The upcoming royal wedding has everyone buzzing, and as we look back at history we uncover the 10 terribly dysfunctional royal weddings that could make even the most seasoned planner break out in a cold sweat. From drunken grooms to murderous alliances, these unions proved that even crowns can’t guarantee a happily‑ever‑after.

Why These 10 Terribly Dysfunctional Weddings Matter

Each of these marriages offers a cautionary tale about power, politics, and personal incompatibility. They remind us that a grand ceremony can mask deep‑seated problems that explode in the most spectacular ways.

10 George IV And Caroline Of Brunswick

There are many reasons for a royal wedding to take place. Diplomacy, inheritance, and even love can all be pressing reasons. In George IV’s case, it was money that made all the difference.

While still a prince, he fell into huge debt that the British parliament only agreed to pay off if he made a suitable marriage. His cousin Caroline of Brunswick was chosen for this honor and wooed with flattering portraits of the rather corpulent prince. She arrived in Britain to meet her future husband. Things did not go well.

If Caroline found George disappointing, then it was nothing compared to George’s impression of her. He thought that she was fat, ugly, short, and stinky from never washing. He embraced her and fled, remarking to his friend, “Harris, I am not well. Pray, get me a glass of brandy.”

George resorted to alcohol to get through the wedding ceremony a few days later. By the evening of their wedding day, the groom was so drunk that he collapsed into the fireplace and slept there until morning. The couple managed to have one child before separating forever.

When it was time for George’s coronation, he banned his wife from attending. She had to be driven away from the event at bayonet point.

9 Henry VIII And Anne Of Cleves

No one would call Henry VIII an ideal husband. He forced England to break away from Catholicism to get rid of his first wife. He accused his second wife, Anne Boleyn, of adultery and incest and had her beheaded. When his third wife died after the birth of Henry’s much longed‑for male heir, the king started looking for a fourth to replace her.

Unfortunately, the marriageable noblewomen of Europe were not all keen to have him. When he pursued the tall Marie of Guise as a bride, she quipped, “I may be big in person, but my neck is small.” The beautiful Christina of Denmark was another possible bride, but she remembered the fate of Anne Boleyn, too. Christina said, “If I had two heads, one should be at the king of England’s disposal.”

In the end, Henry was convinced to marry Anne of Cleves. He had been sent a flattering portrait of her, and his minister, Thomas Cromwell, said that Anne excelled other women’s beauty “as the golden Sun excels the silver Moon.”

When she arrived in England, Henry chivalrously rode through a storm to surprise her with gifts. He burst into her room. Immediately, he was disappointed. He stalked from the room while declaring, “I like her not.”

It was too late for the king to back out, and the marriage went ahead. Henry groused to Cromwell, “My lord, if it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that I must do this day for none earthly thing.”

Henry found Anne’s body disgusting and refused to consummate the marriage, annulling the union the same year. Perhaps Anne was lucky. She outlived Henry and led a happy life in England without the king as her husband. Cromwell got the axe for forcing the king into this marriage.

8 Matilda Of Tuscany And Welf V

Being a female ruler has always been tough. In the Middle Ages, it was extraordinarily difficult for a woman to keep her throne. Sometimes, it took killing her husband to remain in power. Many suspected Matilda of Tuscany of securing the death of her first husband.

Matilda was facing invasion from the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, and the Pope urged her to marry again to help secure her lands. In her forties, Matilda was betrothed to Welf V of Bavaria, who was around 16 years old.

Welf was welcomed to Matilda’s lands by thousands of attendants, and the wedding was to be celebrated with 120 days of lavish spectacle. All was looking well for this royal marriage.

For some reason, however, the young Welf was not interested in sleeping with his bride. Two nights went by without a consummation. On the third, Matilda had a table set up and placed herself naked on it to tempt him.

When Welf hesitated, Matilda slapped him, shouting, “Get out of here, monster, you don’t deserve our kingdom, you vile thing, viler than a worm or a rotten seaweed, don’t let me see you again, or you’ll die a miserable death.”

The marriage was not a success, and the two separated.

7 Philip II Of France And Ingeborg

Philip II of France had a complicated marital history. He married his first wife when he was just 15 and she was 10. When she was only 14 years old, Philip tried to divorce her.

Officially, it was because she had not yet given him an heir, but it was really for political reasons. The young queen was too popular, and Philip was forced to remain married to her. She did give him a son but died later during another birth. Philip decided to get a new wife.

He looked to Denmark for a marriage that would shore up his power. Princess Ingeborg was selected to be the new French queen. Ingeborg was said to be “very kind, young of age but old of wisdom.” The king and his queen met for the first time on their wedding day.

The wedding night was apparently a success in that Philip managed to have sex with Ingeborg, but it was a short success. At her coronation the next day, the king told Ingeborg’s countrymen to take her home and that he planned to divorce her immediately. Ingeborg was not pleased. She insisted that the two were married and nothing could separate them.

Philip had his unwanted queen placed under arrest in various religious houses for the next 20 years in an attempt to get rid of her. Although she was eventually released and given the dignity of a queen, Ingeborg and Philip never again shared a bed.

6 Catherine The Great And Tsar Peter

Catherine the Great of Russia had no claim to the Russian throne. Originally a princess from a minor German noble family, she was chosen to be the bride for Peter, heir to the Russian crown, because of her father’s ties to Russia. This spectacular marriage might have been expected to please the young Catherine, but it was not to be.

Peter was cruel and weak‑minded. Catherine described him as an idiot and a good‑for‑nothing. She would later comment, “I believe the crown of Russia attracted me more than his person.”

At their wedding, though, Catherine was forced to wear a crown so heavy that it gave her a terrible headache. When the newlyweds were led to their bedchamber, the prince left her alone to undress while he retired with the other men to drink. Catherine was left alone for hours until the prince stumbled into bed drunk and nervously announced, “How it would amuse my servants to see us in bed together.” Then he fell asleep.

The marriage was not a success after this. Just six months after Peter became tsar of Russia, Catherine led a coup against him and ruled as empress of Russia in her son’s name for the next 34 years.

5 Henry III Of Navarre And Margaret Of Valois

Religious differences can cause lots of trouble in a marriage. Henry III, king of Navarre, was a Protestant, and his bride, Margaret, daughter of the French king, was a Catholic. Despite this difference, a splendid wedding was planned to take place in Paris. Thousands of Henry III’s fellow Protestants flocked to the city to enjoy the spectacle, and all seemed to be going well.

Six days after the wedding, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, a wave of killings began which targeted the Huguenot Protestants in Paris. The violence spread throughout France, and tens of thousands died. Trapped in Paris, Henry III was only saved from slaughter because of his wife. However, the massacre put a bit of a strain on their relationship.

Despite the troubles his Protestantism caused their marriage, Henry had a change of heart in later life. When the French king died without an heir, there were some who favored Henry as his successor. But his faith was against him.

Weighing his options, Henry converted to Catholicism to take the French throne as Henry IV. He quipped, “Paris is well worth a mass.” The marriage of Henry and Margaret never recovered from its early disasters, and both took other lovers.

4 Caracalla’s Proposed Wedding

The Roman Empire had long struggled with enemies in the East. The Parthians were always a threat to the rich Eastern provinces of the empire, and many emperors tried to get a handle on them. In AD 216, the emperor Caracalla decided that it was his turn to try. But the Roman people were not eager for war. To draw the Parthians into conflict, Caracalla planned a wedding.

He proposed a marriage alliance between himself and the Parthian king’s daughter. The king initially refused, not trusting Caracalla, but eventually, the king was convinced by the lavish gifts the emperor delivered.

Caracalla crossed into the Parthian Empire with his army to celebrate the nuptials. He was welcomed with music, feasting, and drinking. The Parthians left their weapons at home.

“Naturally, they did not have their quivers and bows with them. What need for weapons at a wedding?” wrote one historian of the time. At a signal, the Romans slaughtered the wedding guests, and the Parthian king narrowly escaped with his life.

Caracalla’s war was not a success. His gains were short‑lived, and he was assassinated less than a year later while urinating at the roadside.

3 Cleopatra And Alexander

One of the purposes of royalty is to put on a good show. In the ancient world, a wedding could be a way to announce your kingdom’s power and wealth. For Philip of Macedon, it was also a chance to show his snobby Greek neighbors that he was just as civilized as they were.

Macedonians were regarded as murderous barbarians by many other Greeks, especially as they had a habit of assassinating their rulers. Philip wanted to show just how much they had changed by holding a huge wedding celebration for his daughter Cleopatra and King Alexander of Epirus.

Everyone was cheering for the king when an assassin stabbed him to death. This rather ruined his attempt to show that Macedon no longer had a habit of killing its kings.

2 Prince Amadeo Of Savoy And Maria Vittoria Dal Pozzo

While many consider the disasters of the wedding between Prince Amadeo of Savoy and Maria Vittoria dal Pozzo to be apocryphal, they have also been widely reported and are too good to ignore. The troubles are supposed to have begun when Maria’s mistress of the wardrobe hanged herself just before the ceremony. Taking this as a bad omen, she had a new wedding dress quickly made to ward off bad luck.

The wedding day got off to a bad start when an officer fell from his horse with sunstroke and the gates to the palace refused to open for the couple. The prince’s best man is supposed to have accidentally shot himself in the head after the ceremony. The man in charge of the train station (from which the newlyweds were supposed to leave) fell under a train.

The prince’s father decided that enough was enough and ordered the wedding party back to the palace. During the procession home, a noble fell from his horse and under the carriage of the bride and groom where he was killed.

1 Olga Of Kiev

Olga of Kiev was wife to Igor, ruler of the Kievan Rus. All might have been quiet for Olga if the Drevlian tribe had not revolted against her husband. Igor was killed in the revolt.

“They had bent down two birch trees to the prince’s feet and tied them to his legs, then they let the trees straighten again, thus tearing the prince’s body apart,” a Byzantine historian tells us. Olga was left to act as regent for her son.

The Drevlians decided to take over by having Olga marry their own Prince Mal. Olga greeted the 20 men sent to convince her by having them burned alive. Despite this, she told Prince Mal that she accepted his marriage proposal but only if he sent many of his important nobles to escort her to the wedding.

When they arrived, she had them roasted in a bathhouse. Next, Olga went to the Drevlians’ capital city with an army and ordered a feast to mourn her dead husband before she would marry Mal. When the Drevlians were drunk, her army murdered 5,000 of them. Then she used pigeons and sparrows with burning cloths attached to burn down hundreds of homes.

After this, Olga converted to Christianity and is today considered a saint.

When you hear the phrase “royal families,” you might picture glittering crowns, opulent palaces, and centuries‑long dynasties. Yet, behind the pomp, a shadowy tradition of close‑kin marriages has haunted many thrones. In this roundup of 10 royal families, we dive into the tangled, sometimes scandalous, incestuous practices that shaped their histories.

10 Royal Families and Their Dark Secrets

10 The Monomotapa Of Zimbabwe

Various African monarchies practiced dynastic incest, and the Monomotapa kingdom of Zimbabwe was no exception. Its rulers were fervent polygamists, with one monarch reputed to have amassed more than three thousand wives. Among this vast harem, his preferred consorts were his own sisters or daughters, and any outsider daring to court a royal wife or daughter faced certain death.

The incestuous custom of the Monomotapa is vividly illustrated by the legend of the Balovedu tribe’s Rain Queen lineage. The Rain Queen, a figure endowed with the power to summon rain or drought, is said to have first received her magical abilities when Princess Dzugundini bore a child with her brother—or perhaps her father, depending on the version—and was forced to flee amid public shame. Rather than execute both mother and child, the king granted the princess rain‑making powers and arranged her escape, cementing the incest tradition in mythic memory.

9 Cleopatra

Cleopatra VII remains one of the most recognizable rulers in Western history, immortalized in Shakespeare, cinema, and opera. Yet many overlook a crucial aspect of her reign: according to Ptolemaic custom, she was married to both of her brothers. In fact, only six individuals occupied the sixteen slots of her great‑grandparent tree.

While the Ptolemaic dynasty’s obsession with blood‑pure unions contributed to a hereditary predisposition toward obesity, the most dangerous fallout was the ruthless power struggle it ignited. Sibling rivalry transformed into lethal intrigue, with family members routinely murdering one another to secure the throne. Cleopatra herself ordered the deaths of two brother‑husbands and even her sister in her relentless quest for authority.

8 Nahienaena Of Hawaii

In the Hawaiian monarchy, incest was not merely tolerated—it was a privileged right of the royal bloodline. Princess Nahienaena, born in 1815, is a striking example. By her early years she had entered into a romantic liaison with her brother, Prince Kauikeaouli, who would later ascend as Kamehameha III.

When Christian missionaries gained influence, they protested vehemently at the prospect of the siblings marrying and producing an heir. The missionaries succeeded in arranging alternative marriages for both, yet Nahienaena and Kauikeaouli continued their affair clandestinely, defying the new marital arrangements.

Their defiance resulted in scandal: Nahienaena was ostracized by both the church and the increasingly missionary‑shaped populace. A fragile daughter died shortly after birth, and the princess herself succumbed less than a year later. Historians generally agree that the sibling bond went beyond political duty, reflecting a genuine, tragic love.

7 Incan Incest

During the later phases of the Incan Empire, the aristocracy bent the usual prohibition against consanguineous marriage. While commoners were barred from such unions, nobles considered themselves above ordinary law and freely intermarried to reinforce their lineage.

Initially, half‑sisters were paired so that the shared grandfather’s blood would be amplified. However, the practice soon created succession headaches, as rulers often kept multiple wives, mistresses, and concubines. The belief emerged that offspring with two royal parents would boast a stronger claim to the throne.

Emperor Pachacuti attempted to codify the custom by favoring a younger son, Thupa Inka Yupanki, for his military skill, and labeling his sister a “full sister” rather than a half‑sister to bolster the future sons’ rights. The reform proved short‑lived; Thupa’s brother launched a coup, and the dynasty collapsed in civil war a generation later.

6 Maria Of Portugal

Maria I earned the distinction of being Portugal’s first reigning queen, yet she is equally remembered by the moniker “Maria the Mad.” In 1778 she wed her uncle Pedro, later styled Peter III, who was her father’s younger brother and 43 years old, while she was 26.

