The royal annals do not dwell on whether he was intellectually challenged. They are content merely to record that in 747, when Carloman died and Pepin decided to crown himself king, Childeric was ‘retired’ to a monastery.
Ferdinand the Summoned
Ferdinand IV, king of Castile and León, 1285–1312
Apart from his troops’ capture of Gibraltar from the Moors in 1309, Ferdinand’s reign is of little note. His place in Spanish history is enshrined, however, due to the legend behind his sudden death. In 1312 Ferdinand condemned to death two brothers, John and Peter Carvajal, for a minor offence. As they faced their executioners, the prisoners vociferously proclaimed their innocence and summoned Ferdinand to appear before God within thirty days. Preparing for a raid on Granada, the king was very much alive and well thirty days later. The following morning, however, ‘el Emplazado’ –‘ the Summoned’ –was found dead in his bed.
Louis the Sun King
Louis XIV, king of France, 1638–1715
When Louis ascended the throne at the age of five, a party of grumbling nobles orchestrated violent unrest – known as ‘le Fronde’ –against his quasi-regent Cardinal Mazarin. In celebration of the defeat of these upstart aristocrats, Mazarin commissioned a ballet entitled Le Ballet de la Nuit, in which Louis danced the central role of the Rising Sun, while the princes of the Fronde were portrayed as rebellious divinities making obeisance to their prancing monarch. In so doing, Louis employed dance as a weapon of state and also won his nickname of ‘le Roi Soleil’.
Later, Louis delighted in appearing at various balls in his opulent courts as Apollo, the god of the sun, and incorporated the sun as part of his heraldic device, thus conveying to one and all his personal brilliance and that of the Bourbon dynasty. By the end of his reign, however, political clouds were forming over a nation whose place in the sun was increasingly unsure.
Fulk the Surly
Fulk IV, count of Anjou, 1043–1109
Disgruntled at inheriting little more than the Chateau of Vihiers from his uncle Geoffrey Martel while his elder brother ‘Geoffrey the Bearded’ received the province of Anjou, Fulk ‘le Rechin’ swiftly imprisoned Geoffrey and claimed the region as his own. Still dissatisfied with his lot, he then spent much of his life in battle against local barons and the forces of the duke of Normandy. Life hit rock bottom for the surly count, however, when the enormously fat Philip the AMOROUS ‘ran’ off with his wife.
Sweet Nell see Eleanor the WITTY
[T]
Ivan the Terrible
Ivan IV, tsar of Russia, 1530–84
When Ivan was only three his father died, leaving control of Russia in the hands of the senior members of the aristocracy known as boyars. For ten years these boyars utterly neglected their prince, to the extent that he became a beggar in his own palace. He was washed, dressed in fine clothes and put on display only when it was necessary to show a visiting dignitary that Russia was stable. The only person to whom little Ivan could turn was his nurse, Agrafena, and when she was forcibly removed to a convent he was utterly lost and alone – more ‘Ivan the Traumatized’ than ‘Ivan the Terrible’. Such an upbringing may go some way to explain his dark deeds of later life.
His terrible rule began on 29 December 1543 when he summoned the boyars together, berated them for their inhumanity and had their leader thrown into an enclosure with a pack of starving hounds. The dogs immediately set upon the screaming man and ate him. The large crowd of Muscovites who witnessed the event were deeply impressed, and the cowering boyars acknowledged that Ivan had complete power.
It is said that Ivan’s troops bestowed upon him the term of ‘Grozny’, meaning ‘the Terrible’ or more accurately ‘the Awesome’, after their victory over the Tatar stronghold of Kazan in 1562. Be that as it may, Ivan is popularly known as ‘the Terrible’ for his barbarism. Below are just some of the acts for which he is held responsible.
• He hurled dogs and cats from the Kremlin walls just to watch them suffer.
• He roamed the streets knocking down old people at will.
• He raped women, and disposed of his victims by having them hanged, thrown to bears or buried alive.
• He imprisoned his uncle in a dungeon and left him to starve.
• He had a peasant woman strip naked and then used her as target practice.
• He drowned a host of beggars en masse in a lake.
• He forced a boyar to sit on a barrel of gunpowder and then blew him to bits.
