Powell - Historys Worst: 2000 Years of Idiocy

Uneasy Heads, Historys Maddest Monarchs

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

~ William Shakespeare, King Lear

Why has madness been such an occupational hazard for royalty? Inbreeding doesnt help; some of them were so genetically challenged they might have auditioned for Deliverance . Then there are the pressures of the job. Imagine being constantly watched for twenty-four hours a day; is it any wonder so many became paranoid?

George III of Great Britain

(reigned 1760-1820)

George seems to have been a normal child. He was a slow learner but that wasnt unusual for the British Royal family. In fact, he was the most boring monarch in Europe when he was young. No hobby was too tedious. George was at his happiest discussing farming techniques or his model ship collection.

His first attack of madness came in 1788, and he suffered relapses for the rest of his life. Doctors now believe it was porphyriaa rare, hereditary disease made worse by the eighteenth century diet. During his attacks Georges moods swung from deeply gloomy to ecstatically manic, when he would talk until his mouth foamed. He imagined London was drowning or spoke to people long-since dead. He mistook a tree in Hyde Park for the King of Prussia. Public engagements became a source of embarrassment. George once started a speech with the words My Lords and Peacocks.

At the end of his life he cut a pathetic figure, wandering around his apartments mumbling nonsense and non sequiturs to anyone whod listen.

Charles II of Spain

(reigned 1665-1700)

I am bewitched and I well believe it; such are the things I experience and suffer.

~ Charles II

The Habsburgs always swam in the shallow end of the gene pool. First cousins got hitched; uncles wed nieces. Prospective brides were sized up at family reunions, resulting in a history of mental and physical abnormalities. Charles father, Philip IV, carried on the long Habsburg tradition of keeping it close and married his niece. This might explain the life of poor Charles II. Deformed and imbecilic, even by his familys standards, he found talking and writing intellectually challenging. His jaw was so misshapen he struggled to eat solid foods.

In the hope of continuing the family line he was married to a French royal. The marriage proved childless and she took to overeating, eventually gorging herself to death.

Charles end came in 1700. Not yet forty but already senile, he brought Habsburg rule to a close in Spain.

Maria I of Portugal

(reigned 1777-1816)

Queen Maria, fancying herself damned for all eternity, therefore on the strength of its being all over for her, eats barley and oyster stew Fridays and Saturdays and indulges in conversations of a rather unchaste nature.

~William Beckford

Lunacy frequently knocked on the door of the Portuguese royal family and strangest of all was Maria I. She became religiously obsessed after her husband (also her uncle), two of her children, and her confessor died in quick succession. Maria was convinced she was going to hell and attended mass several times a day. She suffered from severe melancholia and terrible nightmares. She would often run around the corridors crying, Ai Jesus! According to the writer William Beckford, she saw images of her dead father, in color black and horrible, erected on a pedestal of molten iron, which a crowd of ghastly phantoms were dragging down.

In 1807, the royal family fled to Brazil after Napoleons invasion. This did little to ease her troubled mind. Some native dancers turned out to welcome her in traditional costumes, but Maria believed she had finally arrived in hell and was being attacked by demons. After that she was confined to a convent until her death.

Frederick William I of Prussia

(reigned 1713-1740)

The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiersthey are my weakness.

~ Frederick William I

Frederick William was a highly effective, if cruel, ruler, but his weird and obsessive behavior qualifies him for this list.

His ambition was to make Prussia a first-rate European power. In order to do this, he wanted Prussians to be as hardworking, frugal, and disciplined as he was. He would walk around Berlin with a stick beating anyone he felt slacking, or would rip the clothes off women who were expensively dressed. Frederick William was so miserly he made the Queen do the washing up.

His moods grew darker with age. He was sometimes seized by terrible depressions when he would sit alone and cry or hed lash out at anyone for the slightest mistake. His son Fritz was made to grovel publicly on the floor and kiss his fathers boots.

Frederick Williams one extravagance was his army. He built up a huge force, taking particular pleasure in recruiting tall soldiers. He named them his blue boys because of their bright uniforms, and would kidnap youths over a certain height. So in awe was he of his giants, Frederick William refused to deploy them in battle in case they were killed. He preferred to march them around his bedroom.