The family tree grew ever more tangled when their son and heir, Joseph, married his own aunt—Maria’s sister Benedita. Joseph was a mere 15, while Benedita was 30, making Peter III’s daughter‑in‑law, sister‑in‑law, and niece all the same person.

Predictably, the union could not produce children; Benedita suffered two miscarriages, and Joseph died of smallpox two years after his father, accelerating Maria’s mental decline. Her second son assumed the throne, and the royal house was eventually forced to flee to Brazil when Napoleon’s forces invaded. Decades later, Maria II would again marry her father’s brother to resolve a succession crisis.

5 Elisabeth Of Austria

Empress Elisabeth of Austria, often called “Sisi,” was convinced that her lineage bore a curse of madness, though pinpointing the source proved impossible given the tangled web of her ancestry.

Her mother, Ludovika of Bavaria, was one of thirteen children of Prince Maximilian of Bavaria. Ludovika’s sister Sophie married Archduke Franz Karl, giving birth to Emperor Franz Joseph. While Ludovika hoped her daughter Helene would wed the Emperor, Franz Joseph fell instantly for Elisabeth, proposing marriage on the spot.

The marriage proved disastrous. Elisabeth detested court life and clashed constantly with her mother‑in‑law, Archduchess Sophie. Though her health suffered, the cause was not genetic but rather the Emperor’s infidelities and Elisabeth’s own anxieties, obsession with dieting, and eventual nervous breakdown.

The family’s intermarriage continued: Elisabeth’s daughter married her second cousin Leopold, while another of Ludovika’s sisters, Karolina, wed Francis II, making Karolina both aunt and step‑grandmother to the Emperor, as well as sister and step‑mother‑in‑law to Sophie.

4 King Rama V

King Rama V, also known as Chulalongkorn, is celebrated as a reform‑oriented monarch who shielded Siam from colonial domination, abolished slavery, and modernized the nation with public hospitals and railways. Yet his personal life featured a different kind of prolific output.

Adhering to tradition that prized a fertile reign, Chulalongkorn fathered an astonishing 77 children with an estimated 153 consorts, concubines, and wives. The queen’s position was reserved for royal blood, prompting him to select four of his half‑sisters as official spouses.

Despite the sheer number of offspring, the king ensured a Western education for each, sending many sons to study in Europe. He was aware that the world might judge his marital arrangements, but his concern lay with the perception of polygamy rather than incest. Consequently, he only publicly portrayed himself with Queen Saovabha, while the other women were described as “due to custom.”

3 Princess Victoria Melita

Princess Victoria Melita offers a fascinating case study: she married not one but two first cousins. She was also a granddaughter of Queen Victoria through her father, Alfred, Duke of Saxe‑Coburg and Gotha.

Queen Victoria arranged for Victoria Melita to wed her grandson Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse. The couple produced a daughter and a stillborn son, but the marriage quickly deteriorated when Victoria reportedly caught Ernest in bed with a male servant, leading to volatile confrontations. After Queen Victoria’s death, the pair legally divorced, causing a scandal within aristocratic circles.

Victoria later married her true love, Kirill Vladimirovich, a Russian grand duke and also her first cousin on her mother’s side. Their union, performed without Tsar Nicholas II’s consent, resulted in Kirill’s removal from the navy and a five‑year exile from Russia. Only after a chain of royal deaths elevated Kirill to third in line for succession were they allowed back, yet their relationship remained strained, never fully warming.

2 Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria is renowned as a prolific matriarch who championed the belief that intermarriage among European royalty could secure lasting peace. Her matchmaking, first of her nine children and later of her grandchildren, intertwined nearly every royal house on the continent, but this web of blood also sowed the seeds of imperial decline.

Kaiser Wilhelm II’s deep‑seated insecurities and antagonism toward Britain can be traced to his English mother’s relentless insistence that English culture superseded German, a sentiment that fueled personal vendettas against his cousins King Edward VII and Tsar Nicholas II.

The genetic fallout of Victoria’s close‑kin unions manifested dramatically in the spread of hemophilia. Both Victoria and her husband Albert were first cousins, and their descendants continued to marry within the family, allowing the recessive hemophilia gene to proliferate. Five of Victoria’s grandchildren and one of her children died from complications related to the disease.

Perhaps the most catastrophic outcome was the tragic fate of her granddaughter, Tsarina Alexandra, whose son Alexei suffered from hemophilia. Desperate to heal him, Alexandra placed her trust in the mystic Rasputin, whose influence exacerbated public distrust and contributed to the Russian Revolution. The imperial family was ultimately murdered after Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication.

1 Ancient Rome

The infamous Emperor Nero is remembered for his cruel whims, including rumors of wandering the streets and murdering innocent citizens at random. His mother Agrippina, together with his former tutor Seneca, attempted to curb his excesses, only to provoke even more violent behavior, culminating in Nero’s murder of his own mother.

Agrippina’s ambition was far more intricate than a simple mother‑son power struggle. She married Emperor Claudius—her own uncle—to strengthen Nero’s claim to the throne, a union that Roman law deemed incestuous. She then plotted against Claudius’s natural heir and even arranged the suicide of Claudius’s daughter Octavia’s fiancé.

When Nero married his step‑sister Octavia, the only remaining obstacle was Claudius himself. Agrippina acted again, and a year after the marriage, Claudius died under suspicious circumstances, likely mushroom poisoning. At sixteen, Nero ascended as emperor.

Historical accounts, especially those of Tacitus, reveal that Agrippina’s relationship with Nero went beyond political maneuvering; she was openly affectionate, even sharing kisses, which alarmed contemporaries. Nero’s lover Acte warned him that such incestuous behavior would offend the gods and alienate the army.

Ultimately, Agrippina’s jealousy over Nero’s affairs with women like Acte and Poppaea Sabina—whom she viewed as rivals—led to her downfall. In AD 59, Nero orchestrated his mother’s murder, sealing a grim chapter in Roman imperial history.

Kindree Cushing is a jack‑of‑all‑trades and lover of informative lists.

When you think of absolute monarchies, the mind often drifts to stern decrees and rigid customs. Yet, amid the austere regulations that bind the everyday Saudi citizen, the kingdom’s own royal family lives a world of excess where scandalous tales sprout like desert thorns. Below, we unveil the 10 sordid stories that reveal how power, privilege, and peril intertwine within the House of Saud.

10 Sordid Stories Unveiled

10. Princess Basmah’s Fake Sheikh

Her Royal Highness Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al Saud, a granddaughter of the kingdom’s first monarch and daughter of the second, has long been a thorn in the side of the ruling elite thanks to her outspoken reformist stance and human‑rights advocacy. She has publicly urged the kingdom to adopt a constitution guaranteeing gender equality, civil liberties, divorce‑law reform, an overhaul of the education system, and the abolition of the mahram requirement that forces Saudi women to travel accompanied by a male guardian.

Despite championing these causes, she attracted the ire of those seeking to destabilise the dynasty. In 2013, a hacker—posing as a 30‑year‑old sheikh from the United Arab Emirates—invaded a friend’s Facebook account and coaxed the princess into a private chat. The ruse led to recorded Skype conversations where the impostor, using lavish flattery, tried to draw her into sexually explicit dialogue. Allegedly, the hacker also breached her computer, pilfering videos and photographs. After months of manipulation, the blackmailer demanded £320,000 be wired to an Egyptian bank account.

Choosing exposure over capitulation, Princess Basmah went public. The blackmailer responded by uploading a 40‑second YouTube clip that showed the princess smoking and blowing a kiss with her head uncovered—an act that, while harmless by Western standards, ignited a massive scandal in conservative Saudi society. She suspects the plot is linked to the operators behind the Mujtahidd Twitter account, a collective of dissidents who routinely publish intimate details of royal family members to undermine the regime.

9. Prince Nayef’s Cocaine Plane

In 2004, Prince Nayef bin Fawwaz Al Shalaan faced indictment in both the United States and France for his involvement in a massive cocaine‑smuggling operation linking South America to Europe. The saga traces back to a romance in the 1970s at the University of Miami, where the prince fell for Colombian student Doris Mangeri. Over the years, they kept in touch, and the prince even assumed a quasi‑paternal role for her children. By 1998, through Mangeri, he allegedly entered contact with a Colombian cartel headed by Juan Gabriel Usuga and Carlos Ramon—both brothers‑in‑law who, after losing an eye each in separate accidents, amassed a fortune in narcotics and operated a ranch near Medellín dubbed the “Cyclops Cattle Ranch.”

The prince purportedly suggested using his private Boeing 727 to transport cocaine, planning to launder the proceeds via Kanz Bank, the sole Islamic private bank in Geneva that he owned. He had a prior drug‑related indictment in Mississippi in 1984. According to prosecutors, the cartel agreed, and 2,000 kilograms (about 4,400 lb) of cocaine were moved to a Caracas stash house via a potato‑laden truck, then transferred into 100 empty Samsonite suitcases before being loaded onto the prince’s jet. The cargo was later shifted to a Paris stash house, with portions shipped onward to Italy and Spain. However, law‑enforcement raids in Paris and Spain intercepted the shipments, and the Colombian conspirators were arrested in the United States.

Even as the Saudi kingdom enforces strict anti‑drug policies, Prince Nayef defended his meetings as merely seeking investors for a plastics venture and was ultimately acquitted by the courts. With no extradition treaties between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. or France, authorities were hamstrung. Notably, interior minister Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz threatened to cancel French business deals if the investigation persisted. The prince remains at large, and during court testimony, a cartel member claimed the prince answered the question of why he smuggled drugs with, “The world is already doomed. I’m authorized by God to sell drugs.”

8. The Execution Of Princess Misha’al

This tragic tale mirrors a real‑life Romeo and Juliet. Princess Misha’al bint Fahd al Saud entered an arranged marriage—widely reported as unhappy—with an older cousin. Seeking education, she relocated to Beirut, where she met Khaled, the son of a Saudi diplomat, and began an illicit affair. The lovers maintained their relationship upon her return to Saudi Arabia, eventually attempting to flee together in 1977. Their plan was foiled, and rather than renounce Khaled, Princess Misha’al confessed to adultery, enraging her grandfather, King Muhammad bin Abdul‑Aziz, the brother of the reigning monarch.

The pair were seized in a Jeddah parking lot; the 19‑year‑old princess was executed by a single gunshot to the head while her lover watched. He was subsequently beheaded, a botched execution requiring four strokes. The Saudi authorities tried to suppress the incident, but the story sparked international outrage when the BBC and PBS aired a documentary titled Death Of A Princess in 1980.

Saudi officials attempted to block the film, but the effort failed. In retaliation, they expelled the British ambassador, withdrew 400 royal family members from the United Kingdom, and caused an estimated £200 million loss in UK orders and product boycotts. The documentary was rebroadcast in 2005 and remains available online.

7. Royal Lockup

Televised testimony from Princess Anoud al Fayez—one of the late King Abdullah’s many ex‑wives—reveals that the king allegedly kept four of his daughters—Princesses Jawaher, Sahar, Hala, and Maha—under a form of virtual house arrest within the Jeddah royal compound. For the past 14 years, half‑siblings purportedly oversaw their confinement, allegedly as punishment for “racy” lifestyles and criticism of the royal family. While some of Abdullah’s daughters have pursued successful careers and championed human‑rights causes, these four appear singled out for mysterious reasons.

The women, now in their thirties and forties, reportedly endure dire conditions. In a recent RT interview, Princesses Hala and Maha claimed they were running low on food and water. An Arabic‑language TV interview highlighted that their detention stems from their outspoken stance on women’s rights and opposition to male guardianship. Saudi authorities have never formally charged them, branding the matter a “private affair.”

Princess Sahar, in correspondence with a Middle‑East current‑affairs outlet, detailed their plight: the sisters and their mother have long advocated for poverty alleviation, women’s rights, and related causes, which angered half‑brothers Mitab and AbdelAziz. Over the past 15 years, conditions have worsened. Hala, while interning at a Riyadh hospital, discovered political prisoners being drugged and shamed in psychiatric wards, reported the abuse, and faced retaliation, including threats, drugging, kidnapping, and eventual confinement in Olaysha’s Women’s Jail. The sisters allege repeated drugging, kidnapping, and a systematic effort to break their spirit.

6. Halloween At Faisal’s

Although Saudi law bans Halloween and most foreign holidays for being “un‑Islamic,” the royal family enjoys a different set of rules. According to U.S. diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, a clandestine Halloween celebration took place in 2009 at the residence of Prince Faisal al Thunayan, a cadet prince—not in line for the throne but still basking in royal privileges.

The soirée attracted over 150 young Saudi men and women. Religious police were kept at bay by “khawi”—young Nigerian bodyguards who grow up alongside their princes and pledge lifelong loyalty. Despite the kingdom’s prohibition on alcohol, Filipino bartenders served a cocktail punch made from “sadiqi,” a locally produced moonshine, with bottles of premium liquor filled with the same spirit displayed prominently.

The event, co‑sponsored by U.S. energy‑drink brand Kizz‑me, featured dancing, costumes, and a DJ. American consulate officials who attended reported that many female guests were, in fact, prostitutes hired for the night, and that cocaine and hashish use were commonplace. While a decade ago the wealthy Saudi elite’s nightlife was limited to informal “dating” in private homes, today many royal residences boast basements turned into bars, discos, and entertainment centres catering to a growing appetite for Western‑style nightlife.

5. The Death Of Bandar Abdulaziz

In 2010, Prince Saud bin Abdulaziz bin Nasir al Saud was arrested after beating his manservant and lover, Bandar Abdulaziz, to death in a lavish London hotel suite. The assault reportedly followed weeks of physical and sexual abuse, culminating on Valentine’s Day when, fueled by champagne and “sex on the beach” cocktails, the prince struck Abdulaziz 37 times and even bit both of his cheeks. The victim succumbed to his injuries.

After the attack, the prince ordered glasses of milk and water, dragged the body onto the bed, and attempted a clumsy cleanup to conceal the crime. During the trial, he spent considerable effort denying his own homosexuality—a crime punishable by death in Saudi Arabia—though experts noted that most executions for homosexual acts in the kingdom are linked to rape charges, and royal status likely shielded him from capital punishment.

