Ferdinand the Catholic see the CATHOLIC KINGS
Isabella the Catholic see the CATHOLIC KINGS
Michael the Caulker see NOBLE PROFESSIONS
Peter the Ceremonious
Peter IV, king of Aragon, 1319–87
Peter considered authority to be effective only if seen to be so, and therefore busied himself with pomp, ceremony and self-celebration to prove that he was in charge. He enjoyed making grand gestures, and founded a couple of universities, had the Qur’an and other major works translated into Catalan, and placed the crown upon his own head at his coronation. But he was also a stickler for detail: when, for example, King James III of Majorca came to court to pay homage, Peter made him sit on a small, unimpressive cushion as a reminder of his lowly status.
Many of his demonstrations of rank and power were shocking in their cruelty, so much so that some nicknamed him ‘Peter el del Puñal’ or ‘Peter of the Dagger’. Once he summoned some Valencian nobles whom he suspected of double-dealing to his court. On their arrival he had one of the palace bells that had summoned them melted down, and the hot lead poured down the unfortunate dignitaries’ throats.
Alfonso the Chaste
Alfonso II, king of Asturias, 759–842
Early in his reign Alfonso made Oviedo the new capital of the kingdom of Asturias. It was from here that he made the first pilgrimage to Compostela, where the supposed tomb of the apostle St James had recently been discovered. As one might expect from a chaste and devout king, Alfonso died without heirs.
Boleslav the Chaste see Boleslav the BASHFUL
Le Chevalier de St George see James the WARMING-PAN BABY
Ptolemy the Chickpea see PTOLEMAIC KINGS
Louis the Child
Louis IV, king of the east Franks, 893–911
Louis was indeed a child – barely six – when he ascended the throne, and he relied upon Liutpold, the margrave of Bavaria, to run the kingdom and keep marauding Magyar horsemen at bay. When Liutpold died in battle in 907, the Magyars ran amok. And when Louis himself, still in his teens, died four years later, the whole of the eastern part of the Frankish Empire sank into desperate lawlessness.
Saladin the Chivalrous Saracen
Saladin, Saracen leader, c.1138–93
Saladin was pitted against Richard the LIONHEART in the Third Crusade and earned his nickname when he allegedly saw Richard without a horse and sent him one of his own steeds, saying he would not see such a worthy opponent without a mount. He was not all sweetness and light, however: his hatred of Christians was absolute. ‘Let us purge the air that they breathe,’ he told his troops, ‘until there shall not remain on this earth one unbeliever in God.’
Saladin the Chivalrous Saracen
Citizen Equity
Philip I, duke of Orléans, 1747–93
In an attempt to recoup the vast fortune that he had squandered, Philip built an arcade of shops and cafes in his palace grounds. Business proved to be brisk, and the gardens soon became a popular meeting place. However, they also became a crucible of liberal dissent, and as the French Revolution grew in intensity, so did murmurings against Philip, with rumours flying that he secretly harboured ambitions to be king. To stem the tide of unpopularity, Philip publicly renounced his hereditary titles, assumed the name ‘Citizen Equity’ or ‘E´galite’ and, as a member of the National Convention, voted in 1792 for the death of Louis XVI, ‘the Baker’ (see the BAKER AND THE BAKER’S WIFE). His efforts were in vain, however, and Philip followed the monarch to the guillotine the very next year.
Louis Philip the Citizen King
Louis Philip I, king of France, 1773–1850
Together with the likes of Maximilien Robespierre and Jean Paul Marat, Louis was a member of the Jacobin Club. He fought in the Revolutionary army but, feeling alienated by the more radical policies of the Republic, deserted, and in 1793 went into exile in Switzerland. For a number of years he travelled under a pseudonym, first as ‘Chabaud Latour’ and later as ‘Herr Müller’, only returning to France after the restoration of the Bourbons over twenty years later.
Colourful Characters
Erik the RED, Edward the BLACK PRINCE, Harald BLUE-TOOTH and many others with a colour-related epithet are mentioned elsewhere in this book. Below is a collection of other nobles whose main soubriquet is ‘black’, ‘red’, ‘green’ or ‘white’. As with the longer, individual entries, the origins of these nicknames vary, from hair colour to dress sense.
