April 2 | Arthur Tudor

September 19 or 20, 1486 - April 2, 1502: Age 15

When Arthur, Prince of Wales, was born a month early, he still seemed a healthy child. He was named after the legendary King Arthur of Britain, and he himself was heir to the British throne.

When he was two years old he was contracted to marry the youngest daughter of the same Ferdinand and Isabella who financed Christopher Columbus' voyage to the New World. As he was growing up, he was heaped with honours and tutored by the finest minds in the kingdom. He and his bride-to-be wrote formal letters to one another in Latin. In November 1501, when he had turned 15 years old, the two met at a Palace in Hampshire, and were married ten days later.

Their marriage was very short. Arthur and his new bride, living in Wales, became very ill and, just over four months after the wedding, Arthur died. It is thought that he may have had what they called "sweating sickness", which is now presumed to be a form of hantavirus, or he may have had consumption or diabetes. Suddenly his younger brother Henry, who was just nine years old and destined for a career in the Church, became heir to the throne.

Catherine, who recovered from the fever only to find herself a 16-year-old widow of uncertain status. Because their marriage had been so short and, according to her, unconsommated, the normal procedure would have been for her to return, with her dowry, to her parents, and find someone else to marry. But her father-in-law, a notorious miser, could not bring himself to part with the money. Instead he made vague promises about her marrying the new heir, but since he was only nine years old the whole thing would have to be put off until the young man was old enough to marry. For eight years Catherine was isolated, living on a tiny allowance, unable to pay her staff, and having no official status.

Everything turned up roses when the old king died in 1509. Young King Henry immediately announced his intention to go ahead with the marriage, and for 15 years the two enjoyed a famously loving and happy union. But then, we all know how that ended.

How different the history of England, Europe, and the world would be had Arthur not died so young.

Source: Wikipedia

Bum Rap | Herod the Great

73 BCE - 4BCE: Age 69

Herod the Great, forever remembered for ordering the massacre of all male children in Bethlehem in order to avoid have to deal with a newborn "King of the Jews", probably didn't. In fact it probably didn't happen. It appears in the Gospel of Matthew and is believed by most modern scholars to be a product of creative mythmaking rather than actual fact.

Not that he wasn't cruel enough to do such a thing. Like most kings, he was looking out for number one and didn't get to where he was in life by being a nice guy. Where he was, was service as King of Judea, through the good offices of Rome, who needed somebody tame and local in there to keep good order. His father was a high-ranking official who was murdered in a power skirmish; Herod managed to get the backing of the Roman army to help him avenge the murder and, eventually, take the throne. Herod was officially a Jew, but most actual Jews didn't take him seriously as such.

He lived to what was a ripe old age for the day: 69. His suffering was intense; the historian Josephus, writing just a few decades later, reports:

His entrails were also ex-ulcerated, and the chief violence of his pain lay on his colon; an aqueous and transparent liquor also had settled itself about his feet, and a like matter afflicted him at the bottom of his belly. Nay, further, his privy-member was putrefied, and produced worms; and when he sat upright, he had a difficulty of breathing, which was very loathsome, on account of the stench of his breath, and the quickness of its returns; he had also convulsions in all parts of his body, which increased his strength to an insufferable degree.

The modern diagnosis is that he had chronic kidney disease as well as Fournier's gangrene, which is a type of necrotizing fasciitis that attacks the genitals.

He was buried in a tomb whose location was unknown until 2007, when an Israeli team of archaeologists discovered it (after 35 years of painstaking research) about 12 kilometres south of Jerusalem, on the side of the vast hill he had constructed for his palace.

Source: Wikipedia

March 27 | Mary of Burgundy

February 13, 1457 – March 27, 1482: Age 25

When her father died suddenly in 1477, Mary of Burgundy became the Duchess of a huge and immensely rich slice of Europe. She was his only child.

Louis of France was beside himself with desire to acquire her estates, in particular the free county of Burgundy, which was not subject to direct French rule. He attempted to negotiate a marriage between her and his son, Charles. She declined, but since he was preparing to use an army to back up his wooing, she turned to her Netherlands subjects for help. They in turn extracted from her certain political rights, which she granted.

She decided to marry the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, a young man with enough power and money to help her oppose the French king's designs. They had three children, one of whom died the year he was born. The other two were still infants and Mary only 25 when she met her own end: she was falconing with her husband; her horse tripped and landed on top of her, breaking her back. She died several days later.

Source: Wikipedia

March 19 | Alexander III of Scotland

September 4, 1241 - March 19, 1286: Age 44

Alaxandair mac Alaxandair was the only son of King Alexander II (by his wife, and thus the only one that counted). He became king at the age of 8 and, typically, his early years as king were dominated by power struggles between factions struggling for control of the regency, which included at one point Alexander being kidnapped by one of the factions.

When he turned 21 he took charge decisively, and proved to have a good understanding of power. He married the daughter of the King of England but managed to rebuff Henry III's attempts to extract homage from him. He played the King of Norway for a fool, laying claim to the Western Isles and then stringing out negotiations until the Norwegian king lost patience and attempted an invasion during the storm season...in sea-to-land battles, storms fight on the side of the defender. The fleet was defeated and the king died on the way home. Later Alexander married his daughter to the new King of Norway.

Alexander was unlucky in one important matter, though: all three of his children predeceased him, leaving him with one three-year-old granddaughter as sole heir. In the 1200s that meant, to many, no heir at all. He was on his way to visit his new, pregnant wife when he fell from his horse in the dark while riding to visit his new queen. He had become separated from his companions, so nobody actually saw it happen, but he was found dead on the shore below a steep rocky embankment the following morning.