Some observers argue the cover‑up aimed to hide the sexual dimension of the crime. The prince and Abdulaziz had a long‑standing, abusive relationship, sharing shopping trips, meals, and hotel stays, yet the prince repeatedly assaulted his lover. CCTV footage from a parking lot captured Abdulaziz submitting to a beating before meekly following his master away. The prince tried to claim the death resulted from a prior robbery where Abdulaziz allegedly lost €3,000, but forensic evidence disproved this, showing the wounds were recent. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, but in 2013 he was repatriated to Saudi Arabia as part of a prisoner‑exchange deal that allowed five British nationals detained in Saudi Arabia to serve their sentences at home.

4. Prince Turki And Princess Hind

In 1973, Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz married the striking 20‑year‑old Hind al‑Fassi, daughter of a Sufi mystic barred from entering Saudi Arabia, despite his family’s objections. He divorced his first wife to wed her, and together they embarked on a nine‑year globe‑trotting adventure with Hind’s mother, sister, and brothers—Mohammed, Allal, Mustafa, and Tarek—accompanied by a sizable entourage.

The couple eventually settled in a North Miami condominium, the Cricket Club, overlooking Biscayne Bay, after being urged by Alvin Malnik, a multimillion‑dollar Jewish lawyer with alleged mob ties they met in London. Malnik quickly won over Hind’s brothers with his charm and seized control of the prince’s finances. Family drama unfolded: Mohammed, jealous of Malnik’s influence, travelled to Turkey, adopted a young boy, and abandoned his Italian girlfriend to marry a Saudi woman. Seventeen‑year‑old Tarek kidnapped a Saudi woman at a London discotheque, proposed to her, and offered cash to her husband for a divorce. Malnik’s son, Mark, fell for Hind’s sister.

Miami proved a fertile playground for the al‑Fassi clan, who indulged in extravagant parties and reckless behaviour. In 1982, local newspapers alleged that servants on the prince’s compound worked around the clock for meagre wages, barred from leaving or contacting outsiders. Police raids resulted in a chaotic showdown: officers, accompanied by an interpreter, entered the compound, sparking a shouting match with Princess Hind and her bodyguards. During the melee, Hind’s mother, from a bathroom, asked an officer for a towel, which he handed over; she then bit his arm.

Legal battles ensued, but diplomatic immunity—arranged by the State Department and the Saudi ambassador—saved the prince from prosecution. Ordered to return to Saudi Arabia, the family soon relocated to Egypt, commandeering the top three floors of the Ramses Hilton. Throughout the 1990s, Egyptian press detailed lurid accounts of servant beatings and thuggish bodyguards. Two Egyptian waiters reportedly fell to their deaths while attempting to escape down the hotel’s façade using tied bedsheets. Hind earned notoriety for refusing to settle a substantial debt with a local jeweler and for entertaining male guests, including famous Arab singers, while Prince Turki often passed out from prescription medication prescribed by his domineering wife.

3. Phoney Dinner For Prince Charles

According to a 2006 Wikileaks cable, U.S. Consul General Tatiana Gfoeller detailed a disastrous dinner hosted by Prince Khalid bin Faisal al‑Saud for the visiting Prince Charles. Both princes share a love of landscape painting and even co‑hosted an art exhibition in London and Riyadh. Prince Khalid, nervous about the event, faced a run‑down palace in desperate need of renovation.

The soirée was orchestrated by a “prominent Western businessman” who, under pressure, was told by Prince Khalid that renovating the palace’s ground floor was his responsibility. When the businessman asked to decline, he received a firm “no.” With only three weeks to work, he cut power to the palace to hide the shoddy repairs, filled wall holes with Styrofoam, and projected decorative designs onto the surfaces. The dinner was illuminated solely by candles, further masking the hasty fixes.

The ruse succeeded; Prince Charles praised the palace’s luxury and beauty. The businessman was rewarded with paintings from both princes and a tip exceeding $13,000. He later described Prince Khalid as “extremely cheap.” This episode gained significance when Prince Khalid later became governor of Mecca, sparking speculation he might someday ascend the throne.

2. Rape At The Plaza Hotel

In 2010, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd enjoyed an extravagant stay at New York’s Plaza Hotel, occupying a massive 370‑square‑meter (4,000 ft²) fourth‑floor suite while his entourage filled 50 additional rooms across the Plaza and neighboring hotels. The prince’s entourage had been lodged there for four months when Mustapha Ouanes, a mechanical engineer employed by Saudi Ogere, allegedly raped a 26‑year‑old barmaid who had fallen asleep in his suite.

On January 26, Ouanes met the barmaid and a friend at a West Village bar, sharing drinks before heading to his two‑room suite with the intention of a casual breakfast. The women, intoxicated with alcohol and hashish, passed out, only to awaken to Ouanes assaulting the barmaid. In court, the defense argued the women attempted to extort money for sex, fabricating a rape story after Ouanes refused.

Plaza employee Nizar Adeeb testified that when police arrived, a distraught woman shouted, “Do you work for the prince, too?” As Ouanes was taken away, Adeeb handed him a $100 bill and covered his handcuffs with a coat, stating the priority was protecting the Plaza’s reputation rather than the victim’s welfare. Ouanes was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison, and the judge dismissed an appeal based on the defendant’s alleged coronary artery disease.

1. The Assassination Of King Faisal

In 1975, Saudi King Faisal, renowned for his modernization drive, close ties with the United States, and support for pan‑Islamism, fell victim to a brutal assassination by his nephew, Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed. On March 25, the king was holding a majlis—a public audience where citizens could present petitions. Outside, the prince chatted with Kuwaiti officials awaiting their turn.

When the king emerged, Prince Faisal rushed forward, embracing his uncle in a customary gesture that included a kiss on the head. In a sudden turn, the prince fired three shots, striking the king in the chin and ear. A bodyguard then struck the prince with a sheathed sword as Oil Minister Zaki Yamani shouted, “Don’t kill the prince!” The king was rushed to a hospital where doctors administered a blood transfusion and massaged his heart, but he could not be revived.

Legend holds that the king’s dying wish was for his nephew to be spared. Nevertheless, Prince Faisal’s brother, Khalid, assumed the throne after a three‑day national mourning period. Prince Faisal was declared insane, though a panel of Saudi medical experts later deemed him sane at the time of the killing. He was convicted of regicide by the high religious court and executed by beheading in a public square at the Al Hukm Palace in Riyadh before thousands of onlookers.

Conspiracy theories abound, but investigations concluded that Prince Faisal acted alone. Possible motives include revenge for the death of Prince Khalid bin Musa’id, who was killed by a policeman while leading an attack on a television station—an outlet King Faisal had recently introduced, sparking violent backlash.

History is peppered with puzzling deaths, bewildering lives, and legendary whispers about royal youngsters. Among the countless questions, ten stand out as especially baffling – a collection of 10 mysteries surrounding royal children that have either been cracked by modern science or remain stubbornly unsolved. Some are locked away in ancient vaults, others linger in dusty archives, but each story still captivates the curious mind.

10. Marie Antoinette’s Missing Son

For two centuries, scholars could not agree on the fate of Marie Antoinette’s eight‑year‑old son, the uncrowned Louis XVII. Imprisoned in the Temple during the Revolution, he watched his parents meet the guillotine, and rumors soon swirled that he had been smuggled out and replaced with a look‑alike corpse. Harsh prison conditions and relentless abuse made his eventual death on June 8, 1795 unsurprising.

Nearly a hundred claimants later stepped forward, each insisting they were the lost Dauphin. DNA testing in 2000, however, put an end to the pretenders. Scientists examined a preserved heart, long kept as a macabre souvenir by the autopsy doctor, and matched it to hair locks taken from Marie Antoinette herself. The heart belonged to the child who had perished in the Temple, confirming the traditional story of his tragic demise from tuberculosis, alone and nameless for two hundred years.

The heart received full royal honors, interred beside his parents, with over two thousand mourners – including members of European royalty – attending the solemn ceremony.

9. The Pharaoh’s Firstborn Son

Historians have given a name to the pharaoh’s heir who allegedly fell victim to the biblical plague that struck Egypt’s firstborns: Amun‑her Khepeshef. Egyptologist Kent Weeks believes he may have finally located the boy – not in a scroll, but in skeletal remains.

While excavating a colossal funerary complex, Weeks’s team uncovered a series of elaborately painted burial chambers depicting Ramses II and his sons. Among the finds were canopic jars bearing Amun‑her’s name and possibly his organs, as well as four male skeletons in a pit near the tomb entrance. One skeleton, posed in a royal stance, displayed a severely fractured skull. Facial reconstruction revealed the unmistakable pointy facial features typical of Ramses II’s lineage.

Amun‑her, a military commander, likely suffered a mace‑induced head injury. Yet the mystery persists: does the skeleton belong to the biblical firstborn, or is it another of Ramses’s sons? DNA analysis remains impossible because of tissue degradation, but regardless, the boy died before his father, probably in his late forties or early fifties.

8. Paul I Of Russia

Catherine the Great gave birth to Paul in 1754, yet the identity of his father remains murky. Peter III, Catherine’s husband, seemed more interested in toy soldiers and mistresses, leading some to suspect that the infant was actually the son of Sergei Saltykov, a military officer rumored to be Catherine’s lover. Regardless of paternity, Catherine proved an unloving mother.

Paul’s childhood was marred by his parents’ mutual hatred, culminating in a deadly showdown when he was eight: Peter III, the man he thought was his father, was poisoned. This event convinced Paul later that his mother plotted against him as well.

While Paul’s suspicions about Catherine’s treachery were correct, he misidentified the true threat. Catherine, doubting Paul’s capacity to rule, began grooming his son Alexander as her successor. A stroke prevented her from formalizing this plan, and Paul ultimately seized the throne. His reign, however, was short‑lived; he was strangled with a scarf. The assassin’s motives remain uncertain, with whispers that his son Alexander may have colluded with the killers, especially after Alexander’s uneasy dinner that night and the presence of one assassin in Paul’s chambers.

7. Prince Arthur

Born in 1486, Prince Arthur of Wales was christened after the legendary King Arthur. At just fifteen, he entered an arranged marriage with Catherine of Aragon, daughter of the powerful Spanish monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand, a union meant to cement an Anglo‑Spanish alliance.

The marriage was abruptly cut short when, five months later, Arthur succumbed to a mysterious “sweating sickness.” Frail from birth, he lived with his bride at Ludlow Castle, far from the London physicians who might have treated him. Catherine and several locals also fell ill, leading scholars to hypothesize causes ranging from tuberculosis to a hantavirus infection.

In 2002, archaeologists uncovered Arthur’s tomb beneath Worcester Cathedral’s limestone floor. Researchers hope future non‑invasive techniques will finally pinpoint the disease that claimed the heir’s life. After Arthur’s death, Catherine married his younger brother, who would later become Henry VIII, and she remains one of the few royal wives to survive a notoriously murderous husband.

6. Menelik

According to Ethiopian tradition, Menelik was the offspring of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The tale claims that Menelik, raised in his mother’s realm, later journeyed to Jerusalem, met his father, and was offered a place as Solomon’s acknowledged heir.

Instead of accepting a throne, Menelik allegedly seized the Ark of the Covenant, bringing it back to Ethiopia. While the Queen of Sheba appears in both the Bible and the Quran, the historicity of her son Menelik remains unverified. Nonetheless, the story credits Menelik with introducing Judaism to Ethiopia, a faith that persists there to this day.

The Ark is said to reside in the holy sanctuary of Aksum, guarded by a lifelong monk. Millennia of secrecy prevent definitive proof of Menelik’s existence, yet his legendary role has indelibly shaped Ethiopian identity, history, and religious tradition.

5. Victoria’s Secret Grandchild

Whispers have long swirled around Princess Louise, one of Queen Victoria’s daughters, suggesting she bore an illegitimate son. Biographer Lucinda Hawksley posits that Louise fell in love with Walter Stirling, a private tutor employed by her younger brother, and that they produced a boy named Henry around 1866‑67.

Stirling vanished from royal service after only four months, yet continued receiving a stipend. The infant, lacking a birth certificate, was swiftly adopted by Sir Frederick Locock, Queen Victoria’s personal gynecologist. While the story remains unproven, the Locock descendants have campaigned for DNA testing since 2004, hoping to confirm the rumored lineage.

To date, no definitive genetic evidence has emerged, leaving the tale of Victoria’s secret grandchild shrouded in mystery.

4. The House Of Royal Children

In the mid‑1800s, Scottish Egyptologist Henry Rhind uncovered a mass burial at Thebes containing the remains of numerous Egyptian princesses. An inscription identified the group collectively as the “House of Royal Children,” yet little else is known about this enigmatic institution.

Scholars are uncertain about the purpose of the House, but evidence suggests it housed palace women and girls of royal blood, all perishing together. Names such as Tiaa, sister of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, appear among the interred, hinting at a multi‑generational community.

The concentration of so many princesses in a single tomb implies a communal burial rather than staggered interments. Inscriptions mention the deaths of an embalmer and several servants around the same time, leading some to speculate an infectious disease struck the group. If true, the House may have been razed to curb the spread, sacrificing a valuable cultural treasure in the process.

3. Saint Dmitry

Among Russia’s tragic crown princes, two stories dominate: Alexei Romanov, murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918, and Ivan, slain by his own father, Ivan the Terrible. After Ivan the Terrible’s brutal act, his wife gave birth to another son, Dmitry, who was merely two when his father died.

When his half‑brother Feodor I ascended the throne, young Dmitry was exiled to the modest town of Uglich. Though Feodor was unlikely to produce an heir, Dmitry became the Tsarevich. In 1591, at nine years old, he met a mysterious demise: official reports claim he suffered a seizure, brandished a knife, and inadvertently stabbed himself in the neck.

Given the volatile political climate, many suspect foul play, possibly ordered by Boris Godunov, who later claimed the throne. Dmitry’s mother accused Godunov of the murder. Though the truth may never surface, Dmitry was canonized as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1606, ensuring his memory endures.