Fulk the Black
Fulk III, count of Anjou, c.970–1040
Even the most bloodthirsty of barbarians would blanch when they considered the dark deeds of Fulk, a man who burnt his wife at the stake, waged war with his son, and sent twelve thugs to assassinate the favourite minister of Robert the PIOUS.
Halfdan the Black
Halfdan III, king of Norway, d.c.860
Details about Halfdan’s life, as recorded by medieval Icelandic historians such as Snorri Sturluson, are, at best, sketchy. We can be fairly sure, however, that he had black hair and that aged forty he drowned after falling through the ice of a frozen lake.
Amadeus the Green and Amadeus the Red
Amadeus VI, count of Savoy, 1334–83 Amadeus VII, count of Savoy, 1360–91
Amadeus VI adored tournaments almost as much as he did Savoy, and his nickname ‘the Green’ derives from the vivid emerald colour of his ensign at these events and his customary livery when at court. At his son’s wedding he turned up resplendent in his customary green taffeta with cloth-of-gold embroideries on the sleeves. Not to be outdone, Amadeus VII emulated the paternal example, but chose bright red instead of green for his signature colour.
Thorstein the Red
Thorstein, Norse king of Scotland, d.900
The little we know about Thorstein comes from later Icelandic sources. Quite possibly, he married Thurid, the sister of a woman called ‘Helgi the Lean’. In all probability his nickname denotes the colour of his hair.
Elizabeth the Red-Nosed Princess
Elizabeth, princess of the Palatine, 1618–80
Elizabeth, the daughter of ‘Frederick the Winter King’ (see the WINTER MONARCHS), possessed a monstrous aquiline nose that had the disturbing habit of turning cherry red at the most inopportune moments. When it did so, she would run away to her bedroom and hide.
Donald the White
Donald III, king of Scotland, c.1033–99
When he became king on the death of Malcolm BIGHEAD, the first act of the sixty-year-old, white-haired ‘Domnall Ban’ (meaning ‘Donald the White’ and sometimes anglicized as ‘Donalbain’) was to expel all the Englishmen from his court. The red-haired English king William Rufus was furious and sent an entire army north to get rid of him.
White Hands
Godred, king of Man and Dublin, c.1040–95
Godred ‘White Hands’ was so named because of his habit of wearing white gauntlets into battle. A slightlymore outlandish choice of battledress was that of ‘Sebastian the Madman’, the sixteenth-century king of Portugal who dressed in green armour, in order that he might be clearly visible to one and all.
On his arrival in Paris in 1830, the son of Citizen EQUITY received two nicknames. The first was ‘the King of the Barricades’, after the form of mass protest that occurred before he was declared lieutenant-general of France. The second, ‘the Citizen King’, was conferred upon him ten days later when the people elected him their monarch.
After a cautious and conservative reign, Louis Philip was ousted by the Revolution of 1848. Again he used a pseudonym to ensure safety. When he arrived in England, his immigration papers stated that he was a humble citizen called ‘William Smith’.
Clicquot
Frederick William IV, king of Prussia, 1795–1861
Often depicted as a romantic aesthete rather than a hard-headed politician, Frederick William had specific tastes and strong views: he appreciated organized religion but believed in the divine right of kings; he liked the order of the Ger
man nation but disliked parliaments; and he loved champagne (for which the British satirical magazine Punch gave him his brand-specific nickname) but absolutely loathed France.
Omar the Commander of the Faithful
Omar I, second caliph, c.581–644
Succeeding Abu Bakr the UPRIGHT, Omar was the first of several caliphs to enjoy the title ‘the Commander of the Faithful’. His reign was marked by significant Islamic territorial expansion, including into Persia, but an obviously unfaithful Persian slave assassinated him.
Edward the Confessor
Edward, king of England, c.1003–66
It is widely accepted that Edward did not love the military life. It is also generally agreed that Edward did not love his wife, Edith (indeed their unconsummated marriage dissolved completely when he sent her off to a convent). Instead, Edward had one passion: the Church. The most enduring expression of his passion for Christianity is Westminster Abbey in London, the construction of which he personally financed.
The term ‘confessor’ can mean someone who makes their confession to a priest or it can denote a priest who hears confession. In Edward’s case, however, it describes a man whose entire life was a confession of his faith.
