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

by Robert Easton

  Casimir was a true leader, a fine legislator and an able economist. Hailed as ‘the Peasants’ King’ for his concern for the common people, he was undoubtedly a popular monarch. Three unhappy marriages, however, and a string of mistresses (the most famous being the Jewess Esther, possibly invented by chroniclers to explain his friendliness towards regional Jewry) hint at a private life less great than his public one.

  Catherine the Great

  Catherine II, empress of Russia, 1729–96

  In a letter to a friend in 1871, Catherine half-jokingly detailed her accomplishments:

  Governments set up under the New Scheme 29

  Towns built 144

  Conventions and treaties signed 30

  Victories won 78 Noteworthy edicts ordering new laws or foundations 88

  Edicts for the assistance of the people 123

  Total 492

  By any standards Catherine was an extraordinary woman. In addition to her administrative reform and military success, she expanded her nation by more than 200,000 square miles and vastly increased international trade and communications. She promoted Russian culture; she was a great collector of books (a correspondent of both Voltaire and Diderot, she wrote several plays herself); she was a patron of the arts; she founded schools. And yet her greatness was stained by stories of a prodigal and licentious private life. Her supposedly gargantuan sexual appetite was legendary. With her degenerate husband ‘Peter the Mad’ dead, Catherine apparently amused herself with a steady stream of lovers, mostlyyoung army officers. All her potential bedfellows were screened by her personal physician and then road-tested by two of her ladies-in-waiting to ensure that their empress would be satisfied. On her death, scandal-mongers spread the false rumour that she had perished when a horse was lowered on her too suddenly while she was trying to have sex with it. Mud sticks, however, and while Catherine made it known that she would like to be called ‘the Little Mother of All the Russians’, she was commonly dubbed ‘the Modern Messalina’ after Valeria Messal-ina, the lascivious empress of ancient Rome.

  Catherine should be celebrated, however, if for no other reason than for one particular act of great courage. In 1768 Russia was reeling from an epidemic of smallpox and the empress summoned an English doctor named Thomas Dinsdale to oversee a programme of inoculation. The vaccine was still at an experimental stage, and Russia was nervous. Catherine, however, set an example to her people by being one of the first to have the injection.

  Charles the Great

  Charlemagne, Charles I, king of the Franks and Lombards and Holy Roman Emperor, c.742–814

  At the zenith of his power in the early ninth century, Charles ruled all the Christian lands of Western Europe except Britain and the southern parts of Italy and Sicily. A stunning expansion of Frankish political sway through military conquest was not his only achievement by a long chalk, however. Charlemagne (from the Latin ‘Carolus Magnus’) also brought about a cultural revival in his empire: his court at Aachen developed into a crucible of European arts and intellectual discourse that rivalled anything the Byzantines could muster.

  Physically he took after his mother Bertha BIGFOOT rather than his father Pepin the SHORT, towering over his contemporaries, therefore, both literally and metaphorically. Ever since his tomb was opened in 1861 we have known that his contemporary biographer Einhard was not using poetic licence when he wrote that the emperor was ‘seven times the length of his feet’ (he was actually just under six foot four), and so we can accept with a degree of confidence his further descriptions of Charles’s fair hair, his laughing and animated face with a rather big nose, his surprisingly high-pitched voice and his pot belly. We can also be fairly sure that he was a gregarious man, never happier than when among friends, in the din of the hunt or noisily bathing his children in the palace.

  Charles thought of himself above all as a Christian, and his greatest desire was to be counted among ‘the Just’. To this end he went to church several times a day, drank in moderation (something of a rarity in those times), made several pilgrimages to Rome and spent his last days correcting holy books of any mistakes he found. He was also apparently a devoted father, although supporters of his son Pepin the HUNCHBACK, whom he dispatched to a monastery, might wish to disagree.

  Charles was indeed extraordinary – a charismatic, convivial and cultured man whose military campaigns (always accompanied by his pet elephant) and internal reforms almost single-handedly paved the way for the mighty Holy Roman Empire. It seems churlish to point out any faults, but it was said that he had an uncontrollable sexual appetite and an unhealthy passion for roast game.

