35 Fascinating Facts about Kings – Part 2

When William the Conqueror was crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066, guards outside Westminster Abbey thought the celebration around the village was an assassination attempt, so they burned the village and accidentally started a riot.

27. King Bela I of Hungary died as a result of serious injuries which he sustained when his throne broke beneath him.

28. Charles II of Spain, the Habsburg ruler, who was the result of an uncle-niece relationship, was described by historians as “short, lame, epileptic, senile and completely bald before 35, always on the verge of death but repeatedly baffling Christendom by continuing to live.”

29. King Offa of Mercia once minted copies of dinars of the Abbasid caliphate in the heart of England. He intended to increase trade and relations with Islamic Spain, the global superpower at the time.

30. King George V had two tattoos: a dragon and a tiger representing the East and the West.

In 1953, Henry V's grave was opened. They discovered he shared a grave with Richard Courtenay, leading to speculation that they were lovers. However, Courtenay's grave was found in the base of Henry's chantry and could have been disturbed when the King's memorial was built.

32. King Eric of Pomerania, the ruler of the Kalmar Union (Denmark/Sweden/Norway), imposed a tax on all ships entering or leaving the Baltic Sea, but a war forced him to exempt ships from major trade cities. After he was deposed in 1439, he lived as a pirate, attacking merchant ships in the Baltic Sea.

33. King George I of Great Britain at the time of his accession to the British throne in 1714 spoke no English, and his ministers spoke no German, hence they had to communicate with each other in French. His grandson George III was the first Hanoverian ruler who spoke English as a mother tongue.

34. King Louis XIV of France was also a ballet dancer. He performed 80 roles in 40 major ballets, which approaches the career of a professional dancer.

35. In the 18th century, the King of Denmark-Norway ordered clergy to walk the lands as "potato priests" to promote the cultivation of potatoes by the peasants. The campaign was a success and the potato became "more important than the constitution."