Conky see Arthur the IRON DUKE
Alfonso the Conqueror
Alfonso I, king of Portugal, c.1109–85
Qualities of boldness, persistence and guile made Alfonso an excellent first king of Portugal. His most famous conquest was that of Berber-controlled Lisbon in 1147 when, accompanied by soldiers originally recruited by St Bernard for the Second Crusade, he took the city after a four-month siege. His success assured him of a nickname and the continuity of the Portuguese monarchy.
Alfonso was a big man with a big beard who enjoyed a reputation of possessing Herculean strength. In 1169, however, the muscle-bound monarch trapped his leg in a gate and broke it so badly that he was never able to ride again. With his military career and conquering days at an end, Alfonso knighted his sixteen-year-old son Sancho the SETTLER (see NOBLE PROFESSIONS) and prepared him for the throne.
Mehmed the Conqueror
Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, 1432–81
Ottoman tradition demanded that each new sultan had to embark on a great conquest, and Mehmed plumped for the greatest prize of them all: Constantinople. It was a tall order, since the thickness of the city’s walls had foiled many a Turkish assault. Nevertheless, on the orders of the new sultan, Ottoman troops once more laid siege to it in April 1453.
At first, history looked like repeating itself. Heavy bombardment of the walls using a 28-foot-long monster of a cannon proved largely ineffective, and the inhabitants had no trouble in repairing the destroyed fortifications every night. However, on the night of 22 May there was an eclipse of the moon. The Byzantines had credited their success in repulsing the Turks to the legend that Constantinople would never fall while the moon was waxing – that is, with its ‘horns’ to the east. But with the eclipse, their morale was instantly and utterly crushed. During the next few days someone, in his or her despondency, left a gate in the stockade open. It was only a small gate, but all that Mehmed needed. The sack of Constantinople lasted three days, and from that moment onwards Mehmed was hailed as ‘the Conqueror’.
After Constantinople Mehmed continued his military conquests. Among the territories to fall under Ottoman control were Serbia, Greece and Wallachia, where Vlad the IMPALER finally met his match. In 1481 Mehmed was embarking on new campaigns against Rhodes and southern Italy when he suddenly died – some say poisoned by an undercover Venetian doctor, others say from a self-administered overdose of opium. Not everyone mourned his passing. On news of the death of ‘the Conqueror’, the pope ordered that every church bell should be rung in jubilation for three days and nights.
William the Conqueror
William I, king of England, c.1028–87
In his day William was known as ‘the Bastard’ since he was the illegitimate son of ‘Robert the Devil’ (the duke of Normandy) and the daughter of a local tanner. ‘Conqueror’, however, would have been an apt contemporary soubriquet as well, as long before the Norman had turned his ambitious gaze over the English Channel he had orchestrated a string of military victories that significantly enhanced his power in France.
His conquest of England was no fait accompli. Under the command of Harold the LAST OF THE SAXONS the English forces were one of the most aggressive armies of Europe; however it was Harold’s bad luck that within weeks of his success at the battle of Stamford Bridge his men had to face the Norman forces at Hastings. After William’s famous victory of 1066 he worked hard to ensure there were children to inherit his new territories. To that end William (who stood five foot ten) and his wife Matilda (who was no more than four foot two inches tall) produced ten children, including two future kings, William RUFUS and Henry BEAUCLERC (see NOBLE PROFESSIONS).
Copper Nose see NOSE ALMIGHTY
Napoleon the Corsican General See Napoleon the LITTLE CORPORAL
Richard the Coxcomb
Richard II, king of England, 1367–1400
In 1394 Anne of Bohemia, Richard’s first wife, succumbed to the Black Death, and such was his grief that he ordered the palace at Sheen, where she had spent her last days, to be razed. The tragic event turned out to be a critical moment in Richard’s life and reign. The popular king and loving husband descended into melancholy and became a despotic, arrogant fop, whose disastrous second marriage to Isabella, the young daughter of Charles the SILLY, was marked by wanton cruelty.
