When you think of kings and queens, you probably picture powdered wigs, grand banquets, and regal poise. Yet the reality of courtly life often involved practices that would make modern sensibilities cringe. Below we unveil the 10 truly disgusting habits that some of Europe’s most powerful monarchs indulged in, proving that royalty wasn’t always the picture‑perfect example of refinement.
10 Truly Disgusting Royal Quirks
10 Henry VIII Had A ‘Groom Of The Stool’
King Henry VIII, ever the innovator, invented a position that sounds more like a medieval plumbing job than a court appointment: the Groom of the Stool. This fortunate youngster, usually drawn from the sons of the monarch’s most trusted nobles, was tasked with trailing the king everywhere, ready with a portable commode whenever the sovereign felt the urge.
The duties were surprisingly demanding. The groom had to observe the king’s meals, record everything he ate, and be prepared to assist the monarch in disrobing and cleaning up after the royal business. He was expected to be ever‑vigilant, ensuring the king’s comfort and privacy at all times.
Despite the unglamorous nature of the work, the role was considered a badge of honor. The Groom of the Stool enjoyed unparalleled intimacy with the king, a level of trust few courtiers ever achieved, and a handsome salary that allowed him to reside within the castle walls.
Thus began a tradition that persisted for nearly four centuries: a trusted servant personally wiping after the English monarch, a job that blended discretion with an oddly intimate form of service.
9 Christian VII Pleasured Himself So Often That It Became A National Crisis
Denmark’s eighteenth‑century ruler, King Christian VII, seemed to have discovered a hobby that eclipsed his royal responsibilities: an obsessive penchant for self‑pleasure. The frequency of his private indulgences grew so extreme that the Danish cabinet convened emergency sessions to debate how to curb the monarch’s relentless habit.
Physicians of the era blamed chronic masturbation for the king’s erratic behavior, linking it to his diagnosed porphyria—a hereditary blood disorder that manifested in neurological symptoms. In truth, modern scholars suspect that underlying mental illness, rather than the act itself, drove his compulsions.
His chief physician, Johann Friedrich Struensee, chronicled the king’s “masturbatic insanity” in a treatise, and when Christian VII could not be coaxed back into governance, Struensee effectively seized the reins of power, making decisions on the king’s behalf while the monarch continued his private pursuits.
8 Joanna Of Castile Traveled With Her Husband’s Dead Body
Joanna of Castile, often labeled “the Mad,” married the charismatic Philip the Handsome and, after his untimely death, refused to allow anyone to lay him to rest. Instead, she kept the corpse in her chambers, treating the decaying form as if it were merely asleep.
For a full year, the queen tended to the body, arranging it nightly as she would a living spouse, and commanding servants to accord it the same deference they would give a reigning monarch. She barred any women from entering the room, fearing that they might be overwhelmed by desire for the still‑living‑looking king.
The macabre arrangement extended to intimate moments: Joanna would share the bed with the corpse, and on certain evenings she even invited her daughter to join, hoping to stay as close as possible to the departed father’s presence.
7 King Charles II Kept A Wig Of His Mistresses’ Pubes
In 1651, King Charles II launched a rather unorthodox hobby: collecting stray hairs from the intimate regions of his numerous lovers. After each liaison, he plucked a few pubic hairs, stitching them together into a growing, shaggy wig that soon resembled a bizarre tapestry of femininity.
When the hair‑laden wig reached a size sufficient to crown a man’s head, Charles donated it to the Beggar’s Benison Club, a Scottish gentleman’s society that proudly displayed and even kissed the odd trophy during ceremonies. The wig’s notoriety spread, prompting a copycat who pilfered the original and started his own club centered around the same oddity.
Later, in 1822, King George IV resurrected the tradition, amassing a box full of his mistresses’ lower locks with the intention of fashioning his own wig. Unfortunately, George died before he could realize the hair‑crafted masterpiece.
6 Queen Maria Eleonora Slept With Her Husband’s Heart
Queen Maria Eleonora of Sweden harbored a morbid devotion to her late husband, King Gustavus Adolfus, that went far beyond conventional mourning. After his death, she ordered his heart to be surgically removed, preserving the organ in a gilded box that she placed atop her pillow each night.
The queen would rest beside the beating‑less heart, sometimes summoning her own daughter to lie with her, insisting that the proximity to the royal organ soothed her grief. This nightly ritual turned the royal bedroom into a morbid shrine to a lover’s body part.