• He happened across his pregnant daughter-in-law in her underwear and beat her with his staff because he considered her attire indecent.
• He boiled his treasurer alive in a cauldron.
• He killed his own son in a fit of temper.
His most heinous crime of all was ordering the massacre of the 60,000 citizens of Novgorod. After the archbishop was sewn up in a bearskin and hunted to death by a pack of dogs, the ‘Oprich-niki’, Ivan’s black-uniformed secret police, embarked on their wholesale slaughter. Observers reported that so many bodies clogged the Volkhov River that it overflowed its banks.
As well as a callous heart, Ivan also had a calloused forehead, a condition caused by his throwing himself before icons and banging his head on the floor in acts of extreme devotion. He deeply loved his wife, Anastasia, calling her his ‘little heifer’, and when she died after a lingering disease, he underwent an emotional collapse and repeatedly hit his head on the floor in full view of the court. In 1584, after a forty-year reign of terror, Ivan was settling down to play a game of chess when he suddenly collapsed and died.
Attila the Terror of the World see Attila the SCOURGE OF GOD
James the Thistle
James IV, king of Scotland, 1473–1513
Although James was rather easily duped into signing away valuable crown lands (most notably to the Campbell and Gordon clans), he was a truly popular king, and it was his very shortcomings as a ruler – his fun-loving spirit and generosity – that won the hearts of his people.
James the Thistle
James ascended the throne when he was only fifteen, and dancing, hunting and hawking were the preferred pastimes in the court of the young monarch. Carefree with his money and extravagant with his wine bill, he was also a great religious enthusiast. He ate no meat on Wednesdays and Fridays, refused to mount a horse on Sundays and would not allow anything to interfere with his annual pilgrimage to the remote shrines of St Ninian and St Duthac. All this deeply impressed the courtier-poet William Dunbar, who, in his work The Thrissil and the Rose, dubbed his king ‘Thrissil’, or ‘Thistle’, after the national flower, and the young queen Margaret, daughter of Henry the ENGLISH SOLOMON (see ENGLISH EPITHETS), ‘that sweit meik Rois’.
Whatever James did, he did with energy. Internationally he improved his nation’s position within European politics, while domestically he improved the education system and licensed Scotland’s first printers. Passionately interested, meanwhile, in dentistry and surgery, he once paid a man fourteen shillings to be allowed to extract one of the man’s teeth, and another nearly two pounds to be allowed to let his blood.
More moonstruck than military, James died at the battle of Flodden Field whenhe accompanied his spearmen in a reckless downhill charge, his costly heroism helping to make him one of Scotland’s most popular monarchs of all time. Perhaps more pathetic than James’s sorry death, however, was that of his son, Alexander, the archbishop of St Andrews, a man so short-sighted that in order to read he had to hold a book at the end of his nose. Out of love and loyalty to his earthly father, he joined him on the battlefield. One hopes and expects that his demise was swift.
Anne of a Thousand Days see Anne the GREAT WHORE
Bejazet the Thunderbolt
Bejazet I, sultan of the Turks, 1347–1403
For the speed with which he transported his army from one continent to another, Bejazet was nicknamed ‘Yildirim’, meaning ‘Lightning’ or ‘the Thunderbolt’ –an epithet doubly suitab
le, as Edward Gibbon states, owing to the ‘fiery energy of his soul’ as well as the ‘rapidity of his destructive march’.
Bejazet was certainly never one to let grass grow under his feet. On the battlefield of Kosovo, where his father Murad was killed, his first act as the new sultan was to order the death of his own younger brother Yakub, whom he deemed too popular with the troops. The hapless Yakub was found and immediately strangled with a bowstring. Having quickly avenged his father’s death by a wholesale massacre of Serbian nobility, Bejazet turned his attentions to Asia Minor – a hasty act that was to prove his undoing. At the battle at Ankara he finally met his match in ‘Timur the Tatar’, who, legend has it, kept Bejazet in chains at night, used him literally as a footstool and had the sultan’s wife strip and serve him naked at his table. Bejazet’s spirit was crushed by such humiliations, and eight months after being captured he was dead from an apoplectic seizure.
