50 Unbelievable but True Facts About Kings – Part 4

26 Juliane Shot Crossbow At Father

In 1119, French noblewoman Juliane de Fontevrault, an illegitimate daughter of King Henry I, tried to kill her father after he permitted her two daughters, then held as hostages, to be blinded and have the tips of their noses cut off. The punishment was retaliation after Juliane’s husband, Eustace of Breteuil, blinded another hostage. During a parley at the besieged castle of Breteuil, Juliane fired a crossbow at Henry but missed. Henry captured the castle and confined her, but she escaped by jumping from a tower into the freezing moat and was eventually pardoned.

27. In 1702, English king William III was thrown from his horse, Sorrel, after it stumbled into a mole’s burrow, breaking his collarbone. The 51-year-old king later died from pneumonia at Kensington Palace. Jacobites loyal to the deposed James II celebrated by toasting the mole as “the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat.”

28. By 1819, British king George III was completely blind, increasingly deaf, living with dementia, and suffering from rheumatic pain. He had spent years secluded at Windsor Castle while his eldest son governed as Prince Regent. That Christmas, George spoke nonsense continuously for 58 hours. He soon became unable to walk and died from pneumonia a month later, at age 81.

29. In 1540, King Henry VIII approved a law intended to produce larger and stronger English horses. Stallions below 15 hands, mares below 13 hands, and two-year-old colts below 11.2 hands were restricted from common grazing and breeding grounds. Officials conducted annual roundups and destroyed undersized horses, while nobles and wealthy families had to eliminate private stock that failed the standards. Wild Welsh ponies survived by evading the roundups across their rugged native terrain.

30. After English King James II converted to Catholicism, he was deposed during the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and fled England. Parliament transferred the crowns to his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William, while the Bill of Rights 1689 and Act of Settlement 1701 excluded James’s descendants and Catholics from succession. Today there is an art historian in Germany named Franz who would have been King of England (instead of King Charles III) if James had stayed in the Church of England. Franz has never claimed the British throne and calls his supposed inheritance a “charming historical curiosity.”

31 Thomas Blood Nearly Stole Regalia

In 1671, an Irish adventurer named Thomas Blood and his accomplices attempted to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. They attacked their keeper, flattened St. Edward’s Crown, stuffed the Sovereign’s Orb into Blood’s breeches, and tried to saw the royal scepter in half before being caught. Blood demanded to speak directly to King Charles II, who found him so amusing that not only did he pardon him, but also grant him Irish lands producing GBP500 annually, after which the would-be thief became a familiar figure at court.

32. Before Richard III’s remains were discovered beneath a Leicester parking lot in 2012, historians debated whether portrayals of him as a hunchback, particularly in Shakespeare’s play, contained any truth. CT scans and a three-dimensional reconstruction revealed severe adolescent-onset scoliosis, producing a sideways spinal curve of between 70 and 90 degrees. The condition probably made Richard’s right shoulder slightly higher and his torso shorter, but he could hold his head and neck straight and showed no evidence of a limp. He did not have kyphosis, the forward spinal curvature associated with a hunchback.

33. By 1903, Serbian king Alexander I and Queen Draga were deeply unpopular following their controversial marriage and Alexander’s repeated manipulation of the constitution. During the night of June 10-11, army officers stormed the royal palace in Belgrade and searched for the couple. They eventually discovered Alexander and Draga partially dressed inside a hidden space, then shot, stabbed, and mutilated them. Their bodies were tossed from a second-floor window onto piles of manure, ending the Obrenovic dynasty.

34. When Germany invaded Belgium in 1914, King Albert I remained with the Belgian Army and personally exercised command throughout World War I. His resistance and wartime leadership earned him the popular titles “Knight King” and “Soldier King.” In 1918, Albert commanded Army Group Flanders during the final offensive that liberated occupied Belgium. Queen Elisabeth worked with nurses, helped organize front-line ambulances and field hospitals, and sponsored a wartime nursing unit.

35. Charles II of Navarre, later nicknamed “the Bad,” repeatedly changed sides during the Hundred Years’ War while pursuing his claims in France. According to the best-known account of his death, illness left him unable to use his limbs, so a physician ordered attendants to wrap him in brandy-soaked linen, a common practice at the time. While sewing the covering around him, a female attendant used a candle to burn off the remaining thread and accidentally ignited the fabric, and he burned alive in 1387.

36 Triboulet Mistook Francis For Queen

According to a popular incident, French court jester Triboulet once slapped King Francis I on the buttocks, prompting the furious monarch to threaten him with execution. Francis reportedly offered to forgive Triboulet if he could produce an apology even more insulting than the slap. The jester replied, “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I mistook you for the Queen.”

37. In 1835, Corsican conspirator Giuseppe Marco Fieschi attempted to assassinate French king Louis Philippe I during an annual National Guard inspection in Paris. From a third-floor apartment overlooking the procession, Fieschi fired the “Infernal Machine,” a homemade gun containing 25 rifle barrels designed to discharge simultaneously. The weapon unleashed approximately 400 projectiles, killing 18 people and injuring 22, including at least four who required amputations. Louis Philippe suffered only a graze to his forehead, while Fieschi was severely wounded by his own weapon and later guillotined.