His wife later delivered a stillborn son, and a group of Earls took over governance of the realm until a husband could be found for Alexander's granddaughter, who lived in Norway. Four years later, she was on her way back to Scotland when she herself died. By this time the kingdom was seething with rebellions by opportunistic nobles, and Edward I of England turned a covetous eye northward. His designs on Scotland resulted in a 300-year struggle in which the Scots, though overmatched, fought back ferociously. It ended in 1603 when King James VI of Scotland ascended the English throne as heir to the childless Elizabeth.

Source: Wikipedia

March 18 | Ivan Grozny

August 25, 1530 – March 18, 1584: Age 53

In the immortal words of Malcolm Forbes, "Ivan the Terrible was as bad as he sounds." But that, of course is not the whole story.

Ivan was the first Russian monarch to rule as Tsar. He expanded and united the Russian kingdom and made many essential reformations, including the creation of sea ports and initiation of a trading relationship with England. This while fighting scheming aristocrats within his own kingdom who had no notion of a "Russia" that extended beyond the needs of their own immediate enrichment.

Ivan was called "Grozny", which means "terrible" in the sense of "terrifying" or "fearsome", because he had all the qualities necessary for the job: he was ruthless, suspicious, stubborn, and cruel. The first half of his reign went pretty well, but nearly dying in 1553 and the death of his wife his personality became more and more extreme. Some examples:

• When he had St. Basil's Cathedral constructed in Moscow, he was so moved by its beauty that he had the architects blinded so that they could never design anything as beautiful again
• He formed a secret police, the Oprichniks, who owed allegiance only to him and became a bunch of murderous thugs
• He ordered the Oprichniks to murder all the inhabitants of Novgorod; the exact death toll is unknown but estimates are they succeeded in killing about 30% of the population
• He beat his daughter-in-law for wearing immodest clothing, causing a miscarriage
  
• In a fit of rage at his son he clubbed him with a staff, accidentally killing him

This last deed was imagined and painted 300 years later by the great Repin, and the picture above is a detail from that. Ivan inspired many artists; he was a towering figure, a villain of such proportions that I find myself wishing Shakespeare had known more about him.

In 1584, a comet was spotted, and Ivan called together 60 astrologers to interpret the vision. They agreed that it was a sign he would die soon. Soon, Ivan's body became swollen from unknown causes. He seemed to recover, then on March 18, while playing chess with the statesman Bogdan Belsky, he suddenly collapsed and died.

In the 1960s his tomb was opened during renovations, and an examination of his remains revealed very high amounts of mercury. He was probably poisoned; the presence of mercury would explain his symptoms and, to some extent, his madness. Three days before his death he tried to rape his daughter-in-law, who was the sister of Boris Godunov, future tsar and star of Pushkin's play and Mussorgsky's opera. Modern suspicion falls on Godunov as his probably assassin.

We do, luckily, have Sergei Eisenstein's vision of him. During WWII, with morale in Russia low, Stalin (who admired Ivan) ordered the filmmaker to create a film of Ivan's life. The result is one of the greatest films of the era: It was filmed in three parts. The first part was released in 1944. The second part offended Stalin, as its depictions of Ivan's paranoia were a little too close to the mark. It was not released until after Stalin's death. The third part was seized and mostly destroyed.

Ivan Grozny himself is played brilliantly by Nikolai Cherkasov, marvellously creepy and impressive. But it is impossible to communicate anything about the film by talking about one performance, or one part. The whole structure, the costumes, all the performances, the sets, everything works together as a whole to create an unforgettable experience.

Here is an excerpt that dramatizes his struggle with Philip, a church patriarch who openly opposed him. The scene imagines the moment where he decided to become "the Terrible" as he was known by his enemies. This excerpt has French subtitles, but even if you can't read French (or understand Russian) the power of the film is palpable.

Sources: Wikipedia; Forbes, Malcolm, They Went That-a-Way, Simon and Shuster, New York, 1988.

March 17 | Lulach the Unfortunate

1030 - March 17, 1058: Age 28

Lulach was unfortunate in his mother: she was Gruoch of Scotland, also known as Mrs. Macbeth. Gruoch was more than just a stereotype of feminine ambition: she was also the granddaughter of Kenneth III of Scotland. Macbeth, Lulach's stepfather, was also the grandchild of a king, in his case his mother was a daughter of Malcolm II.

It's good to be the king, unless of course you are a king of Scotland, in which case your life expectancy is historically rather short. Macbeth, surprisingly, ruled a full 17 years before being killed by Malcolm, the eldest son of that same Duncan who Macbeth murdered to get the throne. Malcolm had been sent out of Scotland for safety on the death of his father in 1040; he was only 9 at the time.

In 1057 he returned, a grown man, to take back the throne. Even when he killed Macbeth he was not yet successful, as Macbeth's followers hurriedly crowned his stepson Lulach. Lulach (also known as "Lulach the Fool") ruled only a few months being killed "by treachery". Macbeth was out of stepchildren, and Malcolm ascended the throne as Malcolm III.