Later accounts from her daughter describe a household haunted by the queen’s relentless sorrow, labeling Maria Eleonora as “abusive” and noting that she “carried out her role of mourning to perfection,” a phrase that hints at both devotion and psychological torment.
5 King Farouk Had The World’s Largest Porn Collection
Egyptian monarch King Farouk earned a reputation not only for his lavish lifestyle but also for amassing what he boasted to be the world’s most extensive pornography archive. He claimed that warehouses in Rome, Monaco, and Cairo were stocked with endless reels and magazines, creating a clandestine network of erotic material.
According to former pimp‑turned‑writer Scott Bowers, Farouk even arranged for crates of his collection to be shipped to famed sexologist Alfred Kinsey. Those shipments, Bowers alleges, were filled predominantly with images of Arab men and adolescent boys, a disturbing focus that underscored the king’s questionable tastes.
When Farouk’s reign collapsed, the looted pornographic trove scattered across Egypt, with fragments surfacing on black markets and turning the king’s once‑secret stash into a bizarre form of royal memorabilia.
4 King Adolf Frederick Ate Himself To Death
Swedish King Adolf Frederick possessed an insatiable love for the semla, a sweet bun filled with whipped cream and almond paste. While the pastry itself was a beloved delicacy, the monarch’s appetite for it became fatal.
On a fateful day in 1771, after a banquet featuring lobster, caviar, and other luxurious fare, Adolf Frederick proceeded to devour fourteen semlas in rapid succession. The sheer volume overwhelmed his digestive system, leaving him gravely ill.
Shortly after rising from the table, the king’s stomach rebelled, and he collapsed, passing away as a direct result of his overindulgence. Though his demise is often cited as a cautionary tale of gluttony, it mirrors earlier aristocratic deaths, such as England’s King Henry I, who perished after consuming too many slippery lampreys.
3 King James I Only Cleaned The Tips Of His Fingers
Contemporary chronicler Sir Anthony Weldon painted a vivid portrait of King James I as a monarch who shunned basic hygiene. According to Weldon, James never took a proper bath, preferring instead a perfunctory ritual of rubbing only the very tips of his fingers on a damp napkin.
The king’s tongue, Weldon claimed, was “too large for his mouth,” causing liquid to spill down his chin when he drank. Rather than washing the entire hand, James would merely swipe the fingertips, a practice he repeated throughout the day.
Weldon suggested that this minimalistic approach stemmed from the king’s constant fiddling with his codpiece, implying that his preoccupation with personal matters left little room for thorough cleaning. The result was a ruler whose reputation for cleanliness rested on a single, superficial gesture.
2 Charles VI Didn’t Change His Clothes For Five Months
French King Charles VI, plagued by severe mental illness, endured a harrowing episode that lasted half a year. During this period, he suffered from bouts of “glass‑delusion,” believing his body was made of fragile glass, which forced him to remain motionless and avoid any contact that might shatter him.
Throughout those five months, the king neither bathed nor changed his garments, allowing his clothing to become a veritable time capsule of filth and decay. Courtiers whispered about the foul stench and the sight of his unwashed, unaltered attire, which became the stuff of legend.
Eventually, a fleeting moment of lucidity permitted attendants to finally strip the king of his grimy robes, replace them with fresh garments, and give him a long‑overdue wash, ending what historians describe as the most disgusting pair of pants ever recorded.
1 Louis XIV’s Throne Doubled As A Toilet
French Sun King Louis XIV earned the moniker “the Smelliest” not merely for his penchant for lavish perfume, but because his very throne served a dual purpose: it functioned as a portable toilet during formal court sessions.
While the king presided over his ministers, he would discreetly relieve himself upon the seat, a practice that went largely unnoticed amid the already pungent aromas of the royal court. Remarkably, Louis XIV is recorded to have bathed only three times in his entire life, a figure that would be shocking even by seventeenth‑century standards.
To mask the odor, the monarch flooded his chambers with fresh flowers and commissioned a new perfume each week, employing a dedicated team of scent‑crafters. He also believed that changing his shirt three times a day was sufficient hygiene, a ritual he performed publicly before an audience of a hundred men who watched him dress each morning.
Thus, the iconic image of a regal ruler presiding over his realm is accompanied by a less‑glamorous reality: a king who combined governance with bodily functions, all while cloaking the stench in fragrant bouquets.