38. In 1615, ten-year-old future Spanish king Philip IV married 13-year-old Elisabeth of France. They had ten children, but their only son, Balthasar Charles, died at age 16 in 1646, leaving Philip without a male heir. In 1649, the 44-year-old king married his 14-year-old niece, Mariana of Austria, in a political match that produced five children, although only two reached adulthood. Their surviving son became Charles II of Spain, while Philip is known to have fathered at least 30 children with mistresses.

39. During one of the drunken episodes surrounding Swedish king Charles XII and his companions, a bear was forced to drink wine until it fell through a palace window and died in the courtyard below. Charles, who was heavily intoxicated that night, vowed afterward never to drink strong alcohol again. He reportedly kept that promise, with only a few exceptions, for the rest of his life.

40. Italy remained a monarchy throughout Benito Mussolini’s rule, with Victor Emmanuel III serving as king. Although Victor Emmanuel advised against entering World War II, he relented in 1940 and granted Mussolini broad wartime powers. Following the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, the king dismissed and arrested Mussolini, appointed Pietro Badoglio as prime minister, and joined the Allies against Germany. Victor Emmanuel abdicated and entered exile in 1946, shortly before a referendum abolished the monarchy and established the Italian Republic.

41 King Nicolas Required Gasser Revolvers

In 1910, Montenegro’s King Nicolas I ordered every male citizen to possess at least one Gasser Pattern revolver as part of his militia duties. The proclamation specifically referred to the large Austrian Gasser Model 1870, although manufacturers in Belgium and Spain soon produced cheaper alternatives. The weapons became status symbols, with wealthier men purchasing engraved, nickel-plated models fitted with ivory or bone grips.

42. Yugoslav king Alexander I refused to attend public functions on Tuesdays because three members of his family had died on that day of the week. On Tuesday, October 9, 1934, he relented as he had little choice but to appear publicly while beginning a state visit to France. As Alexander rode through Marseille, Bulgarian assassin Vlado Chernozemski stepped into the street and fatally shot him.

43. After Napoleon appointed his brother Louis Bonaparte king of Holland in 1806, Louis tried to address his new subjects in Dutch. According to a popular account, he intended to declare, “Ik ben koning van Holland,” meaning “I am King of Holland,” but his pronunciation made it sound like “Ik ben konijn van ‘Olland,” or “I am the Rabbit of Holland.” Louis nevertheless gained affection by defending Dutch interests against Napoleon’s demands, earning the nickname “Louis the Good.”

44. In the 1607 Case of Prohibitions, Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke overturned a land-dispute decision made personally by King James I. Coke ruled that common-law cases required judges with legal training and could not be decided through the king’s natural reasoning alone. James angrily called it treason to place the monarch beneath the law, but Coke replied that “the King ought not to be under any man, but under God and the law.” The ruling established that the king could not personally decide legal cases and strengthened the authority of England’s courts.

45. Sweyn Forkbeard became England’s first Viking king after his forces plundered, burned, and devastated large areas of the country. His 1013 invasion forced London and the English nobility to submit, while King Aethelred the Unready fled to Normandy. Sweyn was proclaimed king on Christmas Day but died suddenly only 40 days later. English nobles then recalled Aethelred, who returned from exile and reclaimed his throne.

15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History

46 Ferdinand VII Required Special Cushion

Spanish king Ferdinand VII reportedly had an abnormally large and unusually shaped penis that made intercourse difficult. A special cushion was designed to support its narrow base and help his wife position herself safely. Ferdinand married four women, but only his final wife, Maria Christina, bore children who survived infancy, including the future Queen Isabella II.

47. During the 1203-1204 siege of Chateau Gaillard, a French soldier climbed through an unguarded toilet chute leading into the castle chapel. King John of England had specifically requested that a toilet be installed for personal use during church services. Following the French soldier, other soldiers followed, opened the central bailey to a larger force, and drove the defenders into the final fortification, which surrendered on March 6, 1204. The castle’s fall removed the main obstacle protecting the Seine Valley, allowing French king Philip II to conquer Normandy. The resulting humiliation and the cost of John’s failed attempts to recover his territories contributed to the baronial revolt that produced Magna Carta.

48. After losing his Scandinavian thrones, former Swedish king Eric of Pomerania effectively became a pirate in the Baltic Sea. Eric had ruled Denmark, Norway, and Sweden through the Kalmar Union before rebellions and disputes with the nobility led to his deposition between 1439 and 1442. He withdrew to Visborg Castle on Gotland and spent approximately ten years attacking merchant shipping before becoming Duke of Pomerania in 1449.

49. During the 17th century, French king Louis XIV and other wealthy European men wore high heels to display their elite status. As the fashion spread, aristocrats ordered increasingly tall heels to distinguish themselves from lower social classes. According to footwear historian Klaus Carl, some European authorities eventually limited heels to 1/2 inch for commoners, 1 inch for the bourgeoisie, 1 1/2 inches for knights, 2 inches for nobles, and 2 1/2 inches for princes. By the 18th century, men’s heels had become thick and practical, while women’s heels grew thinner and more decorative.

50. 17th-century French king Louis XIV could reportedly trace his ancestry to 13th-century king Louis IX, better known as Saint Louis, through 368 different genealogical paths. Repeated marriages and heavy inbreeding between related members of European royal families caused the same ancestral branches to reappear throughout Louis XIV’s family tree, a phenomenon known as pedigree collapse.

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