Source: Wikipedia

March 11 | Julia Soaemias

180 - March 11, 222: Age 42

Julia Soaemias Bassiana ruled the Roman Empire for four years through her son Elagabalus, who was 15 when he ascended the throne. She was born and raised in Syria, and was related to the Emperor Septimus Severus by marriage, as well as being a cousin of the Emperor Caracalla. When Caracalla was killed and replaced by Macrinus, she shrewdly began spreading rumours that her son Elagabalus was actually the illegitimate son of Caracalla. Macrinus' enemies were happy to use the news as an excuse to kill Macrinus, and the teenaged Elagabalus was put in his place.

Julia ruled Rome while Elagabalus occupied himself with mysticism and sexual explorations (what better occupation for a 15-year-old?). Bearing in mind that they were unpopular and thus historians were not kind to them, it has come down that he used to wear makeup and wigs pretend to be a prostitue, standing nude at the door of a particular room in the palace, shaking a curtain that hung from gold rings, soliciting sex with dirty comments. He is said to have offered vast sums of money to the doctor who could equip him with a vagina.

The powers behind the throne realized that the army were not going to tolerate this for long. When the Praetorian Guard rioted, Elagabalus tried to hide but was caught. Julia was with him and they were both killed, Julia embracing her son tightly. Their heads were cut off and their bodies stripped and dragged through the streets.

Source: Wikipedia

March 9 | Wilhelm I of Germany

March 22, 1797 - March 9, 1888: Age 90

The first Kaiser Wilhelm lived to be 90; if he had died sooner, the history of Europe and, indeed, the world, might have been very different.

Wilhelm began life as a prince, the younger son of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia. His brother inherited the crown in 1840 but was incapacitated by a stroke in 1857 dying a few years later. Thus Wilhelm found himself King of Prussia and, in 1862, appointed Otto von Bismarck prime minister, with a mandate to implement the conservative politics he favoured.

Bismarck was a genius whose life's ambition was to unify the German states into a world superpower, and in less than a decade he had succeeded completely, using fear of socialism and hatred for the French as goads to consolidate Wilhelm's power. Wilhelm became the first German Emperor in 1870.

Wilhelm was extremely conservative, and the German state was effectively a military regime in which the acquisition and maintenance of superior armies was paraamount. His son, Crown Prince Friedrich, dreamed of modernizing the German state, creating a (relatively) liberal society modeled on the British Empire. He was greatly influenced by his wife, the daughter of Queen Victoria, an intelligent and passionate liberal. He opposed Bismarck's politics of fear, but since Bismarck ruled through his father, it seemed it was only a matter of time before Friedrich would ascend the throne and begin to realize his dream.

Wilhelm, however, lived on. And on. He became confused and weak in his old age, giving Bismarck complete liberty to aggressively pursue his reactionary policies. Moreover Bismarck, with a keen eye to the future, was actively cultivating the esteem of Friedrich's son, the future Wilhelm II. He played on tensions between father and son in both generations, wisely making no attempt to appease Friedrich while manipulating the elder Wilhelm and seducing the younger one.

Bismarck's bet paid off: by the time Wilhelm finally died at age 90, Friedrich was already dying of cancer. He ruled for just 99 days, and was succeeded by a young, brash, aggressive Wilhelm II.

Bismarck anticipated that his influence over the throne could thus continue unabated, but in the end Wilhelm's megalomania pushed him beyond even Bismarck's reach. Although the causes of World War I are complex, there is no doubt that the aggressive and often foolish policies of Wilhelm II were a very big factor in pushing Europe into a state of total war.

March 6 | Princess Ka'iulani

October 16, 1875 – March 6, 1899: Age 23

Victoria Kawekiu Lunalilo Kalaninuiahilapalapa Kaʻiulani Cleghorn was the niece of Liliʻuokalani, the last Queen of Hawaiʻi, and thus the heir to the Hawaiʻian throne. Her mother was a member of Hawaiʻian royalty, and her father a Scottish financier and the last Royal Governor of Oʻahu.

When she was just 11 years old her mother died mysteriously; she simply took to her bed and refused all food, dying at the age of 36, and leaving Kaʻiulani second in line to the throne. At 13 she was sent to Britain to be educated, where she studied for four years, excelling in all her subjects including art: she painted "Poppies", shown below, at 15.

While she was in Britain her uncle, King Kalakaua, died, leaving the throne to his sister Liliʻuokalani, who, being childless, officially made the 15-year-old Princess her heir. A few years before his death the king had been forced to accept a constitution that disenfranchised all Asians and poor Hawai‘ians while giving a lot of power to its wealthy American, European and rich Hawai‘ian citizens. The constitution was essentially dictated by the foreign corporations with a strong interest in controlling the islands' trade and enforced with the threat of armed force.

When the Queen took power, she tried to give the islands a new Constitution, one that disenfranchised foreign residents and re-enfranchised all Hawai‘ians. She was overthrown in a coup e'état supported by local American and European residents.

Their objective was immediate annexation to the United States, but this was prevented thanks to swift action by the Princess. She broke off her education and rushed to the USA, where she lobbied passionately for restoration of the monarchy. She made a great impression on many powerful people, including President Grover Cleveland, who was able to prevent the annexation (the islands were to be a Republic until annexation became official in 1898 under President William McKinley). However when Cleveland took her case to Congress, they refused to do anything to help.

Ka'iulani returned to Europe but the situation in Hawai‘i did not improve. Her health began to deteriorate and, when she returned to Hawai‘i in 1897, it was hoped the tropical climate would help. In 1898 she got caught in a storm while riding in the mountains and came down with a fever. She never really recovered. On March 6, 1899 she died at the age of 23. Hawai‘ians believe she died of a broken heart.