Tiddy-Doll see Napoleon the LITTLE CORPORAL
Toom Tabard
John Balliol, king of Scotland, 1249–1315
To win the Scottish throne from a number of contenders, John had to pledge allegiance to Edward the HAMMER OF THE SCOTS. Once in power, however, he found Edward’s demands too stringent and refused to continue to pay him homage, forging instead the ‘Auld Alliance’ with France. Edward reacted swiftly, launching an attack against Scotland and decisively winning the only battle of the campaign, at Dunbar in April 1296. In early July the chastened John formally surrendered.
John’s nickname of‘Toom Tabard’, meaning ‘Empty Surcoat’ or ‘Empty Jacket’, stems from the humiliation that he then suffered. It is alleged that John was publicly cashiered – discharged from service with ignominy – by having the royal blazon from his coat ripped off before a jeering public.
Albert with the Tress see Albert THE ASTROLOGER
Theobald the Troubadour see NOBLE PROFESSIONS
Abu Bakr the Truthful see Abu Bakr the UPRIGHT
Tum Tum see Edward the CARESSER
George the Turnip-Hoer
George I, king of England, 1660–1727
Apart from a penchant for truffles George had no interest at all in the finer things of life. Averse to pomp and ceremony, the dour and matter-of-fact monarch preferred instead to concentrate on affairs of state and the prudent development of a well-ordered economy. Common sense was the royal watchword, indicated perhaps by his enquiry as to the cost of transforming the beautiful and ornate St James’s Park into a turnip field.
Alexander the Two-Horned see Alexander the GREAT
Christian the Tyrant
Christian II, king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, 1481–1559
In 1517, when already king of Denmark and Norway, Christian decided to conquer Sweden and become its king. After a couple of military setbacks he won a decisive battle at Bogesund in January 1520 at which Sten Sture, the Swedish regent, was mortally wounded. Christian’s coronation took place in November the same year. Six days of feasting later, the intemperate king then orchestrated an atrocity which will for ever sully his fame.
Despite a solemn and sweeping declaration of amnesty for all who had opposed him, Christian, with the decidedly unchristian archbishop Gustav Trolle at his side, accused Sture’s followers of heresy. Without trial, they were all found guilty; two bishops were dragged to the market-place and beheaded and nearly a hundred nobles and prominent burghers were killed in what became known as ‘the Stockholm Massacre’. The body of Sten Sture was disinterred and, together with those of the recently murdered, thrown on to a pyre and burned. For this outrage Christian acquired the unwelcome but deserved epithets ‘the Cruel’, ‘the Nero of the North’ and ‘the Tyrant’.
John the Tyrant see John the PERFECT
[U]
Edward the Uncle of Europe see Edward the CARESSER
Arnulfthe Unfortunate
Arnulf III, count of Flanders, 1055–71
Arnulf was unfortunate to grow up in a time when it was the norm for sixteen-year-old boys to fight in battle. Arnulf died, aged sixteen, at the battle of Kassel while fighting against his uncle, ‘Robert the Frisian’.
Louis the Universal Spider
Louis XI, king of France, 1423–83
With the aid of his assistant ‘Tristan the Gossip’, Louis was a consummate king of spin, creating an elaborate web of international relations and intrigue that trapped unwary politicians and uncertain monarchs into making concessions or agreeing to his harsh demands. The wily John II of Aragon, known for his own political parleying, warned that Louis was ‘the inevitable conqueror in all negotiations’, while the Milanese ambassadors to the French court, men who prided themselves on their diplomatic sophistication, found Louis to be the ‘subtlest man alive’.
Yet, less than a generation after his death, he was remembered not so much for his political mastery as for his cruelty and repression. Legend has it that he delighted in drinking infants’ blood and listening to the screams of people being tortured. More believable were stories of his harsh treatment of his servants who had their ears sliced off for simple acts of dishonesty, and his ill-treatment of some pigs which he had incorporated into a kind of porcine piano. Pigs of various sizes were attached to a keyboard and when the keys were pressed, spikes would jab the pigs, making them squeal in pain and almost in tune.
Ugly, indiscreet and manipulative, Louis claimed to be a devout Christian and wore a leaden statuette of the Virgin Mary in his hat.
