Crown Chronicles: 25 Untold Facts about Kings – Part 2

King Louis XVI of France was condemned to death by a majority of only 1 vote. Amongst those who voted in favor of the execution was the king's own cousin, Philippe Égalité, with whom the king did not have positive relations. Philippe himself would be guillotined on the same scaffold a year later.

2. Richard the Lionheart, the King of England, barely spoke a lick of English and collectively only spent about 6 months in England.

3. King Charles II used to tease his mistress for sleeping late. It is reported that he offered her "all the land she could ride around before breakfast". The next morning he found her already sitting for breakfast after encircling an area currently known as Bestwood Park.

4. Henry II of England, the king who uttered the famous phrase "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" got beaten up by 80 monks as part of his penance for his part in said priest's death.

5. Louis II of Hungary had a premature birth during 16th century. The court doctors kept him alive by slaying animals and wrapping him in their warm carcasses as a primitive form of an incubator.

After King Louis XVI was guillotined, several onlookers ran forward to dip their handkerchiefs in his blood that had dripped onto the ground.

7. King Farouk of Egypt was nicknamed the ‘Pickpocket King.’ He became infamous for stealing Winston Churchill’s pocket watch. He was a known kleptomaniac and often stole personal belongings from several rulers. Upon his escape from Egypt, authorities found the world’s largest porn collection among his other belongings.

8. When King Conrad III placed Weinsberg under siege, the castle wives made a deal which let them leave with whatever they could carry on their shoulders. Leaving everything else, each woman took her husband and carried him out. Conrad laughed and said, "A king should always stand by his word."

9. Henry the Young King was crowned junior king while his father still reigned. He had revolted wanting the throne. Defeated once, Henry rebelled again but suddenly died of dysentery. Upon hearing news of his son's death, Henry II remarked “He cost me much, but I wish he had lived to cost me more.”

10. In 1193, King Philip II of France married Ingeborg of Denmark. On their wedding night, he discovered that she had such horrible breath that he refused to let her be crowned the Queen of France.

In 2017, it was revealed that the King of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, had been serving as the First officer on Dutch airline KLM flights twice a month for 21 years, even after his ascension to the nation's throne in 2013.

12. Prussian King Frederick William I had a regiment of very tall men, known as the "Potsdam Giants". The taller they were, the more they were paid - and they were paired with tall women, to breed giant soldiers. However, they were never sent on active service, as they were considered too valuable.

13. When Sassanid (Iranian) King Hormizd II died, his oldest son reigned for a few months and was killed by the empire's nobles, who then blinded the second son, and imprisoned the third son. The crown was placed upon the pregnant queen's womb, crowning the unborn son, who later ruled for 70 years.

14. King Christian VII of Denmark would randomly slap diplomats mid-sentence as they discussed affairs of state and leapfrog visiting dignitaries when they bowed to him.

15. King George III had a reply to the Declaration of Independence sent back called An Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress. It picked apart the Declaration at length, including pointing out that one cannot claim "all men are created equal" when the Colonies still allowed slavery.

King Leopold of Belgium had between 1-15 million Congolese people murdered while he exploited their area for rubber.

17. King Frederick II used reverse psychology on his peasants who refused to eat potatoes because they tasted horrible. To stop the food famine he sent his guards to guard fields of potatoes and the peasants started stealing them and growing their own.

18. 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.

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

20. 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.”

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.

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

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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.