She loved peacocks, and kept many of them on her estate. When she died, peacocks on her estate all screamed so loudly that they had to be shot to silence them.

Source: Wikipedia

March 2 | Marjorie Bruce

December, 1296 - March 2, 1316: Age 19

Marjorie Bruce was the eldest daughter of Robert Bruce, who was crowned Robert I of Scotland during the Wars of Scottish Independence against Edward I of England.

Just a few months after her father was crowned, Marjorie was taken prisoner by an enemy of her father, along with her stepmother, two aunts, and another lady. She was nine years old. The prisoners were delivered to Edward I, who sent her and one aunt to a convent. Her stepmother was confined to a manor house in Yorkshire and the other two ladies were actually put in a cage and displayed to the public. Edward considered confining the nine-year-old Marjorie to a cage as well, but was persuaded not to.

Edward I died a year later but his son, Edward II, continued Marjorie's confinement for about 8 years (the ladies in the cage were moved to a convent after 4 years). She was released in 1314 in a prisoner exchange. Of course back in Scotland, as the daughter of a king, she was still virtually a prisoner, and was given to Walter Stewart as wife in reward for his valour in battle. The picture above is of the imagined meeting with new husband, drawn centuries after the fact. There is no known portrait of her in existence.

Two years later, while pregnant, Marjorie's horse startled while she was out riding and she fell to the ground. She went into labour and delivered a son prematurely, dying a few hours after the birth. The child, however, survived, and eventually ascended to the throne as Robert II. She is, in fact, the direct ancestor of the subsequent monarchs of both Scotland and England, including our own Queen Elizabeth.

Source: Wikipedia

February 18 | George Plantagenet

October 21, 1449 - February 18, 1478: Age 28

George Plantagenet seems to have been a rather ordinary man, with ordinary weaknesses, plunged into an extraordinary situation — that is, the dynastic mess already referred to on these pages recently with his great-great-great uncle, Richard II, and his neice, Elizabeth of York. Seems like February was a bad time to be royalty in Britain in the 15th century.

George Plantagenet, a.k.a. the Duke of Clarence, was the younger brother of Edward IV, the guy who deposed Henry VI, who was the grandson of the guy who deposed Richard II. In fact the only person who got the throne by direct inheritance during the 15th century who wasn't deposed and/or murdered was Henry V, who died of dysentery 9 years after he became king. And of the seven monarchs who ruled Britain in that century, a majority — Henry IV, Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII — got the throne by means other than conventional inheritance. (Given the quality of life of those who had it... why?)

Back to George. It's very simple really, he got embroiled in some kind of plot against his brother Edward. Edward had him imprisoned and condemned to death. Legend has it that he was given his choice of execution methods, and he famously chose to be drowned in a butt of malmsey, that is, a giant keg of wine. Apparently he was fond of the stuff. It sounds like urban legend, but Shakespeare knew a good story when he saw one (as do I) and wrote it into Richard III. In fact Plantagenet's body was exhumed many years later and although not even the CSI guys can prove drowning from a skeleton, it was clear he had not been beheaded, the usual method of execution for those of noble birth.

By the way, I have a little souvenir booklet purchased in Britain many years ago that shows all the lines of succession of Britain's monarchs. I have had to refer to it so frequently in this past two weeks that it now practically falls open at the page showing the line between Edward III (Richard II's grandfather) and Henry VII.

Sources: Wikipedia; Montague-Smith, Patrick, The Royal Line of Succession

February 14 | Richard II

January 6, 1367 - February 14, 1400: Age 33

Richard II was actually not a horrible king, but he lacked one essential quality: the ability to understand how to compromise among competing concentrations of power. He naively believed that absolute power should, and therefore did, lie with the King, i.e., himself. It did not. In England and in anywhere else, any leader rules by consent of multiple social and economic power bases. Piss off enough of those bases, and you're out.

In 14th century England those bases were the established nobles, many of whom he sidelined in favour of his friends. When they pushed back, he pushed harder, and the ultimate crisis came when he imprisoned and murdered the most powerful lord of the realm, the Duke of Gloucester, and exiled two more. He was childless at the time (his wife was just 13). The putative heir to the throne was a great-nephew, but the real threat was another nephew, Henry Bolingbroke, whom he also exiled.

Exiling a group of powerful nobles to a wealthy foreign country not entirely devoted to your interests is a very bad idea. Bolingbroke gathered a force, returned to England, and deposed Richard without encountering any resistance: nobody would lift a sword in favour of the King. Richard was captured and taken to London, where crowds threw garbage at him. He renounced his crown before Parliament and was imprisoned in Pontefract Castle, where he died around the second week of February, 1400, either by starvation or murder. Henry Bolingbroke became Henry IV.

In some versions of the tale, including that of Raphael Holinshed, a chronicler of the 16th century and source for Shakespeare's play, Richard II is murdered, and very dramatically at that:

"Sir Piers entered the chamber, well armed, with eight tall men likewise armed, every of them having a bill in his hand. King Richard perceiving this, put the table from him, and stepping to the foremost man, wrung the bill out of his hands, and so valiantlie defended himselfe, that he slue foure of those that thus came to assaile him. Sir Piers being half dismayed herewith, lept into the chaire where king Richard was wont to sit, while the other foure persons fought with him, and chased him about the chamber. And in conclusion, as king Richard traversed his ground, from one side of the chamber to another, and comming by the chaire, where Sir Piers stood, he was felled with a stroke of a pollar, which Sir Piers gave him upon the head, and therewith rid him out of life, the 14th of February, 1399. It is said that Sir Piers of Exton, after he had thus slain him, wept right bitterlie, as one stricken with the pricke of a giltie conscience, for murthering him whom he had so long time obeied as king."