Ethelred the Unready
Ethelred II, king of England, 968–1016
Ethelred was something of a reluctant monarch, and, according to historian Henry of Huntingdon, his reign was destined to be disastrous from the moment he urinated in the font at his baptism.
As every schoolchild knows, he is remembered as ‘the Unready’. Fewer are perhaps aware that the nickname does not refer to any lack of preparation on his part but is instead an ironic play on his name, with athel meaning ‘noble’ and raed meaning ‘counsel’. ‘Unready’ here means ‘poorly advised’, and by his own admission Ethelred did indeed receive poor guidance. His unsuccessful attempts to defend the country through diplomacy rather than force, his unproductive political marriage to Emma the GEM OF NORMANDY and his unpopular levy of a tax called ‘the Danegeld’ to buy off Viking raids, he agreed were all products of woeful counsel.
Ethelred the Unready
The worst advice Ethelred probably took was to endorse what became known as the St Brice’s Day Massacre on 13 November 1002, when he ordered the killing of every Dane living in England. Whether this decree was fulfilled to the letter is unclear. What is clear is that the event prompted Sven FORKBEARD to invade England. By 1013 Sven had been accepted as king and Ethelred had fled to Normandy. Ethelred returned to rule after Sven’s death in 1014, but died himself in 1016, leaving the country to his son Edmund IRONSIDE.
Elizabeth an Untamed Heifer see GOOD QUEEN BESS
Abu Bakr the Upright
Abu Bakr, Muslim caliph, c.573–634
Abu Bakr – the name itself means ‘the Father of the Maiden’ in reference to his daughter Aisha, whom Muhammad married at an age ‘when she was still playing with dolls’ –was the prophet’s closest friend. Abu Bakr succeeded Muhammad as the first caliph in 632 and began compiling the Qur’an. Such was his earnest holiness during his two-year reign that he earned the title ‘as-Siddiq’, meaning ‘the Truthful’ or ‘the Upright’.
[V]
Osman the Victorious
Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire, 1259–1326
On his deathbed Osman encouraged his son Orhan to ‘Rejoice my soul with a series of victories.’ Given his father’s extraordinary success in expanding the Ottoman dynasty, primarily at Byzantine expense, it was going to be hard for Orhan to emulate even half of his father’s achievements.
Osman was a simple soul who lived largely in the saddle and commanded a number of Turkish nomadic tribes that captured ‘infidel’ territories in order to increase the land und
er Islamic control. His first major victory, however, was not military but marital. He told his future father-in-law that he had experienced a dream in which he had seen the city of Constantinople as a jewelled ring on his (Osman’s) finger. The father-in-law was impressed and handed over his daughter, confident that Osman’s vision of personal power could mean nothing but good for him and his family. Successfully married, Osman could now turn his attention to military conquest.
Villages, then cities and then entire regions slowly but surely fell under his sway, until his greatest victory in 1326 when, after a ten-year siege, the great Byzantine city of Bursa capitulated. The Ottomans now had a real capital from which to pursue their imperial designs.
The news of the fall of Bursa reached Osman as he lay dying. To his son he left a vast area of the globe ripe for Ottoman expansion, and also his few personal but much cherished possessions, including his turban, a few pieces of red muslin and a salt cellar.
Waldemar the Victorious
Waldemar II, king of Denmark, 1170–1241
With BARBAROSSA reluctantly acknowledging Danish independence from Germany, and with a guarantee of no further military trouble from Norway, Waldemar felt comfortable enough to lead his forces personally in a crusade against Estonia, where success upon success made him master of much of the Baltic states. His greatest achievement was the final subjugation of the Estonians at the battle of Reval (modern-day Tallinn) in 1219, at which the Danish gained not only a famous victory but also their national symbol. According to legend, a red cloth with a white cross just happened to fall from the sky during the engagement, and from that day on the ‘Dannebrog’ has been Denmark’s national flag.
Napoleon the Violet Corporal see Napoleon the LITTLE CORPORAL
Elizabeth the Virgin Queen see GOOD QUEEN BESS
The Good, the Bad, and the Unready: The Remarkable Truth Behind History's Strangest Nicknames Page 21