2. Little Caesar

Caesarion, the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, officially lived only seventeen years. Born in 47 BC, three years before his father’s assassination, the boy co‑ruled Egypt with his mother.

Whether Caesar officially acknowledged Caesarion remains debated, but the child was dubbed “Little Caesar.” Strangely, after his tenth birthday, his name vanished from official records. One theory suggests Cleopatra wanted to secure her lineage through the twins she later bore with Marc Antony, though evidence is scant.

As a teenager, Caesarion became a pawn in the power struggle between Marc Antony and Octavian, Julius Caesar’s heir. Antony promoted the boy as a legitimate successor, prompting Octavian to eliminate him. After Octavian’s decisive victory, Cleopatra and Antony committed suicide. Caesarion fled Egypt, but his fate is shrouded in mystery—some say he was murdered en route to Ethiopia, others that he was strangled upon returning to Egypt, and a few speculate he escaped. His body was never recovered, and he disappeared as Octavian consolidated power over Rome and Egypt.

1. The Missing Romanovs

The Romanov tragedy has long fascinated the world, especially the mystery of Anastasia, one of the two children missing from the mass grave containing the slain imperial family. In 2007, excavators uncovered a second grave roughly 70 meters away from the original burial site.

This new grave yielded the charred remains of two children—a teenage boy and a young woman aged between seventeen and twenty‑four. Forty‑four bone fragments and several teeth, all badly burned, were recovered. Given the grave’s proximity to the tsar’s family, forensic teams performed three separate genetic analyses to determine if the remains belonged to the missing Romanov children.

The tests conclusively identified the boy as Tsarevich Alexei and the girl as one of his sisters, thereby ending long‑standing speculation about Anastasia’s survival. Yet questions linger: why were these two interred separately, and which sister—Maria or Anastasia—was buried alongside Alexei remains debated among anthropologists. What is certain is that all Romanov daughters have now been accounted for, confirming that Anastasia did not escape the 1918 execution.

King Louis XIV of France is the longest-reigning monarch in European history (1643–1715). His absolutism and ambition to make France the dominant power on the Continent were the hallmarks of the age. As the “Sun King,” his desire to have everything revolve around him began at home in his glittering court at Versailles. The magnificent palace became the seat of government in 1682, a “gilded cage” where the king kept his nobles on a tight leash.

While the rest of the world saw the pomp and splendor of a great empire, the inner life of the court betrayed the intrigues, decadence, and jealousies that hounded an all‑too‑human king. For the most part, we are indebted to the Duc de Saint‑Simon’s memoirs for this inside access into Louis XIV’s court.

10 Court Etiquette

The game of currying the Sun King’s favor was played out in Versailles for all it was worth. Depending on the occasion, from 3,000 to 10,000 people crowded the palace. Nobles were regulars, seeking rewards like pensions in return for their constant service. Many had their own living quarters in the Versailles outbuildings and were obliged to adhere to the maddeningly intricate etiquette that governed daily life at the royal residence.

Ranked immediately below the royal bastards, the hierarchy of nobles from duke to baron was strictly delineated at court. Everyone knew who was superior to whom through the use of a codified system of gestures and language. Rank determined who sat down or stood up in the presence of the king and who could use an armchair, a chair with a back, or a stool. There were rules on who could approach a superior and where and when this was appropriate.

Seemingly trivial actions were covered by etiquette. For instance, knocking on the king’s door was forbidden. One had to scratch lightly at the door with the pinkie finger in order to be let in. When sitting down, a gentleman had to slide his left foot in front of the right, place his hands on the sides of the chair, and gently lower himself down. A lady could not hold hands or link arms with a gentleman. Instead, the gentleman had to bend his arm and allow the lady to place her hand on it.

The Versailles dress code was probably of the most consequence to nobles. Courtiers were compelled to keep up with the latest fashions in imitation of the king. Each formal event required a different set of expensive attire. Furthermore, Louis was constantly changing or adding accessories to the royal wardrobe, and courtiers had to follow suit if they wanted to remain in favor.

The expense sent some nobles into debt. It is even argued that this was Louis’s real intent—to bankrupt his nobles in order to better manipulate them and concentrate the power for himself. Fashion was an integral part of acquiring and maintaining influence. This was reflected in the two fairy tales written around this time, “Cinderella” and “Puss in Boots,” which accentuate fashion as a means of gaining respect and privilege.

9 A Day In The Life

Life in Versailles was conducted with military‑like precision, all revolving around the king’s activities. The Duc de Saint‑Simon wrote of Louis XIV: “With an almanac and a watch, you could be three hundred leagues from here and say what he was doing.” The king’s day, from awaking to retiring, was regulated like clockwork and accompanied by pomp and ceremony. Courtiers who were expected to participate had to plan their work schedules accordingly.

The king’s day began at 7:30 AM when a few favorites entered the bedchamber for the grandes entrees (meaning “those with the right to talk to him first in the morning”) when Louis was washed, combed, and shaved. After Louis had recited the Office of the Holy Ghost, the second entrée (meaning “a group of nobles”) was admitted to watch him dress and eat breakfast. Then it was off to mass at 10:00 AM, where the rest of the court accompanied the king as he traversed the Hall of Mirrors to the chapel. Every day, a newly composed hymn was sung by the choir.

At 11:00 AM, council meetings were held at the king’s apartments, followed by a private meal in the bedchamber at 1:00 PM. At 2:00 PM, Louis announced his intentions for the afternoon, perhaps a promenade, a picnic with the ladies, or a hunt. In his later years, Louis needed the fresh air to quell his headaches, which were brought about by overexposure to perfume.

By 6:00 PM, Louis was ready to sign letters and study state documents prepared by his secretaries. Supper was au grand couvert (meaning “a large meal”) at 10:00 PM, after which Louis spent some time with his family. At 11:30 PM, a shortened version of the morning ceremonials attended the king’s retiring.

8 A Filthy Royal?

The Sun King’s personal hygiene is a matter of debate among historians. On the one extreme is the rumor that Louis took only three baths in his life. It is quite clear how the rumor started: People in 17th‑century Europe were told that bathing opened the body’s pores to disease. Bathing was considered a terrible health hazard. Instead, people doused themselves with perfume to mask the inevitable stench.

They also observed the ring of dirt around the cuffs and collars of their linen shirts and concluded that the flax in the linen had the magnetic ability to draw out dirt and perspiration from the body. Therefore, changing one’s linen shirt often was the path to cleanliness in lieu of a bath.

Louis was not immune to these bizarre notions. The modern nose would have turned away from his smell. Louis also had bad breath, which prompted his mistress, Francoise‑Athenais de Rochechouart de Mortemart, marquise de Montespan, to lace herself with a prodigious amount of perfume to overwhelm the king’s halitosis. But that triggered Louis’s headaches. They had a flaming row in the royal coach about how bad they smelled to each other.

The belief that the king bathed only three times in his life is rather implausible. Louis did take care to keep himself clean, just not in the way moderns go about it. Due to his perfume‑induced migraines, he was rubbed instead with spirits or alcohol to disinfect his skin. The king changed his underwear three times a day. He even had an entire apartment in Versailles turned into bathrooms, with two private baths for himself. Though Louis was understandably reluctant to bathe, and then only upon his doctor’s orders, these baths must surely have been used more than three times. The Sun King wasn’t the filthy royal he was made out to be.

7 Supper With The Sun King

Louis took his breakfast and midday dinner in private. But the 10:00 PM supper was an opulent affair open to the entire court. Five hundred people were needed to cook and serve this meal.

At the appointed hour, courtiers and attendants would crowd into the antechamber of the royal apartments. The dress code required the men to carry swords. The king sat at the center of the long side of a rectangular table. Guests sat along the shorter sides (no crossing of the legs, please) with the remaining side open for servers. Musicians played on a platform in front of the king.

All of Europe took its cue from the formal customs of dining developed at Versailles. Le service à la Française (“service in the French style”) was considered the only civilized manner of dining. After a priest said grace, bowls of scented water were passed around for guests to wash their hands in. Food was served in a succession of “services”: hors d’oeuvres, soups, main dishes, go‑betweens, and fruit.

Within each service (except for the fruit course), there were between two and eight dishes. Diners had to bow to the food as it came in. Officers of the household served the dishes on plates of gold for the king and silver for the princes, set down on the table at prescribed locations. Diners took food that was near at hand without moving the plates and passed along dishes that were beyond reach. Drinking glasses were handed out only upon a softly spoken request. Guests were not allowed to converse because that would distract Louis from his meal.

In 1669, Louis banned all pointed knives from the dinner table. Before then, they had been used as toothpicks or even as murder weapons in dinner brawls. Though the fork was already in common use, Louis still preferred to eat with his fingers.

With such a large and extravagant meal, guests could only sample a small portion of the menu. Nevertheless, Louis had eaten 20 to 30 dishes by the time he was ready to go to bed at 11:30 PM, pocketing the candied fruit and nibbling on a boiled egg as he entered his bedchamber. It is not surprising that when Louis died in 1715, doctors who autopsied his body noted that his stomach was three times the average size.

6 The Fish That Caused A Suicide

Preparing the opulent banquets for the king and his court must have been an extremely stressful job. No wonder Francois Vatel, the “Prince of Cooks,” cracked under the strain.

In April 1671, King Louis announced his plan to visit Louis II de Bourbon, the Prince de Conde, and stay for three days at his chateau in Chantilly. This was more of a punishment than an honor for the prince. At this time, before he kept the aristocracy in his “gilded cage” of Versailles, the king had to drag his courtiers with him wherever he went in order to keep a watchful eye on the nobles. Louis started off for Chantilly with 600 aristocrats and thousands of hangers‑on.

Vatel was not actually a chef. Instead, he was a maître d’hôtel (his office was called a “bouche”), responsible for the organization of such grand receptions, including entertainment like fireworks and stage shows. Vatel and the prince had only 15 days to prepare for the king’s visit. Without modern transportation, all food had to be sourced locally. As an officier de la bouche, Vatel was expected to accurately estimate how much was needed to feed the host now descending upon Chantilly.

On the first night, a feast was held in the forest. The turnout of 5,000 was unexpected, and the roast fell short by two tables. Moreover, overcast skies put a damper on the fireworks show, which had cost 16,000 francs. Vatel spent the next hours tormenting himself for the fiasco, despite assurances from the prince that everything was fine. “My honor is lost; this is a humiliation that I cannot endure,” Vatel lamented. But there was still the next day to consider.

Vatel had scoured all the seaport towns in the area for fish and spent a sleepless night waiting for his orders to arrive. At 4:00 AM, a lone purveyor appeared with two loads of fish. “Is this all?” cried Vatel. The man replied, “Yes, sir.” A despairing Vatel waited a bit longer. No fish arrived. It finally unhinged Vatel.

Going up to his room, Vatel took his sword and impaled himself through the heart. Had he waited a little longer, he would have spared his own life. Shortly after killing himself, the rest of the fish, delayed on the road, were delivered to Chantilly.

5 The Enema Fanatic

Besides his bathing habits, another thing about Louis XIV where it is hard to separate fact from fiction is his reported addiction to enemas. Shooting liquid up the anus to cleanse the colon has a long history of health benefits. The king became such a fan that he supposedly had over 2,000 enemas in his life. Some attribute his longevity to the procedure.

Other historians think 2,000 is too high a number. The king had a bleeding and an enema (called a lavement) once a month prescribed by physicians. But other stories have Louis taking off every night after dinner for a rectal cleanse. Eventually, he became so fond of it that he would have an enema while holding court.

In a polite society where imitating the king was fashionable, aristocrats scrambled for their own clyster syringes and had sessions three or four times a day. Servants usually administered the enema, but bent clyster syringes also appeared to allow self‑administration. The Duc de Saint‑Simon related that the Duchesse de Bourgogne once threw modesty to the winds and had a maid crawl beneath her gown to give her an enema while she chatted with the king in the midst of a crowded party. For such public enemas, special clyster syringes had been developed with attachments that covered the buttocks.

Even taking into account the exaggerations in such tales, there is no doubt that Louis was the “Enema King” of his day and that the court shared his mania. We still have surviving satirical buttons from the period depicting the Sun King taking an enema.

4 The Fall Of Nicolas Fouquet

The richest man in France, the ambitious Nicolas Fouquet made his greatest mistake when he showed off his vast wealth to Louis XIV.

Born in 1615 to a wealthy shipowner and parliamentarian, Fouquet lived by his family motto, Quo non ascendet (“To what heights will he not climb”). He steadily rose through the royal administration to become finance minister under the powerful Cardinal Mazarin, chief minister to the young Louis XIV. In effect, Fouquet was banker to the king, and the office allowed him to enrich himself through dubious means, although they were acceptable at the time.

Fouquet’s chateau, Vaux‑le‑Vicomte, and its breathtaking gardens were the finest in France. It was the setting for the most lavish fetes the 17th century had ever seen. Such magnificence was not enough for Fouquet. Upon Mazarin’s death in 1622, he aspired to the vacated post of chief minister, but Louis decided to take absolute rule for himself and abolished the post.

Meanwhile, Mazarin’s private secretary, Jean‑Baptiste Colbert, saw his chance to seize the office of finance minister from Fouquet and schemed to get rid of him. Colbert revealed to the king the irregularities in Fouquet’s operations. He accused Fouquet of embezzling millions, which were actually pocketed by Mazarin. Confident that the king knew of his loyalty, Fouquet ignored his friends’ warnings of the plot against him.

Louis believed Colbert’s accusations and decided that Fouquet must answer for his crime. But first, he wanted to see for himself the extent of Fouquet’s allegedly ill‑gotten wealth and expressed a desire to visit Vaux‑le‑Vicomte.

An unsuspecting Fouquet enthusiastically welcomed the king on that fateful day of August 17, 1661. Pulling out all the stops to impress the king, Fouquet had prepared an extravagant soirée, with sumptuous food, dazzling fireworks, and theatrical performances. The king had seen enough. The ostentatious display convinced Louis that Fouquet was indeed stealing from his treasury. Louis would have arrested Fouquet on the spot, but the queen mother dissuaded him.