And here is why I've included Richard II's death here: Sir Piers of Exton is my ancestor. The name "Exton" is given to many of the men in my family on my mother's side in commemoration of this.

Sources: Wikipedia; Fox, George, The History of Pontefract, in Yorkshire, 1827.

February 13 | Catherine Howard

1523? 1525? - February 13, 1542: Age between 17 and 19

Catherine Howard was another of those poor misplaced characters. Pretty, sexy, romantic, full of vitality, she might have had a happy life as a middle-class householder. She was, however, a pawn of a ruthlessly ambitious family, and made some pretty foolish choices. But then what teenager doesn't?

Her mother died when she was very young, and she was cared for by a step-grandmother, who paid little attention to her. She hung out with the other unmarried women of grandma's household, who all slept together in a kind of dormitory. It seems the sexual education available in that dorm was rich and extensive, and by the time Catherine was 12 she was enjoying the pleasures of womanhood with at least two male household employees.

If she was unlucky in losing her mother so young, her next bit of bad luck came when she attracted the attention of the King. Her family had obtained for her a position in the household of Anne of Cleves, then (briefly) Queen of England. Anne's marriage with the King was clearly not going to last, and the entire court was in the throes of the familiar game of "Who Can Get a Woman in the King's Bed Fastest?" Her family, the Howards, won.

Catherine was foolish, but the King should have known better. He was nearly 50 years old had already been married four times, and had slept with countless other women. However he was in the grip of an elaborate fantasy about his "English rose without a thorn", and despite all evidence to the contrary (including the fact that Catherine slept with him before the annulment of his marriage) he was convinced that she was a pure and chaste as she appeared. It was rumoured that she was pregnant when they married, but that proved untrue.

Once married, Catherine discovered she was unable to keep up the pretense of being attracted to her new husband. He weighed about 300 pounds and had a smelly festering sore on one of his thighs, and in fact his wily previous wife had convinced him to annul their marriage on the grounds of non-consummation (pretending of course that she was too ugly for him). With her appetite for sex, her eye began to wander, and she began an affair with one of the courtiers.

This was not as stupid as it appears. Despite many marriages and pregnancies, the King had only one living male heir; it was imperative that a "spare" be produced. The King himself had been a "spare"; it was his older brother who had been brought up to rule, but he died before their father. Tongues were already wagging about Catherine's licentious past; the cost of bribes to keep them still was escalating and the Howards were aware that their position was getting fragile. If Catherine could become pregnant and produce a son, she (and the family) would be safe from any gossip.

By 1541 she had not become pregnant, and the truth about her conduct was known to everyone in the realm except her husband. He was finally informed, delicately, that Catherine had be "precontracted" to someone else before her marriage to him; this would invalidate the marriage legally, and she could safely be removed from court with minimal loss of face all round. All she needed to do was confirm the precontract.

She was arrested in November. Upon her arrest she pulled away from her guards and rushed to the church where the King was taking Mass. She pounded on the doors and screamed his name, but was ignored, and the guards caught up to her and dragged her away.

At this point she completely lost it. She became continuously incoherent and hysterical, steadfastly denying the precontract, desperately trying to hang on to her position as Queen. Repeated gentle questioning, hints, and outright stern advice didn't move her... her family, who should have supported and helped her, completely abandoned her at this point, feigning shock and outrage at her "deception" and otherwise trying to lie low and not be noticed. (It didn't help most of them, so many of them were arrested the Tower became overcrowded.) This brought about the unpleasant necessity of proving she had committed adultery after her marriage. Her two lovers confessed under torture and were executed for treason.

She was summarily convicted of intent to commit treason (Parliament had to be hastily summoned to pass a law making this a capital offence) and sentenced to death. On the night before her execution, the poor kid spent hours practising how to lay her head up on the block with dignity. When she approached the scaffold, pale and terrified, she had to be helped up the steps. There she gave a little prepared speech about her "worthy and just punishment" and begged for mercy for her family (who hardly deserved it). Her head came off with one stroke.

And I have reached the end of this story without once mentioning the fat bastard's name.

Sources: Wikipedia, Catherine Howard

February 12 | King Adolf Frederick

May 14, 1710 - February 12, 1771: Age 60

The King (or Queen) of Sweden has never had much power. In ancient times, monarchs were elected, but their position largely ceremonial. With the advent of Christianity in the 11th century the monarch gained more power, and since the 1500s the monarchy became inherited, but King Adolf Frederick, who reigned from 1751 until his death, was still largely a figurehead. In fact he was elected from among a number of candidates, since the previous king had no direct legitimate heir.

By all accounts he was a nice man who loved family life, was kind to his servants, and made snuff boxes for a hobby. His other hoby was eating. In those days of unheated palaces people ate prodigiously, but even by the standards of the day Adolf Frederick's last meal was impressive: lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, kippers, and champagne, topped off with 14 servings of his favourite dessert: buns served in a bowl of hot milk. He died that day of digestive troubles, and he is now known to posterity as the king who ate himself to death.