  Clovis the Great

  Clovis I, Merovingian king, c.466–511

  Clovis inherited the kingdom of his father, Childeric I, in 481 and soon settled down to a life of conquest. He toppled the Germanic peoples east of the Rhine, and his victory over Syagrius, the self-styled ‘king of the Romans’, united northern Gaul under Frankish thrall. The burgeoning little town of Paris, meanwhile, became the capital of his empire.

  Twelve years into his reign, Clovis the pagan king married a princess named Clotilda, the Christian niece of King Gundobad of Burgundy. Clovis was happy for their children to be baptized but, try as Clotilda might, was completely uninterested in converting to his wife’s faith; that is, until a few years later in 496 when, on the brink of defeat by a Germanic tribe, Clovis turned his eyes heavenward and prayed to Clotilda’s deity. According to the Chronicle of St Denis, he bargained with God that he would ‘pledge you perpetual service unto your faith, if only you give me now the victory over my enemies’. The very moment these words were said, Clovis’s soldiers were apparently filled with burning valour, putting such fear into their enemies that they turned tail and fled the battlefield. The following Christmas Day Clovis, along with 3,000 of his troops, was baptized, during which ceremony, we are told, a white dove appeared out of nowhere, handily carrying a vial of sweet-smelling holy oil in its beak.

  Despite his newly found faith, Clovis had a somewhat maverick approach to the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Gregory of Tours writes that, promising untold power and wealth, Clovis persuaded one Prince Chloderic to murder his father, King ‘Sigibert the Lame’. That achieved, Clovis ordered the death of Chloderic himself, and the luckless prince tumbled into the open grave that had been prepared for his father. Later, among many other decidedly gruesome and unchristian deeds, he commanded that a prisoner called Chararic should find God by having his hair cut short and being ordained a priest. Chararic burst into tears at this ‘humiliation’, and so Clovis promptly had his head chopped off.

  After her husband’s death in 511, Queen Clotilda spent her life caring for the poor and perpetuating the memory of her ‘great’, if morally dubious, partner.

  Constantine the Great

  Constantine I, emperor of Rome, c.280–337

  In 312, on the eve of a battle with his imperial rival Maxentius at Milvian Bridge near Rome, Constantine had a vision. The Christian apologist Lactantius writes that the emperor looked at the setting sun, saw a cross emblazoned on it, and then apparently saw or heard the Greek phrase ‘’, meaning ‘With this sign, you shall conquer.’ Constantine, who was a pagan, had the Christian symbol inscribed on his soldiers’ shields overnight, and won a great victory the next day. He was now sole emperor of the West.

  Constantine attributed his success to the God of the Christians, and through the Edict of Milan of 313 declared that Christian worship was now to be tolerated throughout the empire. But not everybody was happy that this minor religion was receiving such favouritism. Seven years later Licinius, the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, openly rejected the edict and started persecuting those of the Christian faith. This led to a civil war between the two emperors which Constantine won, his forces fired up with Christian zeal. He was now the sole emperor of the entire Roman Empire.

  In 324 the great Constantine relocated his imperial headquarters to Byzantium, humbly renaming it �
�Nova Roma’ or ‘New Rome’ (it was not until after his death that it was given the title ‘Constantinople’). From here he reformed the imperial currency and passed a wealth of new laws, which included the following:

  • Easter was to be publicly celebrated

  • All pagan religious practices were to be conducted in public

  • Christian clergy were to hear all court cases (there was no appeal)

  • A condemned man was not to have his face branded, only his feet

  • Parents selling their daughters for sex were to have molten lead poured down their throats

  • The professions of butcher and baker were to be hereditary

  The following year Constantine presided at the First Ecumenical Council of the Church in the palace at Nicaea. This produced what has become known as the Nicene Creed, still at the heart of Christian doctrine today.

  Through his military prowess, political acumen and enthusiastic religious conviction Constantine the Great laid the foundations for a strong empire and created a solid platform for post-classical European civilization. As was the norm, he waited until his dying hours to be baptized.