If for no other reason, however, this son of Edward the BLACK PRINCE and Joan the FAIR MAID OF KENT should be celebrated in history as the inventor of the handkerchief – the must-have accessory for any self-respecting coxcomb. It may have found much service when, having been ousted by the forces of his cousin Henry BOLINGBROKE, Richard spent his last days starving to death in Pontefract Castle.
Richard Crookback
Richard III, king of England, 1452–85
William Shakespeare is largely responsible for the popular image of Richard as a limping hunchback with a withered arm. The playwright’s sources for Richard III may well have included Thomas More’s biography of the king, which depicted Richard some decades after his death as ‘little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed… envious and, afore his birth, ever froward’. Contemporary chroniclers, however, such as Philip de Commynes and the Italian monk Dominic Mancini make no mention of any deformity, and even his enemies agreed that he demonstrated considerable prowess on the battlefield. Clearly, then, Richard was not sufficiently impaired to be unable to use his weapons or control his horse, and it is quite possible that More was participating in some propaganda, playing on the medieval belief that a twisted mind must dwell in a twisted body.
In his play Shakespeare has Richard maligned as a ‘wretched, bloody and usurping boar’. Here he is basing his portrayal on the king’s heraldic device of a boar passant argent. A contemporary satirist called William Collingborne also alluded to this nickname when he penned a little ditty that included the lines:
The Cat, the Rat, and Lovel our Dogge,
Rules all England under an Hogge.
The first three animals refer to contemporary nobles. ‘Hogge’ was clearly a none-too-complimentary reference to the king, and for this clumsy piece of doggerel Collingborne paid with his life.
Boleslav the Crooked-Mouthed
Boleslav III, prince of Poland, 1085–1138
Boleslav ‘Krzywousty’ heroically defended Silesia against German invasion, and his heavy defeat of the imperial forces in 1109 must have left a big grin on the royal asymmetric jaw. His rivalry with his brother Zbigniew gave him little reason to smile, however. Terrified that he might stage a coup, Boleslav had Zbigniew blinded. Tragically, his henchmen did such a careless job that Zbigniew died of his wounds.
Christian the Cruel see Christian the TYRANT
Henry the Cruel
Henry VI, king of Germany, 1165
–97
Cold and calculating, mean-spirited and money-grabbing, Henry was considered one of the cruellest men in what were cruel times. His successful invasion of Sicily, financed by the huge ransom he exacted for the release of his prize prisoner Richard the LIONHEART, might have been enough to earn him the nickname ‘the Conqueror’. However, history remembers him as ‘the Cruel’, perhaps for his blinding and castration of Sicily’s four-year-old King William, possibly for his desecration of the corpses of Tancred and Roger the GREAT COUNT (see the SONS OF TANCRED), two of the island’s former leaders, but mostly probably for the merciless vengeance he took on the ringleaders of a failed coup against him in May 1197.
Peter the Cruel
Peter I, king of Portugal, 1320–67
Peter was a popular king who liked to dance in the streets with his people and whose love affair with his ‘mistress’ Ines de Castro became the subject of legend and poetry. When he learned that Ines had been murdered on the orders of his father Alfonso the FIERCE, his twin nicknames of‘the Just’ and ‘the Cruel’ proved especially apt. Two of the assassins, who were found hiding in the lands of his namesake ‘Peter the Cruel’ of Castile, were brought back to Portugal and summarily executed by having their hearts ripped out, one through his chest, the other through his back.
Peter then publicly revealed that he had been secretly married to Ines for a number of years, and commanded, somewhat grotesquely, that her body should be exhumed and translated to a sumptuous tomb at Alcobaca where all were solemnly to acknowledge her as queen.
Crum-Hell see NOSE ALMIGHTY
Sigurd the Crusader
Sigurd I, king of Norway, c.1089–1130
In 1099 Sigurd’s father, Magnus BARELEGS, left him in charge of the southern Hebrides and the Isle of Man and headed back to Norway. Three years later Magnus returned to Britain and, in order to consolidate his territories, arranged a marriage between Sigurd and Blathmina, the daughter of the Irish high king. Sigurd was thirteen, Blathmina five. The following year Magnus died and the young couple returned to Sigurd’s homeland. Only then did his crusading really begin.
The Good, the Bad, and the Unready: The Remarkable Truth Behind History's Strangest Nicknames Page 5