He's not the only one in this blog who ate himself to death: for the other, see November 11.
Source: Wikipedia

February 11 | Elizabeth of York

February 11, 1466 - February 11, 1503

Elizabeth was at the centre of one of the stickiest dynastic tangles England ever experienced. She was one of eleven children of Edward IV of England; you'd think that having 11 children would make a throne secure in a culture of inherited kingship. But this was not so, for a number of reasons: one, Edward died when his eldest son was still just a boy. Two, Edward's own claim to the throne was not direct, but merely in preference to his mad cousin, Henry VI, whom he deposed. Three, he had a very able and powerful brother who was hungry for the kingship himself: Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who became Richard III.

The means by which Richard III came to the throne is still in dispute. Legitimate inheritance depended on disinheritance of Edward's two preteenaged sons. This could be accomplished in a number of ways: either they could be declared bastards, or they could disappear. Both occurred: Richard had Parliament pass a bill declaring his brother's second marriage to be invalid, thus turning all 11 of his children into bastards and making Richard the legitimate heir. The young princes also disappeared after a period of "protection" in the Tower of London.

All this took place when Elizabeth was a teenager. Obviously, as the eldest child of the previous King, she was a key figure in the political contests of the day, but personally seems to have been a gentle, private person who wanted no part of the struggle. She was also famous for her beauty. When Henry Tudor killed Richard during a rebellion, he secured his own somewhat tenuous claim to the throne by marrying Elizabeth.

The marriage seems to be been a success. She was 20 when they married, and the union produced seven children (or possibly eight). Henry VII was an able king who brought peace to the kingdom and time for much-needed social and economic healing after decades of civil strife. In 1501, however, the couple's eldest son and heir, Arthur, died suddenly at the age of 15. They were devastated. They had only one surviving son (a couple of others had died in infancy) and Elizabeth became pregnant again, in hopes of strengthening the succession. In early February 1503 she gave birth to a daughter, who died the same day. Elizabeth herself developed childbed fever, a postpartum infection very common in cultures where women give birth in unsanitary conditions. Nine days later, Elizabeth herself died: it was her 37th birthday.

Henry was deeply sad at her death and, despite being famous for his miserliness, gave her a splendid funeral. Elizabeth of York is the only English Queen to have been a wife, daughter, sister, niece, and mother to English kings. She's also the model for the Queen of Hearts in the traditional deck of cards.

Source: Wikipedia, Tudor History

February 9 | Murad IV

June 16, 1612 - February 9, 1640: Age 27

Murad IV was the quintessential oriental despot. His father, also a Sultan, died when he was five, leaving the throne to his elder brother Osman. Six years later Murad himself ascended the throne "after the second dethronement of his insane uncle, Mad Mustafa" who had murdered and replaced his brother. It was a conspiracy led by his Greek mother that put him there, and she ruled the country from behind the throne. Fully aware of the level of intrigue and danger that existed in the women's world of the harem, she encouraged him to develop a taste for boys, but succeeded only in instilling in him a toxic combination of lust, suspicion and hatred toward women. Come to think of it, suspicion and hatred where part of his attitude toward men, too.

The political situation in the Empire was in crisis, with corruption rife, revolts breaking out all over, and the Persians invading. When he was about 20 he set about the hard work of taking control: banning coffee shops (people might talk politics in there), murdering the rest of his brothers, having 500 military officers strangled, and patrolling the streets in civilian clothing and providing on-the-spot executions for people who looking like they might be breaking the law.

Very proud of his strength, he used to wrestle two or three opponents at once, often lifting them right off the ground. He was big, but also willful and cruel. He had a courier impaled for bringing him news of his new child: the courier mistakenly said the child was a boy, when it was actually a girl. He had a musician beheaded for playing a Persian song. Once he came across a group of women singing, and ordered them all to be drowned for disturbing the peace. "Murad's cruelty became legendary and his approach created a terrified silence everywhere." Over the course of his rule it is estimated that he ordered the deaths of tens of thousands of his own subjects.

Although he banned alcohol, tobacco, and coffee, he partook liberally of all three, and eventually developed liver disease, to which he succumbed in 1640 at the age of 27. His mother had succeeded in persuading him to let one of his brothers live: Ibrahim, who was considered too crazy to be a threat. Although Murad ordered him killed as he himself lay dying, the order was not carried out, and Ibrahim succeeded him as Sultan, known to posterity as Ibrahim the Mad.

Sources: Wikipedia, Murad IV of Turkey

February 8 | Mary I of Scotland

December 8, 1542 - Februry 8, 1587: Age 44

Mary Stuart became Queen of Scotland at just six days old. Her father died of cholera, leaving no male heirs. She was just nine months old at her coronation; someone had to prop her up while the heavy crown was lowered onto a velvet circlet on her head.

She was by nature impulsive, clever, kind, friendly, and compassionate; few of these qualities would be useful to her as a monarch. In another time, or another station in life, she would probably have lived to be a great and wise old lady, benefitting countless people with her warmth and intelligence. It was not to be.

She peaked early. Sent to France at five to marry the Dauphin, she had a happy childhood, getting the best education available and being a great favourite with the French court. At 16, her father-in-law died, making her Queen of France, but only for one year: her husband died in 1560, and she returned to Scotland, where she was still Queen. As the great-granddaughter of Henry VII of England, she was also next in line to the English throne after Elizabeth I, and here lay her greatest peril: as a Catholic, she was regarded by other Catholics as someone who would return England to the True Church if Elizabeth were to die without heir. This made her an enemy of the Queen of England, whether she liked it or not.