But that evening sealed Fouquet’s fate. He was arrested three weeks later in Nantes. In the “trial of the century,” the judges voted to have Fouquet banished from France. But Louis thought that was too kind. Overruling the judges, he had Fouquet imprisoned for life. Louis seized everything that he could from Vaux‑le‑Vicomte, even the orange trees, and sent it to Versailles.

Fouquet died in prison in 1680.

3 The Penitent Mistress

In 1661, tongues began to wag in court about how intimate Louis was with his new sister‑in‑law, the beautiful Henrietta Anne of England, wife of the Duc d’Orleans. Seeking to avert a scandal, royal counselors tried to cover up the liaison by making it appear that the king was really interested in the duchesse’s lady‑in‑waiting, Louise‑Françoise de la Baume Le Blanc de La Vallière.

To make appearances convincing, the royal secretary ghostwrote love letters allegedly exchanged between Louis and La Vallière. Other courtiers staged late‑night trysts between the two. It didn’t take long for the pretense to become real: Louis fell in love with the intelligent and cultured La Vallière.

As Louis was now married to Marie‑Therese of Austria, La Vallière became the official royal mistress. She eventually bore four children for the king. La Vallière continued her artistic and literary pursuits—attending plays by Racine and Molière, studying painting, and discussing Aristotle and Descartes. In 1667, Louis made her Duchesse de Vaujours. But the same year also saw the appearance of a rival for the king’s affection, the notorious Madame de Montespan.

La Vallière patiently endured the humiliation of sharing a roof with de Montespan, who had become the king’s de facto mistress. Their apartments were connected, so she couldn’t fail to be aware whenever king and mistress were engaged in amatory activity. Louis had grown cold toward La Vallière. Once, at the prodding of de Montespan, he threw his spaniel, Malice, at La Vallière, saying, “There, Madam, is your companion; that’s all.”

All this time, La Vallière’s conscience was bothered by her adulterous relationship with Louis. Stricken by a serious illness, she had a spiritual crisis. When she recovered, she confessed her sins and became more deeply involved in her Catholicism. La Vallière withdrew from the worldliness of the court and spent her days in prayer and mortification. She wrote a theological work, Reflections on the Mercy of God.

La Vallière’s conversion exposed Louis to the public as a philanderer and a religious hypocrite. In 1674, he finally allowed La Vallière to leave and become a nun at the Carmelite convent in Paris. Her odyssey from adulteress to Sister Louise de la Misericorde was hailed a moral miracle, an indictment of the immorality reigning in Versailles.

2 The Affair Of The Poisons

Voluptuous, seductive, haughty, and ambitious, Athenais de Montespan was the polar opposite of Louise de La Vallière. In fact, de Montespan was the most influential woman in Louis XIV’s court and feared by the courtiers.

She was the wife of the Marquis de Montespan and a former lady‑in‑waiting to Queen Marie‑Therese. Charmed by her beauty and wit, Louis took her in as his mistress in 1667. She bore him seven children, six of whom survived and were legitimated. But by 1677, Louis was becoming bored with de Montespan and showed it through a succession of affairs, including one with a former nun.

De Montespan was not above doing something crazy to win the king back, and Louis knew it. He began to receive disturbing reports from Gabriel‑Nicholas de La Reynie, a Paris police lieutenant, about a spate of poisonings. La Reynie’s investigations had uncovered the source of the poisons, the witch Madame La Voisin, who had friends in court. It was revealed that de Montespan was a frequent visitor to her home. Court gossips whispered that de Montespan had poisoned her most recent rival, Mademoiselle de Fontanges, and was secretly poisoning the king himself.

Upon interrogation, La Voisin’s daughter accused de Montespan of making a pact with Satan and holding black masses to regain Louis. The renegade priest who allegedly performed the rituals testified that a chalice with a mixture of blood from a bat and a newborn child was offered on an altar over de Montespan’s nude body. The shocked king ordered La Reynie to keep his findings secret.

Though it was true that de Montespan was part of La Voisin’s circle, there is no real evidence to support the accusations of satanism. She cannot be linked to the poisoning of de Fontanges and certainly had no motive to murder Louis. The suspects must have seen her only as a convenient scapegoat. The king himself seemed not to have taken seriously his mistress’s role in this “Affair of the Poisons.” He didn’t allow de Montespan to be interrogated and let her remain in court for several more years. In the end, the affair saw 36 people condemned to death, including La Voisin, who was burned at the stake in 1680.

1 The Secret Wife

Françoise d’Aubigné’s improbable life is a classic rags‑to‑riches story. The daughter of a career criminal, Françoise’s early years were stormy. After a brief sojourn in Martinique, she lived for a while with an abusive distant relative. Then she endured convent schools in Niort and Paris. Returning to her penniless mother, the 14‑year‑old Françoise was forced to beg for food.

In 1652, Françoise married the sickly and paralyzed satirist Paul Scarron. She was introduced to her husband’s acquaintances in Parisian literary and philosophical circles. Among these valuable contacts was Athenais de Montespan. After Scarron’s death, Françoise managed to survive through the financial support of her friends. In 1669, she was invited to become governess of the illegitimate children of de Montespan and the king.

Françoise’s teaching skills so impressed the king that he gave her the fief of Maintenon. When Louis and de Montespan broke up, Françoise played a vital role in reconciling Louis with Queen Marie‑Therese. Devoted to Françoise, the queen died in Françoise’s arms a year later.

The bereaved king drew closer to Françoise and decided to marry her in 1683. But her lowly social origins necessitated that the marriage be kept secret. It was never announced publicly, and Françoise never assumed the title of queen. To keep the fact hidden, de Montespan was allowed to stay on at the court for another decade. The morganatic union (which is a marriage recognized by the church but not by the state) meant that none of Françoise’s relatives could inherit the throne.

In Versailles, however, Françoise had the duties, if not the title, of queen. Her passion for teaching led her to found Saint‑Cyr, a school for girls from poor families. She advised Louis especially on religious issues, such as the appointment of bishops and abbots. Historians even credit her as being a guiding force behind the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the resumption of persecution of the Huguenots, but such claims are exaggerated. Françoise was herself a former Protestant and was therefore predisposed to tolerance.

From a childhood of poverty to uncrowned Queen of France, Françoise could look back and truthfully say, “My life … has been a miracle.”

Larry is a freelance writer whose main interest is history.

When we talk about the ten punishments royal sailors faced in the Age of Sail, we’re diving into a world where a captain could enforce his will with an iron fist and the crew lived under a strict regime that would shock modern sensibilities. Back in the days of old—before such trivial matters as health and safety regulations, child welfare, or human rights became things to worry about—a captain of one of His Majesty’s finest ships in the British Royal Navy could rule the poop deck (or any part of the ship) with an iron fist.

Why 10 Punishments Royal Matter

Understanding these ten punishments royal helps us grasp how discipline, fear, and spectacle kept a wooden vessel moving across oceans. Below we break down each penalty, from the everyday “starting” to the terrifying keelhauling, preserving the vivid details that made them unforgettable.

10 Starting

Many punishments were formal, as in ordered by the captain with a record kept in the ship’s log. The discipline delivered by the boatswain or bosun’s mate (a foreman of sorts) was an on‑the‑spot thing with no need of a written account. Thus, it could happen for any reason at any time.

The bosun’s mate always carried a small weapon to beat the unfortunate offender. This weapon was usually a knotted rope, small whip, or cane called a “rattan.” Sometimes, three canes were tied together and called the “three sisters.”

These beatings were known as “starting,” as in starting to beat. A bosun’s mate could be ordered to start a man until told to stop. If his arm became tired, another mate would be called to continue the abuse. These bashings were an everyday occurrence aboard a ship.

At any time, a mate could hit an unruly sailor. Unchecked, a sadistic bosun’s mate could and did cause serious harm on many occasions. Ultimately, this led to the beginning of their suppression in 1811.

9 Gagging

This punishment was used when a sailor became a little too lippy or committed other minor offenses. To teach him a lesson, his hands and legs were bound. An iron bolt would be put in his mouth, tied in place from behind his head, and left for whatever time the officer felt fit the crime. If you’ve ever seen the film Pulp Fiction, think of the pool‑balls‑in‑the‑mouth scene (shown above).

This was another punitive action not recorded in the logs because it could have dire repercussions. As it was frowned upon by the Admiralty, gagging was never an official punishment. Nevertheless, it was used on numerous occasions.

In 1867, George Addison, a crew member of the HMS Favorite, was gagged for drunkenness and violence. He died from asphyxiation within two hours.

8 Flogging

Although we have all heard of flogging, you may not be aware of just how brutal it could be. This was one of the most common punishments in the Royal Navy. Almost any crime could end with this torture.

The condemned would be whipped with a cat‑o‑nine‑tails, a whip with nine (sometimes) waxed knotted tails. When a sailor was to be flogged, he would be kept in leg irons on the upper deck for a day. This was to give him time to make the cat.

Yup, that’s right. The poor guy would have to make his own instrument of pain. If he chose not to make it or it wasn’t finished in time, the punishment could be increased. Twenty‑four hours later, the fun began.

The whole crew would assemble on deck to witness the punishment. Whichever rule the offender had broken would be read aloud from the Articles of War (a list of rules for a ship to follow). The sailor would then be asked if he had anything to say against his sentence.

His shirt would be removed, and he was tied standing to a part of the ship, usually the rigging or the opening of the gangway. The bosun’s mate had the pleasure of inflicting the punishment. He would stand at an arm’s length and lash the man with the strength of a full swing.

By 1750, floggings were restricted to 12 lashes. According to a ship’s doctor, this still left a man’s back “swollen like a pillow, looking black‑and‑blue.” Sometimes, a captain could get round the 12‑lash rule by charging a man with multiple offenses, incurring 12 lashes each. Before this, a sentence could have been issued with hundreds of strikes.

Once a dozen lashes had been carried out, a fresh mate could be called so that the hits wouldn’t lighten up. As the cat began to tear into the skin with each strike, a man’s back could end up looking like a slab of meat from a butcher’s table.

After each lash, the bosun’s mate would run his fingers through the tails to wipe off the blood. Sometimes, when changing to a fresh mate, the next one would be left‑handed so as to cross the cuts on the back and tear it up even more.

The pain didn’t end there. Afterward, the man was taken to the ship’s doctor to have his back covered in vinegar‑soaked paper or to have salt rubbed into his wounds. This treatment was to stop infection, but it could cause more pain than the actual flogging.

7 Flogging Around The Fleet

This was much the same as a normal flogging with the cat‑o‑nine‑tails, but it was more of a show for others to witness—usually when there was a collection of ships nearby in a harbor. The crew member would be tied to a small boat’s mast and lashed by the bosun’s mate.

The boat was then taken to the next ship where that vessel’s mate took his turn lashing the prisoner. This continued through all the ships, hence the term “flogging around the fleet.” For added effect, the boat was sometimes tailed by another small vessel containing a drummer boy to make the whole thing feel even more somber than it already was.

Flogging continued in the Royal Navy until 1881.

6 Cobbed And Firked

You might think that the job of a cook aboard a ship would enable a man to escape punishment for his small mistakes. Not quite. He had his own special medicine to take.

While not as serious as some of the other punishments, a cook could expect to be “cobbed and firked” for misplacing food or allowing it to spoil. This was an unofficial type of flogging done by beating the cook with sand‑filled stockings or bung staves of a cask (the wooden panels that make up a barrel).

This was not so much of a pain type of punishment as a humiliation. The culinary criminal was more likely to be stuck “as a boy”—hit on the buttocks instead of anywhere else. No one wanted to hurt the cook so much that it stopped their grub from being served up on time.

5 Child Punishment

Speaking of “as a boy,” a ship’s crew did not consist only of adult men. Young boys were often employed, usually beginning at the ages of 11 or 12. Unfortunately for them, age was no barrier to corporal punishment. We can see from surviving ships’ logs that roughly one‑third of all floggings were perpetrated against children.

At any point in time, all boys under age 19 could receive a caning for minor offenses. Much the same as for the adults, these minor punishments for children went unrecorded. This could lead to daily bullying. In one recorded instance, a captain was noted as having his boys caned every morning. When one boy had the audacity to whimper, “Please, sir,” his punishment was increased.

If the offense required a more serious punishment, a boy would be made to “kiss the gunner’s daughter.” He would be bent over a cannon in front of the rest of the crew, have his trousers dropped, and be struck on the bare behind. Other than it being a more childlike punishment, one reason for this is that the boys usually worked the rigging. Whipping their hands would impair them in this job.

By the mid‑19th century, this was done with a “cane or birch.” But before then, a reduced cat (aka “the boys’ pussy”) would be used. This was like a cat‑o‑nine‑tails but with five whip ends.

On the rare occasions when a boy was sentenced through a court‑martial, an adult cat could be used. This happened to poor Valentine Woods in 1813. The 17‑year‑old lad was sentenced to 60 lashes on his bare posterior for stabbing a crewmate. Come to think of it, maybe Valentine did deserve that one.

4 Running The Gauntlet

One of the worst things you could do in the navy was steal from your shipmates. The punishment shows that it was a hated crime by almost all. To run the gauntlet, an offender would be stripped to the waist and flogged as usual with the “thieves’ cat.” This was a cat‑o‑nine‑tails with extra knots for bonus hit points.

The offender would then be forced at sword point to walk between two rows of men who all had lengths of knotted rope. Each man had to bash the criminal as hard as possible while he slowly walked past. To stop him from walking too fast, there was also an officer in front of him with a cutlass at his chest. After that, the criminal was flogged some more for good measure.

Although mainly used for thieves, this form of punishment was also used for other crimes such as fraud and sodomy. This resulted in many casualties. After a few noted deaths, running the gauntlet was banned by 1806.

3 Falling Asleep On Watch

This was an extremely serious offense as being on watch was to guard all the lives aboard a ship. However, life at sea was boring, so falling asleep did happen a lot. If a grave punishment was meted out for the first offense, a ship would have no crew left. As a result, the consequences would escalate for sleepy sailors.

As listed in the Black Book of the Admiralty, the punishments for falling asleep were as follows. For a first offense, something as simple as a bucket of cold seawater would be poured over the offender while others laughed. Not so bad.

The next time, his hands would be tied up and cold water tipped into his shirt. Still nothing to cry about so far.