  Cyrus the Great

  Cyrus II, Persian ruler, c.585–c.529 BC

  According to Herodotus, Astyages, the king of the Medes, gave his daughter in marriage to Cambyses, a prince in what was then a small and rather insignificant territory called Persia. The couple produced a baby whom they named Cyrus, meaning ‘like the sun’. But then Astyages had a dream. He dreamed that Cyrus would one day conquer Media, and so he gave orders for the child to be murdered. The courtier who had been assigned the job, however, smuggled Cyrus out of the palace at Persis and arranged for a shepherd to raise him.

  Many scholars consider this story of Cyrus’s childhood to be nothing more than formulaic legend. Generally accepted, however, is that Cyrus did indeed go on to overthrow his grandfather sometime between 559 BC and 549 BC, and in so doing united the two tribes of the Medes and the Persians. This consolidation of forces gave rise to what we now know as the Persian Empire, a vast domain that expanded dramatically as Cyrus went on to subdue Lydia in Asia Minor and the kingdom of Babylonia.

  Cyrus the Great

  Although Cyrus is hailed as a great territorial conqueror, his soubriquet ‘the Great’ is most fitting for the tolerance and mercy he showed towards those he defeated. The Bible, for instance, records his kind treatment of those he captured at Babylon, and how he ensured the safe passage of all the Jewish captives back to their homeland. Cyrus himself saw his achievements as informed by his Zoroastrian belief in religious tolerance. ‘I am Cyrus, King of the World,’ he wrote on a large clay cylinder now housed in the British Library. ‘When I entered Babylon I did not allow anyone to terrorize the land. I kept in view the needs of its people and all its sanctuaries to promote their well being. I put an end to their misfortune.’

  Xenophon writes that Cyrus dictated a long will before dying in his bed. But this, like much surrounding the story of his birth, is hogwash. Cyrus died while fighting a war on his eastern frontier. His distraught soldiers carried the body of their beloved king over a thousand miles back home.

  Frederick the Great

  Frederick II, king of Prussia, 1712–86

  Frederick the Great remains one of the most famous German rulers of all time, both for his military successes and for his domestic reforms. An absolute ruler who nevertheless lived under the principle that he was ‘der erste Diener meines Staates (‘the first servant of my state’), he hauled Prussia up by its lapels and turned a sleepy backwater into one of the most dynamic European nations.

  Lauded for promoting the benefits of taking a deep pride in one’s work (his own work ethic bordered on the fanatical) Frederick made Prussia a kinder, gentler nation. He overhauled the outdated judicial system, abolished torture, codified the legal system and lifted stifling constraints upon the press and religions. Culturally, he was acclaimed for his support of the arts. He was himself something of a poet and, until his teeth fell out, he played the flute with a passion, entertaining foreign diplomats with his own compositions. His musical tastes, meanwhile, like his style of government, were absolute. C. P. E. Bach was exalted and a court favourite; Mozart and Haydn were ‘degenerate’.

  Prussia’s territorial expansion and increased prestige on the European stage are the main factors behind Frederick’s nickname. His successful opposition to larger forces in the Seven Years War (helped undoubtedly by the death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia) and his seizure of the Austrian province of Silesia (even though this was in flagrant breach of an established treaty) ensured Prussia’s growth and the warm-hearted nickname given to him by the Germans of ‘der Alte Fritz’, or ‘Old Fritz’.

  The French were more reserved in their nicknames for him. At the outset of his reign some derisively dubbed him ‘le Sablon-nier’, or ‘the Sand Dealer’, since so much of the land he inherited was desolate and sandy. Voltaire, meanwhile, with whom Frederick had a love/hate relationship, nicknamed him Alaric-Cotin’. This is damning with faint praise, since the original Alaric was a ferocious fifth-century Visigoth king, while Charles Cotin was a sixteenth-century poet whose output was decidedly second-rate.

  Henry the Great

  Henry IV, king of France, 1553–1610

  A short, none-too-fragrant, lecherous old man with bad teeth and thick spectacles hardly seems the stuff of legend, let alone worthy of the name ‘the Great’, but to this day Henry IV is one of France’s most loved monarchs.