Meanwhile the Scotland she returned to was a dangerous and complicated place. She tried to make friends with her cousin Elizabeth, but was unsuccessful. Elizabeth, the canny politician, was infuriated by her bad decisions, which included marrying twice for love, both terrible men who abused and betrayed her, as well as abdicating the throne in favour of her three-year-old son, James. A virtual prisoner in her own country, she fled to England, throwing herself on Elizabeth's mercy. Elizabeth had none to spare: her presence was an acute danger to the Queen and to the stability of the country, and an embarrassment as well. She was immediately imprisoned, and for nearly 18 years Elizabeth fretted about what to do with her.

In the end, Elizabeth's own secret service were able to entrap Mary into plotting, or at least appearing to plot, to escape and take the throne. She was tried, found guilty, and condemned to death.

She took it all with grace and calm. When she mounted the scaffold, her executioners knelt before her and asked forgiveness, to which she replied "I forgive you, for you are about to end my troubles!" They helped her remove her black outer gowns, revealing a deep red chemise underneath, a dramatic reference to the liturgical colour of martyrdom in the Catholic Church. She smiled a little and joked, "never have I had such assistants to disrobe me, and never have I put off my clothes before such a company."

She was blindfolded, knelt down, positioned her head on the block, and stretched out her arms behind her. It took two strokes of the ax to behead her; the first blow missed her neck and hit her on the back of her head, and she was heard to whisper "Sweet Jesus". The second blow severed her neck, but the executioner had to saw back and forth a bit to cut the last bit of sinew. Then, as tradition dictated, he grasped her head by her hair to hold it aloft, but he was left holding a wig while the head itself fell back down and rolled away. Mary's auburn tresses had been fake for years; her actual hair was short and gray. It is said that as her head lay on the stage after this, the lips were still moving in prayer for 15 minutes after it was severed.

At this point, to everyone's great surprise, her little dog suddenly emerged from under her skirts and circled her head, crying anxiously. Covered in blood, he refused to be parted from her, and had to be taken away forcibly by her maids.

In a very real way, Mary was a martyr, but she was killed by Catholics as well as Protestants. Although she herself probably harboured no ambitions for the English throne, her existence made her a flashpoint for Catholic fanaticism, whose interest in her guaranteed that her death become a political necessity for the English sovereign and government.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots

The Boy King | Tutankhamun

1341 BC - 1323 BC: Age 18

Tutankhamun is the most famous pharaoh today, but this is so by virtue of his obscurity: his tomb was robbed only two or so times before being forgotten. It was buried by stone chips from subsequent tombs, either dumped there or washed there by floods, and eventually some workers built their huts over the entrance, oblivious to the riches beneath. Within two hundred years, at a time when all the tombs in the Valley of the Kings were being dismantled, his was overlooked, and possibly even his name was forgotten.

In 1922, more than 3,000 years after his death, Howard Carter discovered the tomb, setting off a mania for all things Egyptian that has continued to this day. By post-20th Dynasty standards the tomb was in fantastic shape, still full of treasure and many things in their proper place, relatively undisturbed. He was able to photograph things like a tiny wreath of olive leaves and flowers on one of the king's sarcophagi: flowers that had bloomed three millenia before. It took eight years to clean out the tomb, carefully recording every detail.

Tutankhamun was only nine when he became pharaoh. His parentage is uncertain, as it's not specified exactly in the writings ("king's son" — pretty vague) but it seems likely he was the son or grandson of Akhenaten. He was married to his half-sister or aunt, and they had two babies who died very young, probably stillborn. During his short rule, the spiritual innovations of Akhenaten were being reversed (they centred around elevating a single minor deity, Aten, to one-god status).

Well-fed teenagers don't generally just drop dead, even 3,000 years ago. His remains have been X-rayed three times since the tomb was opened: in 1968, 1978 and 2005 (when a CT scan was also performed). Notable findings included a great deal of physical information, especially from the CT scan, leading to the National Geographic-sponsored recreation of his face and head (shown above). He had a "slightly" cleft palate and an elongated head, both family traits, and he was 5 feet 11 inches tall, taller than originally supposed. Initial speculation was that he was murdered, as the first set of X-rays seemed to reveal a dense spot at the lower back of his skull, the spot that normally only gets knocked by bad guys with coshes sneaking up from behind. This theory is doubted now as the CT scan revealed no such spot.


So what killed him? The most likely theory is based on evidence of a severe fracture to his left leg. It was initially thought to have been caused either by embalmers or by Carter and his team (they had to do some pretty hairy things to peel that gold mummy-form sarcophaguss off him, including sawing the body into sections. The CT scan confirmed that the fracture happened before death, probably just a few or hours before. The consensus at the moment seems to be that he died of an infection after severely fracturing his leg, falling from a height. A likely cause would be a chariot accident. Which would mean that, like so many tragic teenagers today, Tut died in a car crash.

The new National Geographic exhibition "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" is in London now, and will be in Dallas in October.

Lots of fun extras here. Now that the tomb is open to the public, the small amounts of humidity and warmth finding their way into the tomb have been accelerating the decomposition of Tut's body. On November 4, 2007, 85 years to the day since Carter discovered the tomb, Egyptian curators lifted the linen-wrapped mummy from its sarcophagus to put it on display in a climate-controlled glass box. And YouTube has it for you to view.

The Boy King has inspired a lot of fun in recent years. When a large exhibition of his artifacts toured the world 30 years ago, it was a sensation. The brilliantly funny Steve Martin did a classic routine on it on Saturday Night Live, and you can see it...you know where.

