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

by Robert Easton

  Mondegreen (misheard song lyric): James the BONNY EARL

  monk,

  married: Ramiro the MONK

  set alight: John the ONE-EYED

  moon, eclipse of: Mehmed the CONQUEROR

  morris dancing: John of GAUNT

  Mother Goose: Bertha BIGFOOT

  moustache,

  large: John the WIZARD

  thin: Charles the BALD

  myopia: the BAKER AND THE BAKER’S WIFE, Henry the GREAT, James THE THISTLE

  name, change of: JOHN OF YESTERYEAR

  newspaper, creation of a: Christina the MIRACLE OF NATURE

  nose,

  aquiline: Fyodor the BELLRINGER, Arthur the IRON DUKE, Elizabeth the RED-NOSED PRINCESS

  big: Charles the BALD, Francis the FATHER OF LETTERS, Victor Emmanuel the GALLANT KING, Charles the GREAT, Arthur the IRON DUKE, NOSE ALMIGHTY, Elizabeth the RED-NOSED PRINCESS

  flat: Attila the SCOURGE OF GOD

  red: NOSE ALMIGHTY, Elizabeth the RED-NOSED PRINCESS

  nuns, visionary: Charles the BEWITCHED

  obesity: Philip the AMOROUS, the BAKER AND THE BAKER’S WIFE, George the BEAU OF PRINCES, BRANDY NAN, Edward the CARESSER, Sophia Charlotte the ELEPHANT, Charles the FAT, Henry the FAT, Louis the FAT, Sancho the FAT, Isabella the GREAT SOW, James the GROSS, Charles the HARLEQUIN, QUEEN VENUS

  oranges: Eleanor the WITTY

  orders,

  chivalric: Albert the ASTROLOGER, John the GOOD

  military: Philip the FAIR

  orgies, holding of: Philip the GODLESS REGENT

  ostracism: Aristides the JUST

  paranoia: Abdul the DAMNED, Suleiman the MAGNIFICENT

  pea soup, poisoned: Erik the ROMANTIC

  peasants, shot with blanks: Otto the MAD

  pens, stabbed to death with: John the SCOT

  perfume, liberal use of: Henry the GREAT, Alfred the LAST OF THE DANDIES, Henry the MAN-MILLINER

  pet,

  camels: James the WISEST FOOL IN CHRISTENDOM

  cheetahs: Haile Sellassie the LION OF JUDAH

  dogs: Llewellyn the GREAT, Henry the MAN-MILLINER

  elephant: Charles the GREAT, James the WISEST FOOL IN CHRISTENDOM

  lions: Haile Sellassie the LION OF JUDAH

  monkeys: Henry the MAN-MILLINER

  parrots: Henry the MAN-MILLINER

  pilgrimage: Erik EVERGOOD, Charles the GREAT, James the THISTLE

  pillaging: Fulk the BLACK, Attila the SCOURGE OF GOD

  pineapples: Kamehameha the GREAT

  plague: Frederick IRONTOOTH, Philip the LUCKY

  playing card, nickname after: Diana the PEOPLE’S PRINCESS

  poison,

  death from: Mehmed the CONQUEROR, FAIR ROSAMUND, Erik the ROMANTIC

  liberal use of: Lady Wu the POISONER

  sucked out by wife: Edward the HAMMER OF THE SCOTS

  pot belly: Charles the GREAT, Ptolemy the POT-BELLIED, William RUFUS, Theobald the TROUBADOUR

  potions: Albert the GREAT

  practical jokes, love of: Edward the CARESSER, Peter the GREAT

  priests,

  kicked in testicles: Napoleon the LITTLE CORPORAL

  massacred: Erik the MEMORABLE

  printmaking: Rupert the MAD CAVALIER

  prostitution, charges of: Mary the MERMAID

  psalmody: Anne the KING’S KING

  psalms, translating: James the WISEST FOOL IN CHRISTENDOM

  pulpit, defecation in: BRANDY NAN

  religion, creation of new: Akbar the GREAT

  religious tolerance: Akbar the GREAT, Cyrus the GREAT, Roger the GREAT COUNT

  right of sanctuary, prohibited: Maria the MOTHER OF HER COUNTRY

  rose: see flowers

  sausages: DONA JUANA

  self-deification: Akbar the GREAT, Alexander the GREAT, Jamshid the ILLUSTRIOUS, Aurelian the RESTORER OF THE WORLD

  sermons,

  inspirational: Louis the SAINT

  lengthy: John LACKLAND

  sexual appetite, immense: GOOD DUKE HUMPHREY, Catherine the GREAT, Charles the GREAT, Henry the GREAT, James the ILL-BELOVED, Mary the MERMAID, Charles the MERRY MONARCH, Edward the ROBBER, Augustus the STRONG