For taking a third nap on duty, a sailor would be tied to a ship’s mast and be made to hold up heavy objects with his arms stretched out wide. Most often, these objects were cannon chambers. This became quite painful after a while. In addition, the officer in charge was allowed to inflict whatever extra pain he wished.

The fourth punishment put an end to Mr. Sleepybones’s slumbering adventures—mainly because he was dead when it was over. He was put in a basket which was hung from the bowsprit (the pointy mast that sticks out at the front of a ship). He was guarded by an armed sentry who was instructed to kill the offender if he tried to escape. Then he was left to starve to death.

However, the prisoner did have a couple of options. He would be allowed a knife, so there was always the choice to cut his own wrists. Alternatively, he could slice the basket’s rope and drown in the open sea.

2 Hanging From The Yardarm

The hanging basket method was not the only means of execution. In the 18th century, such grievous crimes as striking an officer, desertion, or being guilty of “indecent practices” could result in an execution.

By the 1800s, this was more for serious things like mutiny or murder. Whatever the crime, a court‑martial could end with the order of a hanging from the yardarm. Unlike the more modern usage of drop hanging in which a prisoner will die instantaneously, a yardarm death was slow and painful.

The condemned man would have his hands and feet tied, and a noose was placed around his neck. The crew stood on deck to watch. A gunshot was the signal for a group of men holding the rope to begin pulling. The prisoner would be “run up the yardarm” and left there to die from strangulation. After an hour, his body was taken down.

This type of execution was last carried out in 1860 after Royal Marine John Dalliger murdered a lieutenant and the commanding officer of the HMS Leven. He had been caught stealing brandy.

1 Keelhauling

This was possibly the worst punishment during the Age of Sail. Never officially sanctioned by the Royal Navy due to its barbaric cruelty to the condemned, keelhauling was still carried out on numerous occasions before being banned around the year 1720.

The victim would be stripped naked on the deck of a ship in full sight of the rest of the crew. He would have two ropes tied to him. One of them ran underneath the bottom of the ship (the “keel”).

The man would then be hung over the side of the ship, pulled underwater, and hauled along the keel by the second rope until he emerged on the other side. This could be carried out as slowly as the officers in charge wanted or repeated as many times as ordered.

A weight was tied to the man’s legs to make sure that his body was properly in line with the hull. This resulted in many drownings. But if that didn’t kill him, the man had other things to deal with.

Underwater, a ship’s hull (especially a wooden ship) was covered in barnacles. As any child who has slipped on a barnacle‑covered rock at the seaside will tell you, they are sharp. Very sharp. Like being dragged along a giant, razor‑sharp, cheese grater, the barnacles tore the flesh of the man. If he managed to survive this awful event, he would certainly be scarred for life.

Being part of the British royal family isn’t a walk in the park – every slip, every whisper can become headline news in seconds. The institution’s unwritten rulebook says you must stay out of politics, avoid controversy, and never show emotion. Yet, behind the polished veneer lie ten ruthless moves that have kept the crown on its throne. Below we count down these bold, sometimes brutal, actions that illustrate just how the royals protect their power.

10 ruthless moves in action

10 Taking The Saudi Prince For A Ride

Queen Elizabeth II was not just a figurehead; she was a competent driver, a skill she honed during World War II while serving as a second sub‑altern in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, where she learned to handle heavy trucks. Although the sovereign isn’t required to hold a driver’s licence, she loved being behind the wheel.

In 1998, former Saudi ambassador Sherard Cowper‑Coles recalled a visit by Crown Prince Abdullah to Balmoral. After a leisurely lunch, the Queen suggested a tour of the estate and pointed the prince toward the royal Land Rover. The Crown Prince, seated on the passenger side, was taken aback when the Queen slipped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and sped off across the rugged Scottish terrain, chatting animatedly as the vehicle bounced over the rough tracks. The startled prince, through his interpreter, eventually begged her to slow down – a moment that coincided with the fact that, at the time, women were still forbidden to drive in Saudi Arabia.

The prince emerged unharmed from the whirlwind ride, and a decade later, in June 2018, Saudi Arabia finally lifted its ban on women drivers, a change that some observers link, at least symbolically, to that unforgettable Scottish spin.

9 The Trial Of Paul Burrell

Paul Burrell, once the personal footman to Queen Elizabeth II and later a trusted aide to Princess Diana, enjoyed a close bond with the late princess – she reportedly called him “my rock.” After Diana’s tragic death in August 1997, Burrell rose to media prominence, joining television panels and taking a high‑profile role with the charity established in her memory.

On 18 January 2001, police raided Burrell’s London home and uncovered 342 items belonging to Diana, hidden away in the attic. The cache included signed CDs, garments, private letters, and photo albums. Burrell vehemently denied any theft, yet he was formally charged and his trial commenced in October 2002.

Media frenzy swirled around the courtroom. Yet, after nine days, the case was abruptly adjourned. Judge Mrs Justice Rafferty sent the jurors home without explanation, only to repeat the instruction the following day. Meanwhile, the Queen, who had been unaware of the proceedings, saw a news report and recalled Burrell mentioning that he had safely stored Diana’s possessions. Prompted by this, the police were informed, and prosecutor William Boyce, QC, told the court there was no realistic prospect of conviction. Burrell walked free, later declaring outside the court, “The queen came through for me.” The Palace issued a statement denying any interference, and Diana’s belongings were eventually returned to her family. The royal family never publicly addressed the episode.

8 The Queen Puts Mrs. Thatcher In Her Place

When Margaret Thatcher shattered glass ceilings as the United Kingdom’s first female prime minister, she and Queen Elizabeth II became the two most powerful women in the nation. Their relationship, however, was far from harmonious. The Queen grew irritated by Thatcher’s habit of arriving early for their meetings and was rumoured to refer to her privately as “that woman.” When Thatcher suggested they coordinate their outfits for a state occasion, the Palace curtly replied, “The Queen does not notice what other people are wearing.”

The Commonwealth, a cornerstone of Elizabeth’s reign, was a point of contention. Thatcher viewed the institution as antiquated, while the Queen pushed for trade sanctions against apartheid‑era South Africa to keep the Commonwealth united. The clash peaked in the 1980s, a period marked by global unease over South Africa’s policies.

In 1986, The Sunday Times ran a headline: “Queen dismayed by ‘uncaring’ Thatcher.” The article detailed a growing rift, prompting the Palace to issue a denial and the Queen to personally telephone Thatcher – a surprising move given the source of the story, Michael Shea, the Queen’s press secretary, was thought to have spoken without royal clearance. Despite the tension, Elizabeth eventually grew to respect Thatcher, and after Thatcher’s death in 2013, the Queen made a last‑minute decision to attend the funeral, even though protocol did not obligate her to be present.

7 Royal Nanny Out In The Cold

The unwritten rule for anyone serving the royal household is simple: keep your mouth shut. In 1932, Marion Crawford, affectionately known as “Crawfie,” began her tenure as nanny to Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. When Edward VIII abdicated to marry Mrs Simpson, the family moved into Buckingham Palace, and Crawfie followed them into the royal residence.

Over the years, Crawfie earned the trust of the royal family, remaining in service until 1948, when Princess Elizabeth became engaged to Philip Mountbatten. In 1949, the American Ladies’ Home Journal approached her for a feature on royal children. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, seeing an opportunity for extra income, gave her blessing – on the strict condition that Crawfie’s identity remain anonymous.

The resulting article, filled with sweet anecdotes from the royal nursery, was a hit with American readers. However, the magazine mistakenly named Marion Crawford as the interviewee. Furious, the Queen Mother immediately blamed Crawfie, accusing her of “going off her head.” The royal family severed ties, and Crawfie retreated to Scotland, where she battled depression and attempted suicide twice. She kept the letters granting permission to speak to the magazine locked away, refusing to release them even when they could have cleared her name. Marion died in a nursing home in 1988, still hoping for a reunion. In her will, she requested that all personal letters be returned to the Palace for safekeeping, a request the royals have never publicly addressed.

6 Diana’s Rage

Following Charles’s divorce from Diana, he appointed Alexandra “Tiggy” Legge‑Bourke, a well‑connected young woman, to assist with the upbringing of his sons. Tiggy’s role was less that of a stern nanny and more of a fun older sister, quickly forging a close bond with the princes. Diana, however, was far from impressed.

As tensions rose between the two households, Diana began to suspect – erroneously – that Tiggy and Charles were involved in an affair. A false rumor circulated that Tiggy had undergone an abortion. At a staff party in December 1996, Diana confronted Tiggy, allegedly saying, “So sorry about the baby.” In response, Tiggy hired top libel lawyer Peter Carter‑Ruck to write to Diana’s solicitors demanding an apology for the remark.

Tiggy continued working for Charles until 1999, when she left to marry. She has remained close to Princes William and Harry, maintaining a lasting connection despite the earlier drama.

5 The Attempted Kidnap Of Princess Anne

Princess Anne’s reputation for resilience was put to the ultimate test on 20 March 1974 when 26‑year‑old Ian Ball attempted to snatch the queen’s only daughter. While Anne, her husband Mark Phillips, a bodyguard, and her lady‑in‑waiting traveled in a royal limousine, Ball rammed his car into theirs, leapt out, and brandished two handguns.

Anne’s bodyguard moved to intervene and was shot in the shoulder. Ball shouted, “Open or I’ll shoot!” as he tried to force his way into the vehicle. Anne and Phillips struggled to keep the doors shut. The chauffeur, attempting to protect the princess, was shot in the chest. Ball managed to seize Anne’s wrist while Phillips, a captain in the British Army, clung to her waist.

Ball demanded, “Please come out,” to which Anne famously retorted, “Not bloody likely!” The assailant then shot a police officer and a passing motorist who tried to help. A passerby finally punched Ball in the head, allowing police to intervene. As Ball fled toward a nearby park, Anne oddly told him, “Go on, now’s your chance.” He was apprehended shortly thereafter. A search of his rented car uncovered handcuffs, Valium, and a ransom note addressed to the queen demanding £2 million and threatening that Anne would be shot dead.

Ball was sentenced to life in a psychiatric unit. All those who came to Anne’s aid survived and were later recognized for their bravery. Anne later described the harrowing encounter as “a very irritating conversation.”

4 The Death Of A Princess

On 31 August 1997, Princess Diana was killed in a high‑speed car crash in Paris. The world mourned, while the royal family was on a summer holiday in Scotland. Apart from a brief statement, the monarchy remained largely silent, fueling public anger and speculation.

In London, crowds gathered outside Kensington Palace, laying flowers and grieving openly. Many focused their frustration on Buckingham Palace, where the Union Jack continued to fly at full‑mast. To many observers, this symbolised the perceived coldness of the royals toward Diana, who, despite her popularity, had lost the “HRH” style after her divorce.

In reality, the Royal Standard, which represents the continuity of the monarchy, is never lowered. When a sovereign dies, another instantly assumes the throne, so the flag never flies at half‑mast. At the time of Diana’s death, the Queen was not in residence, and the Union Jack was the flag flown, which is only lowered to half‑mast for the death of an HRH. The media seized on the discrepancy, publishing headlines such as “Where is the Queen?” The royal family stayed on holiday, and the flag remained at full‑mast.

On the eve of Diana’s funeral, the Queen delivered an unexpected televised address, paying tribute to the late princess. The following morning, without prior announcement, the Union Jack was finally lowered to half‑mast and remained so until midnight, marking a last‑minute gesture of respect.

3 Farewell, Britannia

One of Queen Elizabeth II’s cherished retreats was the royal yacht Britannia. Launched in 1953, the vessel toured the globe, hosting luminaries such as Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela. It also served as a private family holiday haven, offering the monarch a rare sense of peace.

In 1997, newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair, amid a cost‑cutting drive, blocked a £17 million refurbishment request for the yacht. The move came after public criticism of royal spending following the Windsor Castle fire. As the royals are prohibited from expressing political opinions, the decision was a blow.

In December 1997, the Queen and Princess Anne stood on the dock as Britannia was decommissioned and sent to become a tourist attraction beside a shopping centre in Edinburgh. The loss lingered for years; Prince Philip later remarked that the yacht could have sailed for another half‑century. Some observers speculate that the incident contributed to the decision to exclude Tony Blair from Prince William’s 2011 wedding guest list.

2 An Awkward Meeting

Queen Elizabeth II shared a close bond with her cousin, Lord Mountbatten, who mentored the young Prince Charles. In 1979, Mountbatten fell victim to an IRA‑planted bomb that exploded on his boat in Ireland, killing his 14‑year‑old grandson and a local 15‑year‑old boy.

Martin McGuinness, a former IRA leader who later became Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, crossed paths with the Queen in June 2012. During a visit to Belfast, she shook his hand publicly – a historic moment given their fraught histories. Their second encounter in 2016 saw McGuinness ask how she was, to which she replied, “Well, I’m still alive.”

1 Sitting Pretty

Marrying into the royal family is a delicate dance; the acceptance of a new member often puts their own family under a microscope. When Kate Middleton wed Prince William, the public saw a warm, cohesive family, a stark contrast to the more distant Prince Charles. After the birth of William’s children, Charles began to sense his own marginalisation.

The tension peaked when the couple chose to spend Christmas with Kate’s parents, sidestepping the traditional gathering at Sandringham. In response, Charles’s staff reportedly began to freeze out the Middletons, a move that irked William. The media caught wind of the rift, prompting the Queen – who reportedly held a fondness for Kate’s family – to intervene.

In September 2016, the Queen personally invited the Middletons to stay at Balmoral as her own guests. Photographs captured the royal party heading to a shooting party, with the Queen at the wheel and Kate seated beside her as the honoured guest, while the security detail was relegated to the back seats. It was a subtle yet powerful visual declaration: the queen had her own version of “game, set, match.”

When you think of history, you probably picture a tidy, finished book—pages filled with dates, names, and neat conclusions. Yet the reality is far messier: centuries of intrigue, missing bodies, and unanswered questions have left scholars scratching their heads. Thanks to modern scientific tools—DNA sequencing, forensic anthropology, and high‑resolution imaging—some of the most tantalizing royal riddles have finally been cracked. In this roundup we explore the ten most gripping royal mysteries that have been solved by science, proving that even monarchs aren’t immune to the power of the lab.