Finally, here is Adam West as Batman, his mind destroyed by torture, forced to dance for the evil supervillain King Tut. He does the Batusi, of course. The music is fabulous, and it all ends with a classic Batman and Robin fist fight...well, have a look.

Sources: Wikipedia pages on Tutankhamun and his tomb

January 30 | Baroness Mary Vetsera

March 19, 1871 - January 30, 1889: Age 17

If bad judgement were consistently fatal, we would never live beyond our teenage years. Mary Vetsera, the teenaged progeny of an elderly Baron and the daughter of a low-class Greek millionaire, made a lot of silly choices just like any other teenager, but in her case they were fatal.

Encouraged by her ambitious mother, she attracted the attention of Rudolph, the Crown Prince and heir of the Austrian Empire. Had he lived today he would have been all over the tabloid press: unable to connect with his distant, narcissictic mother (see September 10 death) and rigid, conservative father; and distant from all others due to his exalted rank, he drowned his depression and frustration in champagne, ether, opium, and sex. At 30, the physical effects were beginning to tell: he had contracted syphilis (which he had passed on to his wife and, no doubt, many others as well) and suffered blinding headaches and seizures. Married and emotionally unstable, he was not a great catch.

Mary seems to have been blinded by love and by the sheer romance of the lonely, great man, desperate for her tender rescue. Their relationship was consummated in mid-January. When he proposed a suicide pact with her, she agreed, and began composing suicide notes for various family members immediately (some were even found before the death). What she probably never knew was that she was not his first choice: Rudolph had been shopping for some time for a companion in death. Previously he had asked (many times) his friend Mitzi Kaspar, a Viennese prostitute, to join him. She, sensibly, refused and reported it to the police, who did nothing.

On the evening of January 30, 1889, Rudolph and Mary met at his hunting lodge, having agreed to spend one more night together before plunging into the afterlife together. At some point during the night Rudolph shot Mary. He then stayed in the room with the body six to eight hours before shooting himself in the head.

Because of his political position, the prime directive to all involved was instantly understood to be "cover-up". Mary's body was smuggled out of the lodge and buried secretly at a nearby monastery, her relatives warned, even threatened, to keep quiet. The first official story was that Rudolf had died of a heart attack. Too many servants, however, had seen the bodies and the notes for that to hold up, however, and the story of the suicide pact quickly became widespread. A special dispensation was obtained from the Pope to bury Rudolph in the family tomb (normally suicides cannot be buried in sacred ground).

Later various stories surfaced about conspiracies, some alleging that the couple had been killed by French spies, others that the Emperor himself had ordered the deaths. It is not known for sure how Mary died; officially she was said to have been shot, but other stories state that she was strangled. Her remains were stolen in 1992; when returned they were examined and there was no evidence of a gunshot but there was evidence of a severe beating. However it cannot be known for sure if the 100-year-old skeleton was actually hers. Some reports say that only one shot was fired, killing Rudolph; others say that six shots were fired. Because the crime scene was cleared up with only brief examination, and because the Emperor spent a fortune silencing witnesses and suppressing evidence, the truth will never be known.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Mayerling Tragedy

January 20 | George V

June 3, 1865 - January 20, 1936: Age 70

"I pray to God my eldest son will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lillibet and the throne."

George V was the grandson of Queen Victoria and the grandfather of our current monarch (those of us who are British subjects). He ascended the throne in 1910 and ruled during the First World War, although it cannot be said that an English monarch actually "rules", given that he or she has no executive powers. Nevertheless the symbolic importance of the monarchy was, and is, critical.

Thus when the King's health suddenly deteriorated, it was a matter of international interest and importance. A heavy smoker, he suffered from chronic lung problems including emphysema and pleurisy. He took to bed with a cold on January 15, and within a few days was clearly dying. "The King's life is moving peacefully toward its close," wrote his physician, Lord Dawson of Penn, in a note to the Queen and her children on January 20.

In fact Dawson, recognizing that the King had reached an irreversible state, decided to hasten his end. In a private set of notes not published until 1986, he noted,

"At about 11pm, it was evident that the last stage might endure for many hours, unknown to the patient but little comporting with the dignity and serenity which he most richly merited and which demanded a brief final scene. I therefore decided to determine the end."

This decision was supported, he continued, by the family. (Euthanasia was and is illegal in England, but it was commonplace, although not openly discussed, in cases where the patient was beyond hope.)

The official story is that the King's last words were, "How is the Empire?" Another tale (never substantiated) is that, when the King was told he might soon be well enough to visit the seaside resort of Bognor Regis, he said, "Bugger Bognor!" In fact Dawson's notes reveal a different ending. As the nurse was giving the King a sedative that night, he mumbled, "God damn you!" He never woke up. Later, Dawson administered a lethal injection of cocaine and morphine. George V died at 11:55pm, in time for news of his death to make the morning edition of The Times.

Evidently God was listening to the King when he prayed that "nothing come between Bertie and Lillibet and the throne". The "eldest son" was of course the future Edward VIII, a handsome, popular man who flirted both with older married women and with facism. Within a year of ascending the throne, Edward VIII forced a constitutional crisis by proposing to marry an American divorcée, Wallis Simpson. When it became clear that the government would never accept the marriage, he chose to abdicate. His brother, "Bertie", became King George VI, who ruled until his death in 1952, when "Lillibet" ascended the throne as Queen Elizabeth II.

Sources: Wikipedia; Forbes, Malcolm, They Went That-A-Way, Simon and Shuster, New York, 1988.