  sexual impotence, alleged: Ivar the BONELESS

  Shakespeare, William: Richard CROOKBACK, John of GAUNT, Duncan the GRACIOUS

  shed, portable: Philip the GOOD

  Shibboleth: Ladislaus the ELBOW-HIGH

  shirt,

  hair: Henry the NAVIGATOR

  poisoned: Harald and the HAIR SHIRT

  skin, made into drum: see drum slimming: Sancho the FAT

  smell, appalling: Henry the GREAT

  smoking, promotion of: Peter the GREAT

  spice trade: Manuel the FORTUNATE

  spider, inspirational: Robert the BRUCE

  spitting: William the SAILOR KING

  sporran, love of wearing: Magnus BARELEGS

  stammer: Charles the LAST MAN

  steamboat, nickname after: Arthur the IRON DUKE

  strangulation: Otto the BLOODY

  strength, Herculean: Alfonso the CONQUEROR, Hywel of the HORSESHOES

  superstition: Elizabeth the INFAMOUS, Louis THE PIOUS

  swimming, love of: Charles the MERRY MONARCH

  teeth,

  buck: Anne the GREAT WHORE

  rotten: GOOD QUEEN BESS, Frederick the GREAT, Henry the GREAT

  sackful of: Peter the GREAT

  temper, loss of: Haakon the BROAD-SHOULDERED, Henry CURTMANTLE, Robert the ENGLISH ACHILLES, George the GREAT PATRON OF MANKIND, Edward the MARTYR, Louis the QUARRELLER, Erik the RED

  tennis,

  love of: Charles the AFFABLE, Philip the GOOD, Charles the MERRY MONARCH

  thistle, redemptive: Alexander the GLORIOUS

  Timothy Wobble-Hat: Leo the BUTCHER

  tobacco, taxed: Peter the GREAT

  tongue, big: James the WISEST FOOL IN CHRISTENDOM

  tonsure: Clovis the GREAT, Louis the PIOUS

  tournaments,

  love of: Amadeus the GREEN

  treatise on: Good King René

  treasurer, boiled: Ivan the TERRIBLE

  trousers,

  threat to pull down: James the WISEST FOOL IN CHRISTENDOM

  tight: Alfred the LAST OF THE DANDIES

  turban, nailed to head: Vlad the IMPALER

  uncle, imprisoned: Ivan the TERRIBLE

  universities, founding of: Peter the CEREMONIOUS

  virginity, alleged: GOOD QUEEN BESS

  violets: see flowers Voltaire: Catherine the GREAT, Frederick the GREAT, John the SILLY DUKE

  warts: Anne the GREAT WHORE, NOSE ALMIGHTY

  weeding, cryptic message in: Pepin the HUNCHBACK

  whiskers, bushy: Basil the SLAYER OF THE BULGARS

  wife,

  burned at stake: Fulk the BLACK

  chaste: Gorm the OLD

  contempt for: Francis the FATHER OF LETTERS

  equine: BLUFF KING HAL, Thomas the HAMMER OF THE MONKS

  imposing: Philip the BOLD, Good King René

  imprisoned: GOOD DUKE HUMPHREY, Philip the MAGNANIMOUS

  large: Kamehameha the GREAT

  mad: Philip the HANDSOME

  made to serve at table naked: Bejazet the THUNDERBOLT

  ostentatious: Haroun the JUST

  physically strong: Ernest the IRON-HANDED

  porcine: Charles the SILLY

  repudiated: Robert the PIOUS, Sitric the SQUINT-EYED

  small: William the CONQUEROR, Kamehameha the GREAT

  wig,

  abuse of: George the GREAT PATRON OF MANKIND

  serviced by footmen: QUEEN VENUS

  wine, drowning in: Lady Wu the POISONER, Edward the ROBBER

  wives,

  five thousand: Akbar the GREAT

  six: BLUFF KING HAL

  work ethic, fanatical: Frederick the GREAT, Peter the GREAT

  1. A note on the entries. Most names have been anglicized for ease of reading, and whe
re the dates of an individual are open to question, I have plumped for those given in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Where a person’s dates are truly vague, I have used the term fl., short for the Latin floruit denoting the high point of a person’s life or career.

  2. Thumbnail sketches of a further twenty-four appear in a separate entry entitled ‘Great… but not that Great’.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Contents

  Preface

  Acknowledgements

  The GOOD, the BAD and the UNREADY

  [A]

  [B]

  [C]

  [D]

  [E]

  [F]

  [G]

  [H]

  [I]

  [J]

  [K]

  [L]

  [M]

  [N]

  [O]

  [P]

  [Q]

  [R]

  [S]

  [T]

  [U]

  [V]

  [W]

  [Y]

  [Z]

  List of Entries by First Name

  Bibliography

  Index

  Footnotes

  Preface

  Page xii

  Page xiv