Exploring 10 Royal Mysteries

10 The Romanovs

The Romanov dynasty ruled the sprawling Russian Empire for three hundred years, embodying opulent power and absolute authority. In 1917, the tide turned dramatically: World War I defeats and a wave of popular unrest forced Tsar Nicholas II to relinquish the throne. The royal family was seized by Bolshevik forces and transported to a secure compound in Yekaterinburg, where they vanished from public view in the spring of 1918.

Initially, Soviet officials announced that Nicholas II had been executed, yet the fate of his wife and four children remained shrouded in uncertainty. Rumors swirled that some members might have escaped, prompting a flood of claimants who insisted they were surviving Romanovs. The lack of clear evidence left historians and the public alike in a state of perplexed speculation.

It wasn’t until 1991 that archaeologists uncovered a mass grave containing the remains of several family members. DNA analysis confirmed that the skeletons were related, but to prove they were indeed the Romanovs required comparative testing with living relatives. Samples taken from distant kin—most notably Prince Philip, a grand‑nephew of Empress Alexandra—provided the genetic match that authenticated most of the bodies. The only missing pieces remained the teenage heir Alexei and his sister Anastasia, whose remains have yet to be positively identified.

9 Anastasia

Among the many impostors who claimed to be a surviving Romanov, none captured the public imagination more than Anna Anderson. In 1920, a young woman leapt into a Berlin canal in a desperate suicide attempt. Rescued and taken to a hospital, she refused to reveal her identity, earning the moniker “Miss Unknown.”

A fellow patient suggested that the enigmatic woman resembled Princess Tatiana, one of the missing Russian sisters, but those who had known the family dismissed the comparison. As rumors grew, a contingent of Russians began to believe she might be the legendary Princess Anastasia, prompting her to adopt the name Anna Anderson. While some fervently defended her claim, others denounced her as a charlatan, labeling her “a hysterical adventuress” and a “frightful playactress.”

Anna Anderson pursued legal battles for a share of the Romanov inheritance for decades, yet never secured universal acceptance. The mystery finally ended after her death, when DNA testing of the recovered Romanov remains demonstrated that Anderson bore no genetic relation to the family. Instead, forensic scientists identified her as Franziska Schanzkowska, a Polish factory worker. Subsequent discoveries of two additional bodies with Romanov DNA in 2007 confirmed that all the missing royal children had, in fact, been accounted for.

8 Richard III

Richard III has long been cast as England’s most infamous villain, accused by his enemies of usurping the throne by murdering his nephews, the so‑called Princes in the Tower. The young Edward V vanished at age twelve, clearing the path for Richard’s brief reign. His downfall came swiftly at the Battle of Bosworth Field, where Henry Tudor defeated and killed him, leaving only cryptic accounts of how his corpse was treated after death.

Historians long suspected that Richard’s burial site lay somewhere in Leicester, but the sheer scale of the medieval city made a full‑scale excavation impractical. Researchers therefore opted for a targeted dig, sampling just one percent of the suspected area. To their astonishment, skeletal remains emerged on the very first day of excavation, and subsequent DNA analysis confirmed they belonged to the lost king.

Examination of the bones revealed that Richard suffered from scoliosis—a curvature of the spine—rather than the hunchback portrayed by Tudor propaganda. While the precise wound that killed him remains ambiguous, the remains showed extensive post‑mortem damage, underscoring the violent nature of his final moments.

7 Delphine Boël

Not every royal enigma hails from centuries past; some involve living individuals. In 1999, a Belgian teenager published an unauthorized biography of Queen Paola that hinted King Albert II might have fathered an illegitimate daughter decades earlier. The press quickly identified Delphine Boël as the alleged offspring, thrusting the royal family into a modern scandal.

King Albert responded with a carefully worded statement, recalling “happy times” and “crises” from over thirty years ago, while emphasizing a desire to keep private matters private. He stopped short of confirming or denying the rumors, leaving the public to speculate.

When Delphine pursued legal confirmation of her paternity, the court forced Albert II to submit a DNA sample, threatening a €5,000 daily fine for non‑compliance. The genetic test unequivocally proved that Delphine was indeed the king’s daughter, granting her the right to bear the title Princess of Belgium. Today she is formally known as Her Royal Highness Princess Delphine Michèle Anne Marie Ghislaine de Saxe‑Cobourg.

6 Albert I’s Death

Albert I of Belgium, a passionate mountaineer, met a tragic end in 1934 while scaling a solitary rock face in the Ardennes. His body was later discovered hanging from a rope, seemingly the result of a simple climbing accident. However, whispers of foul play and even suicide circulated, with some claiming the king’s corpse had been moved to stage a fall.

Complicating the investigation, crowds swarmed the site, many removing what they considered souvenirs—blood‑soaked leaves and other fragments that could have offered forensic clues. These relics, though taken by onlookers, later became crucial evidence when scientists subjected them to DNA testing.

The genetic analysis confirmed that the blood on the leaves matched Albert I, substantiating that the king indeed perished at the spot where his body was found. Despite his severe farsightedness, Albert was an experienced climber, and the prevailing conclusion is that he slipped, struck his head, and succumbed to the fatal injury.

5 Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut stands out as only the second female pharaoh to ascend Egypt’s throne. After the death of her husband in 1479 BC, she initially acted as regent for his son, but her royal lineage enabled her to claim the full powers of pharaoh, complete with the ceremonial beard and all the trappings of male rulership.

Following two decades of prosperous reign, Hatshepsut died, and her successor Thutmose III—her husband’s son—embarked on a systematic campaign to erase her legacy. Inscriptions mentioning her were chiseled away, statues toppled, and her tomb, though discovered, yielded no mummy, fueling speculation that her body had been deliberately removed.

In 1903, Howard Carter uncovered a modest burial chamber containing two female mummies. One was identified as Sitre‑In, Hatshepsut’s wet‑nurse. The other, initially anonymous, was later matched to Hatshepsut through a comparative analysis of a tooth found among her organ remnants and the jaw of the unidentified mummy. This dental comparison confirmed the identity of the long‑lost queen, though the mystery of why her body was taken from its original sarcophagus remains unsolved.

4 Philip of Macedon’s Tombs

Philip II of Macedon, a preeminent military strategist, is best remembered today as the father of Alexander the Great. In 1977, archaeologists excavated several royal tombs in ancient Macedon, one of which was suspected to hold Philip’s remains, though definitive identification proved elusive.

Each tomb housed an array of priceless artifacts, yet it remained uncertain which, if any, belonged to the king. Recent forensic examinations of the skeletal remains revealed distinctive injuries that matched historical accounts of Philip’s battlefield wounds: a lost right eye from a siege and a severely damaged right knee that had fused after a grievous injury.

The age and pathology of the bones align with Philip’s known lifespan, leading scholars to conclude that the discovered skeleton likely represents the Macedonian monarch. Meanwhile, the tomb of his famed son Alexander the Great continues to tantalize researchers, remaining one of archaeology’s most coveted yet unlocated treasures.

3 Eadgyth

Eadgyth, daughter of King Edward the Elder and granddaughter of the legendary Alfred the Great, holds the distinction of being the oldest confirmed royal remains in Britain. After marrying the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, she died in her thirties and was mourned by her husband, yet the whereabouts of her final resting place remained a mystery for centuries.

In 2008, a team of archaeologists opened a sarcophagus in Magdeburg Cathedral, uncovering partial skeletal remains and an inscription indicating the bones belonged to Eadgyth, reburied there in 1510. Direct DNA testing was impossible, prompting researchers to turn to alternative methods to verify the identity.

Analysis of the bones revealed a woman in her thirties with signs of high‑status equestrian activity, consistent with a noble lineage. Isotope testing of tooth enamel demonstrated a childhood spent in Wessex, matching Eadgyth’s known origins. Additionally, dietary reconstruction indicated a diet rich in fish and meat, a privilege of the elite. Confident in these converging lines of evidence, the team reinterred her in a titanium coffin, providing the ancient queen a dignified, lasting repose.

2 Tutankhamun’s Death

Tutankhamun, perhaps the most recognizable name among Egypt’s pharaohs, is famed not for his deeds but for the spectacular discovery of his untouched tomb in 1922. When Howard Carter opened the burial chamber, he was greeted by a dazzling array of gold artifacts, cementing the young king’s place in popular imagination.

The king’s premature death, however, sparked a series of forensic puzzles. Early X‑ray images suggested a fatal head injury, fueling theories of murder. Modern CT scans, however, have painted a different picture, focusing on a severe fracture of his leg that appears to have occurred shortly before death.

Because Tutankhamun’s body had been glued together with ancient resins, many bones were broken during the initial excavation to free the iconic gold mask. Recent imaging shows that the leg fracture was fresh, likely the result of a traumatic accident that shattered the bone and led to a fatal infection, providing a plausible natural cause for the pharaoh’s early demise.

1 Louis XVII

The French Revolution’s turmoil extended to the royal family, where the young Louis XVI’s son, Louis XVII, became a tragic symbol of the era’s brutality. After the execution of his parents, the prince was confined to a damp prison cell, where he languished for two years under deplorable conditions.

By the time a physician examined him, Louis XVII was a gaunt boy plagued by sores and a distended stomach from severe malnutrition. He eventually succumbed, and a hurried autopsy was performed before his body was hastily interred in a mass grave, leaving his final resting place uncertain.

The mystery deepened when over a hundred impostors claimed to be the surviving prince. The key to unraveling the truth lay in the heart the attending doctor had surreptitiously removed during the autopsy. This heart, preserved through the centuries, was eventually returned to the Bourbon family and placed in the royal crypt in Paris. A tiny fragment of the heart was later compared to a strand of Marie‑Antoinette’s hair, confirming its authenticity and conclusively identifying the remains of Louis XVII.

These ten royal enigmas, once shrouded in myth and speculation, have been illuminated by the meticulous work of scientists, forensic experts, and dedicated historians. Their discoveries remind us that even the most entrenched legends can yield to the relentless pursuit of truth.

Alexander the Great… Charles the Wise… Philip the Good… 

When you die, that’s how you want to be remembered, but not everyone is so lucky. We’ve all had a nickname at one point or another that we hated and we all know the feeling – it seems like they followed us around forever. 

Unfortunately, for the next ten people, that is, indeed, the case. They’ve been gone for hundreds, even thousands of years, and yet, the world still remembers them by their mortifying monikers.

10. The Slobberer

Alfonso IX was King of León and Galicia for over 40 years during the 12th and 13th centuries. In 1212, he founded the University of Salamanca, one of the oldest universities in the world still in operation. He also promoted democracy by establishing the earliest known parliamentary system in Europe – the Decreta of León. However, none of his efforts saved him from being remembered as Alfonso Baboso, aka Alfonso the Slobberer.

Apparently, the king was prone to fits of rage where he would foam at the mouth, hence the nickname. However, it should be noted that this particular trait of his was mainly pointed out by Muslim historians after his death. During his reign, King Alfonso took part in the Reconquista, the conflict between Christian kingdoms and Muslim caliphates intended to drive the latter away from the Iberian Peninsula. So maybe this was a way for the Muslim world to get the last laugh on the Slobberer.

9. The Do-Nothing

History is full of lazy, self-entitled royals who ignored their duties and used their positions mainly to lounge about in luxury. This means that you have to work extra hard at doing nothing if you are going to be immortalized for your indolence. Introducing Louis V of France which, technically, was still West Francia during his time in the 10th century. In France, the king is remembered as Louis le Fainéant, meaning Louis the Lazy or Louis the Loafer. In English, he became known as Louis the Do-Nothing.

Louis was named co-ruler as a teenager, while his father Lothair was still king. Then, when Lothair died in 986, the 20-year-old Louis became undisputed King of the Franks. His solo reign lasted a whopping one year before dying in a hunting accident. Because he had spent his time “indulging in all sorts of frivolities” instead of siring an heir, Louis died childless and ended his dynasty, thus triggering the start of France’s lost-lasting Capetian Dynasty.

8. Sea Onion-Head

Not even great rulers are immune to hurtful nicknames. Pericles was one of the most prominent and influential rulers of Ancient Greece. His actions earned him the auspicious moniker of “first citizen of Athens.” However, political enemies and ribald Athenian poets also had a less-flattering designation for him: Schinocephalos, translated as “sea onion-head” or “squill-head.”

This was due to the shape of Pericles’s head, which was said to resemble the bulb of the sea onion. But we will let Plutarch explain it:

“His physical features were almost perfect, the only exception being his head, which was rather long and out of proportion. For this reason almost all his portraits show him wearing a helmet, since the artists apparently did not wish to taunt him with this deformity.”

7. The Fratricide

If you think royal names can get a little confusing, wait ‘till you hear about the Berenguers from the House of Barcelona. During the early 11th century, Berenguer Ramon I was the Count of Barcelona. He had a son whom he named Ramon Berenguer I who, in turn, had twin boys in 1053, and he decided to name them Berenguer Ramon II and Ramon Berenguer II.

To make it easier, we could try to refer to them by their nicknames. Ramon Berenguer II was known as “Cap d’Estopes” or “the Towhead” due to his thick, light blond hair. Meanwhile, his brother had the more unpleasant moniker of “el Fratricida” – the Fratricide.

“Fratricide” refers to a person who murders their own brother or sister, so you might guess how Berenguer Ramon II gained his appellation. In 1075, the brothers succeeded their father as the new rulers of Catalonia, but neither one was the sharing kind. In 1082, Ramon Berenguer the Towhead was killed in the Spanish forests, on his way to Girona. His brother became sole ruler and, although his involvement in his sibling’s death was never proven, everyone thought he did it, so his new sobriquet of Berenguer Ramon the Fratricide followed him around for the rest of his life.

6. The Poorest Man in France

John II, Duke of Alençon, was a 15th-century French nobleman and one of the strongest supporters of Joan of Arc, fighting side by side with her against the English in the Loire Valley. For this, she bestowed upon him the praiseful moniker of “le Beau Duc” – the “Fair Duke.” 

