dabbled in designing hats, Anne the KING’S KING ran the country and acquired his nickname for his efforts.
Charles the Man of Blood see Charles the LAST MAN
Demetrius the Man Who Sacrificed His Head see Demetrius the DEVOTED
Anne the Mare of Flanders
Anne of Cleves, queen of England, 1515–57
On New Year’s Day 1540 BLUFF KING HAL galloped to Rochester on England’s south coast to catch a glimpse of the woman who was to be his fourth wife. Thomas the HAMMER OF THE MONKS had shown him a portrait of Anne painted by Hans Holbein, and now, weighed down with New Year’s gifts for her, Henry was eager to meet his new bride in the flesh.
Henry kept the gifts. The woman he saw bore no resemblance to Holbein’s picture; in fact, she looked like a horse. Placing politics above pleasure, Henry married the equine Anne, although he made it clear to one and all that he ‘left her as good a maid as he found her’. Shortly after Easter the couple were divorced, and Anne trotted away to live a comfortable life, taking advantage of Henry’s generous gift of two houses, a substantial retinue and the princely sum of £500 a year. The matchmakingminister Cromwell, meanwhile, was beheaded.
Charles the Martyr see Charles the LAST MAN
Edward the Martyr
Edward, king of England, c.962–78
When the sixteen-year-old Edward visited his half-brother Ethel-red the UNREADY at Corfe Castle, an unorthodox welcome party was waiting to greet him. Seeing him approach, the household staff gathered at the main gate and offered him a cup of refreshing mead. As he drank, they proceeded to stab him to death. Few missed the teenager, who is remembered largely for his cockiness and tantrums. Within a few years, however, some people were claiming that miracles were occurring alongside his bones, which had been buried without ceremony in a church in the small town of Wareham. Eager to oblige his people, Ethelred had Edward’s bones moved to Shaftesbury Abbey, and declared him a saint and martyr.
Henry the Martyr
Henry VI, king of England, 1421–71
Henry was a devout Christian, but when he was stabbed to death while saying his prayers in the Tower of London he was killed not for his faith but for his crown. His was a tragic reign mired in rebellion, in which he mostly played the part of pawn to the ambitions of others. He was born at Windsor Castle, and succeeded to the thrones of both England and France before the age of one, when his father, Henry the ENGLISH ALEXANDER (see ENGLISH EPITHETS), and his grandfather Charles the SILLY of France died within months of each other. Two of his uncles – GOOD DUKE HUMPHREY in England and John with the LEADEN SWORD in France – acted as regents until he assumed royal authority in 1442.
The dual monarchy proved too much for Henry, who preferred cultural pursuits to war. He was passionate about education and founded both Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, but when it came to military matters he simply did not have the fortitude or will necessary to rule in such turbulent times. In France, the revival of French patriotism under Joan of Arc, ‘the Fair Maid of Orleans’, led to England yielding nearly all its French territories. In England
the success of the House of York in the Wars of the Roses resulted in Henry’s deposition, imprisonment and eventual murder.
Though Henry was assassinated, the epithet ‘the Martyr’ seems somewhat inappropriate. More apt is the soubriquet ‘Ill-Fated Henry’ found in Alexander Pope’s poem ‘Windsor-Forest’, which pleads:
Let softer strains ill-fated Henry mourn,
And palms eternal flourish round his urn.
Erik the Meek
Erik III, king of Denmark, d.1146
Never able to forget the violent death of his uncle Erik the MEMORABLE, Erik ‘Lam’ was a docile, peace-loving monarch in an age when lambs like him were routinely slaughtered. Thankfully he collaborated with the hard-headed and strong-willed Archbishop Eskil, who helped him both in Church administration and in repulsing a number of invasions before encouraging him to retire to a monastery.
Erik the Memorable
Erik II, king of Denmark, d.1137
Erik is never to be forgotten for his massacre of Prince Magnus and no fewer than five Danish bishops and sixty priests in the bloody battle of Fotevik of 1134. Erik, moreover, will always be recalled for his ensuing brutal three-year reign in which he murdered a brother and a nephew and quelled uprisings with barbaric efficiency. The exact year of his birth has escaped everyone’s memory, however.
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