  No contemporary achieved more than Henry. His war against Spain and his international political manoeuvring gained France independence and some new territory. His founding of new industries, construction of a new highway system and expansion of foreign trade transformed a bankrupt nation into a financial force to be reckoned with. His religious tolerance and working motto that ‘there should be a chicken in every peasant’s pot every Sunday’, meanwhile, won the acclaim of a grateful people.

  But it is as much for his colourful personal life as for his public persona that he is remembered: Henry would hunt during the day, gorge himself during the evening, and wench at night; he was so small that he always needed a mounting block to climb a horse; he was so fond of food, especially oysters and melons, that he often suffered agonizing bouts of indigestion; and he was so sexually prolific that he suffered almost permanently from one venereal disease or another.

  Of his sixty or so mistresses, the most famous was Gabrielle d’Estrées (known as ‘la Belle Gabrielle’), who called her lover ‘Mon Soldat’. Just how she could be so close to ‘My Soldier’ defies comprehension. Like James the WISEST FOOL IN CHRISTENDOM, Henry had no time for personal hygiene, and it is no surprise to learn that on her wedding night Marie de Medici drenched herself in scent. Although widespread, the story that Henry chewed garlic like sweets, so much so that he once felled an ox at twenty paces, is sadly apocryphal. It is attested, however, that he did have a fondness for onion soup.

  Smelly and shabby he may have been, but he also possessed a charm that proved irresistible. Romantic (he once paused in the middle of a battle to write a love letter), courageous (‘le Roi des Braves’ –‘ the King of Brave Men’ –fought in more than 200 battles and skirmishes), cultured (he had a passion for cartography and garden design) and brusque (‘I rule with my arse in the saddle and a gun in my fist,’ he once declared), Henry embodied many Gallic qualities. And a nation loved him.

  Iyasu the Great

  Iyasu I, emperor of Ethiopia, d.1706

  Like his predecessors, Iyasu was a military man, leading his troops in nearly a dozen campaigns to compel warring clans to lay down their arms and work towards a unified kingdom. But what made Iyasu’s reign unusual – what earned him the nickname ‘the Great’ –was his conduct off the battlefield: Iyasu was passionate about financial and administrative reform. He improved the country’s judicial system, reorganized the way in which taxes were imposed and collected, and enhanced trade, in part by re
laxing the rigidly anti-European policy of his forebears.

  Iyasu suffered from a mystery skin disease, and one of the first Europeans to visit his court was a French physician named Charles Poncet, who arrived c.1700 to treat him. Poncet reported that, in addition to Iyasu’s famed military prowess, the monarch did indeed have other great qualities: a ‘quick and piercing wit, a sweet and affable humour [and]… an extraordinary love of justice which he carried out with exactness’. Before long, the emperor was completely cured of his troublesome condition and Iyasu was so pleased with Poncet that he gave him some slaves and a young elephant to take home.

  Kamehameha the Great

  Kamehameha I, king of Hawaii, 1758–1819

  During her pregnancy with him, Kamehameha’s mother had a craving to eat the eyeball of a chief. That particular delicacy being unavailable, she munched instead on the eyeball of a man-eating shark, a dish that led local priests to prophesy that the child would become a killer of chiefs. Alapainui, the chief of Hawaii at the time and the unborn child’s grandfather, was understandably worried and hurriedly arranged to have the newborn baby killed. The child, named Paiea, was whisked away at birth, however, and only returned to his grandfather’s household five years later when Alapainui had forgotten his fears. There, little Paiea was noted as a joyless, sullen boy and was given the new name ‘Kamehameha’, meaning ‘the Lonely One’.

  As an adult Kamehameha became chief of the northern half of the island of Hawaii, but eventually, thanks in part to the counsel of one wife, who was 6 feet tall and weighed 300 pounds, and the presence of another, a frail 11-year-old whom he married for political reasons, he brought the entire island chain of Hawaii under his control. The islands managed to retain their independence by implementing the policy of denying any haoles (white men) the right to own land, but this did not prevent Hawaiians under Kamehameha from welcoming foreign visitors and their innovations, such as coffee, pineapples and, rather more sinis-terly, muskets. Aided by these guns, Kamehameha became a ‘great’ conqueror, and his military achievements (though not his size) earned him comparison with his French contemporary and the nickname ‘the Napoleon of the Pacific’.