That sounds pretty good as far as nicknames go, but things weren’t always so rosy for the nobleman. His first military engagement proved disastrous for him. When he was only 15 years old, John fought at the Battle of Verneuil as part of the Hundred Years’ War. The conflict was a triumphant victory for the English, who took many French noblemen as captives, with John II among them.

The young duke was held prisoner for five years, until he was finally able to gather the exorbitant ransom that the English wanted for his release. But in order to scrape the money together, John had to sell pretty much everything he owned so, although he was now a free man, he was also a penniless man. And just to kick him while he was down, he then became mockingly known as “the poorest man in France.”

5. The Slit-Nosed

How would you feel if everyone called you by a nickname that reminded you of the most painful and most humiliating thing that ever happened to you? Well, that was the fate of Justinian II, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire during the late 7th century. In 695, after a 10-year reign, Emperor Justinian was deposed by one of his generals named Leontios. 

Strangely enough, Leontios decided not to assassinate his former master. Instead, Justinian was exiled and, as a reminder of his ordeal, he had his nose cut off. Before you start feeling any sympathy for him, know that Justinian II was a cruel tyrant hated by the public, so as he was paraded through the streets, the people started jeering him with cries of “Cut-Nose! Cut-Nose!” 

And thus, he became known as Justinian Rhinotmetus, or Justinian the Slit-Nosed. He had the last laugh, though. While in exile, Justinian had a golden nose fitted to hide his disfigurement. He then raised an army and, ten years after losing the throne, he retook Constantinople and had those who plotted against him beheaded in public.

4. Ship-Breast

The Vikings were not only imaginative but also direct when it came to nicknames. Most of them had something to do with a physical attribute of the person being named. Erik Thorvaldsson, for example, one of the most prominent Norse explorers in history, had a red beard and red hair, so he was known as Erik the Red. Ok, maybe not the most creative appellation in the world, but we’re not here to talk about Erik the Red, we’re here to talk about his mother-in-law.

Her name was Thorbjörg Gilsdóttir. She was married to Jorund Atlason and had a daughter together named Thjodhild, who went on to marry Erik the Red. Thorbjörg was also known as “knarrarbringa,” which literally means Ship-Breast. Unfortunately, she appears sparsely in the Old Norse sagas, mainly in passing relation to Erik the Red, so we can only speculate as to how she earned this malapert moniker.

3. The Impotent

Nobody in history wants to be remembered as “the Impotent,” do they? But that was the unfortunate fate of Henry IV, King of Castile. 

Back then, royal marriages were almost always political, and consummation was a key part of the arrangement since offspring served as tools to unite different royal families. Therefore, not being able to “rise to the occasion” could lead to serious consequences, even war. It certainly constituted grounds for annulling a marriage.

Henry’s first marriage was to Blanche of Navarre in 1440. The two were together for 13 years, but during all that time, they were incapable of producing an heir. Eventually, the marriage was annulled on grounds of impotence. Allegedly, the king tried to blame the whole thing on a spell, and even brought prostitutes to testify that his “downstairs plumbing” was in order, but the annulment still went through.

Even so, Henry married a second time to Joan of Portugal, and she gave birth to a daughter named Joanna in 1462. You would think this would put an end to the rude moniker, but it only made things worse. Rumors spread that Henry had his wife impregnated by one of his court favorites, Beltrán de la Cueva. Joanna received her own ignominious moniker, “la Beltraneja,” mocking her supposed illegitimacy, while her father was immortalized in history as Henry the Impotent.

2. The Unready

Now we know what you’re thinking. Compared to some of the other nicknames in this list, being called “the Unready” doesn’t sound so bad. However, this one earns extra points for infamy. While most of the other rulers mentioned here were simply historical footnotes, the king known as Ethelred the Unready played a pivotal role in English history. 

He ruled as King of the English for 37 years, despite being remembered as an ineffectual ruler who proved unable to prevent the invading Danes from taking over the kingdom. His nickname wasn’t intended to mean “unready” in the modern sense. It was actually a pun on his name, Ethelred, which meant “noble counsel,” since “unræd” meant “no counsel” or “bad counsel.” So it was kinda like calling him “Brainy the brainless.”

Ethelred showed his lack of a “noble counsel” on two particular occasions. First, in 991, when he began paying a large tribute known as Danegeld in order to get the Scandinavian forces to leave his kingdom alone. Then, in 1002, when he enacted the St. Brice’s Day Massacre and ordered the mass killing of all Danes in his kingdom. 

Although there wasn’t an immediate effect, ultimately, this resulted in the fall of Ethelred’s royal line, the House of Wessex, which was then followed by the end of Anglo-Saxon rule in England altogether once the Normans invaded a few decades later.

1. The Dung-Named

It is often said that “history is written by the victors” but, sometimes, it is simply written by those who live longer.

Constantine V was Emperor of the Byzantine Empire during the mid-8th century. Like his father, Leo III, he was a fanatical iconoclast, meaning that he opposed the veneration of religious images, as he considered them heretical. But to simply say that he “opposed” them would be a generous understatement. Throughout his reign, Constantine enacted raids on monasteries to have all their crosses, icons, and other religious knick-knacks destroyed. Those who were caught trying to hide or worship such images were tortured, mutilated, and even executed.

Unsurprisingly, Constantine didn’t have too many fans in the Orthodox Church. So they got back at him after his death by starting a rumor that, when he was a baby, during his baptism, Constantine had defecated in the baptismal font. As word spread, Constantine V became known as Kopronymos – the “dung-named.”

Death is rarely the sort of thing that inspires wonder or delight. Typically, it’s an event that brings about sorrow and introspection. But every so often, a death occurs that’s just perplexing and weird. And when it comes to royalty, they seem to be subject to these unusual and inauspicious deaths more than the general population. 

10. Charles VIII Hit His Head on the Door Frame

If ever there was proof that royals are just like us, it’s in the tale of King Charles VIII and his most unfortunate demise. Charles VIII was the king of France in the late 1400s. At 28 years of age, he was still young and powerful and seemed likely to reign for years to come. 

On April 7, 1498, Charles and his wife were on their way to watch a tennis match. On the way through the chateau at which they were staying, Charles stumbled on a rotten floorboard. According to the court chronicler, they were rushing through what was described as a “nasty” corner of the house where everyone apparently peed on the floor, which is what caused the wood to rot. The king tripped and hit his head on the lintel over the door.

The King was fine for a time and even watched his tennis match, but then collapsed later on and died about nine hours after the initial injury.

9. King Alexander of Greece Was Bit by a Monkey

By now, everyone should know that having a pet monkey is a one way ticket to pain. They’re just not meant to be pets. But back in 1920, no one was around to tell that to King Alexander of Greece. He had to find out the hard way. 

Alexander had been king of Greece for three years. The First World War had only recently ended and there was some serious turmoil in the world at large, so it’s no surprise that the King liked to go for walks with his dogs sometimes.  That’s what he did on October 2.

Someone on the royal staff had a pet monkey, specifically a Barbary macaque. They’re known to be aggressive sometimes, especially if they’ve grown accustomed to humans feeding them. The monkey attacked the King’s dog, so the King did what any dog owner would do when their dog was in danger. He tried to save it. 

A second monkey attacked when the King got involved, biting the man several times. Two of the bites became severely infected. Doctors even considered amputating his leg, but word is the doctors were afraid to do anything that would make it worse. So they effectively did nothing. Twenty-three days after the attack, the King died from the massive infection that had spread through his body.

8. King Henry Ate Too Many Eels

Outside of Japan, eel has never really caught on as a popular food item. Not that no one eats it, it’s just nowhere near as popular as salmon, for instance. That said, it has enjoyed a long culinary history that dates back hundreds of years. For instance, King Henry I of England was a huge fan of eels. So much so that he was warned by doctors he needed to scale back his love of them. 

For whatever reason, Henry’s love of eels was more of a love hate thing. He loved them, but they made him sick. Still, he kept eating. It was said that eating the eels, lamprey to be specific, produced a “deadly chill” in his body and a “sudden and extreme convulsion.”

The final time the sickness overtook him, he suffered a fever and soon passed away. To this day, lamprey, which don’t have bones and apparently are a bit like beef when cooked, can be deadly. They have a bad habit of absorbing mercury in their bodies. 

7. King Bela of Hungary’s Throne Collapsed

In modern parlance, if someone were to say a certain monarch’s throne fell or collapsed, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a metaphor. It sounds like what someone might say when a monarchy fails. But as Freud once said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes a fallen throne is really a fallen throne. 

King Bela I of Hungary ruled the nation from 1060 until 1063. The man’s reign had been tumultuous, and he’d even fought a victorious war against the Holy Roman Emperor. He was in the midst of preparing for a new war against those who were supporting another’s claim to the throne when the completely inexplicable occurred. 

Bela had been seated on his throne, as in the literal chair which was made of wood, when it collapsed. He was injured so badly when the chair crumbled around him; he died as a result.

6. Prince Sado Was Locked in a Box for 8 Days

Prince Sado of Korea was born in 1735. He was heir to the throne of King Yeongjo, but the King was a violent and angry man. The Prince’s upbringing was one of fear and intimidation and also sickness. He suffered some unnamed maladies during childhood, and as he grew older, his behavior became unusual. After a bout with the measles in his teens, it’s said that he began to suffer hallucinations.

Sado became obsessed with the weather and even believed his clothing affected it. His father became more and more enraged by him and his behavior.  He, in turn, would vent his frustrations on the servants by beating or killing them. There were multiple bodies being removed from the palace every day.When he turned on his younger sister, the king had had enough.

Sado was forced into a rice box, a heavy wooden chest. It was early July, and he was left in the box for eight days, where he died. Some have speculated the prince had syphilis, which led to dementia, but we’ll likely never know for sure. 

5. Duke Jing of Jin Drowned in the Toilet

John Donne once wrote “death, be not proud” and he was referring to the promise of something beyond death. The poem contends that death should not be proud of its accomplishments because, when we wake eternally, death itself will die. That’s a lovely sentiment, of course, but if you believe death capable of taking pride in its work, then you have to believe it got some pride out of the inglorious death of Duke Jing of Jin. The man drowned in a toilet by accident. 

The Duke, sometimes referred to as a Marquis, is said to have had a terrible dream one day. He called for a witch to interpret the dream and she said that he would die before tasting the wheat of the new year. 

When the new wheat came, the duke summoned the witch and had her killed for being wrong. So the story goes, he was about to eat it when his stomach started giving him troubles, so he headed out to what was essentially an outhouse privy. His servants waited a long time for him to come back, but he did not. When they finally went to find him, they found that he had fallen into the cesspool and died. 

4. King John of Bohemia Inexplicably Died in Battle

If a king dies on the field of battle, does that qualify as unusual? In almost every single circumstance, you’d likely have to say no. Leading soldiers to battle seems like a very kingly thing to do. And it was the sort of thing that King John of Bohemia wanted to do as well. 

Crowned king in 1311, he fought in many wars over the years. This included battles against Russian, Italy, Hungary, Lithuania and Austria. He also fought with the French against England. It was at the Battle of Crécy when King John died, felled by a volley of English arrows. A fitting end for a king in most stories, but there was one detail which sets King John’s fate apart.

The Battle of Crécy took place in 1346. King John lost his sight in 1336. The king was blind when he went to battle. His horse had to be tied to two other horses because the man had no idea where he was going. He and the two knights leading him were all killed charging the English.

3. The Prince of Wu Was Killed by a Chess Board

Gaming is serious business for a lot of people. This shouldn’t come as a surprise since it’s been this way for thousands of years. In fact, sometime around 175 BC, a game of chess became life and death for a Chinese crown prince and a future emperor. 

The son of the King of Wu and the son of Emperor Wen were spending some time together in the Han capital. They were both young men and, word has it, drinking was one of the past times in which they engaged when they were together. 

As drinking buddies, the two young men were known to have fun together, playing a variety of games. The two men took up a game of chess, though some sources dispute the exact nature of the game. Regardless of what it was, the men didn’t agree on the rules and got into an argument. The argument got heated and the future emperor took things too far. He grabbed the game board and bashed the crown prince over the head. 

The heavy wooden board must have been formidable as the assault crushed the crown prince’s skull with enough force to end his life. 

2. The Earl of Orkney Was Killed By a Tooth 

Ironic deaths are hard to come by sometimes, but few have achieved the level of dramatic irony that befell Sigurd Eysteinsson, known as Sigurd the Mighty, the first Earl of Orkney. As part of his reign, Sigurd had been conquering various parts of Scotland when he ran into trouble in Moray sometime around the year 1200. 

A man known as Maelbrigte Tusk, on account of his unusually large teeth, was proving to be trouble for Sigurd. In order to settle their differences, the men agreed to hash it out with violence. Each man would bring 40 men and whoever lived was the winner. Sigurd showed up with 80 men.

As expected, Sigurd won. He took Maelbrigte’s head as a prize and rode off with it. Some time during the journey, the gnarly tooth of Maelbrigte pierced Sigurd’s flesh. The resulting infection ended up costing him his life. 

1. King Charles of Navarre Died a Brandy-Soaked Fiery Death

Most people seem to want to die at home in bed if they were to have a choice. Not that most of us do. But the idea makes sense. If given the option, few people would ever choose a painful death. And it’s likely no one would ever choose what happened to King Charles of Navarre.

During his reign in the mid-1300s, Charles was a treacherous and cruel king. He was known to make duplicitous deals and doublecross allies when it suited him. He also was not above slaughtering peasants to quell uprisings and maintain his control. 

In 1387, Charles fell ill with a mystery ailment. Medicine being what it was at the time, doctors didn’t have a very practical solution to his problems. So they prescribed that he be wrapped in brandy-soaked sheets from head to toe. Moreover, he was sewn into the cloth so that he could absorb all the curative properties of the brandy. 

After he was all sewn up, there was a length of excess thread hanging off the fabric. The maid who sewed him in couldn’t find any scissors so she decided to use a candle to burn the thread off. It set the alcohol-soaked sheets ablaze, torching the king trapped within. 

Some say it was an errant coal from the fire that sparked the sheet and not the maid. A Bishop who attended the King even said his death was just a peaceful one. But the burning story has been the one that stuck throughout history.