Although women are often marginalized in history, they have played pivotal roles in a number of societies. Competing in a man’s world, some of these female rulers were fiercely protective of their power, even using murder to achieve their goals. Others were thoughtful rulers who built lasting legacies of cultural achievement.

10 Amina

Most likely born in the 16th century, Amina was a fierce warrior, military leader, and quite possibly the ruler of Zazzau, now called Zaria, a Hausa kingdom which was located in modern-day Nigeria. The eldest daughter of an ancient king named Bakwa Turunku, Amina ascended to the throne and embarked on a number of military campaigns to expand her country’s territory.

Supposedly to keep her grasp on power, Amina never took a husband, opting to have temporary husbands for one night each. They usually came from her personal bodyguards and were killed the following morning to keep details of their sexual rendezvous a secret.

One night, obviously aware of the fate that awaited him, one of her lovers escaped. Amina chased him, drowning in a river as he got away.

9 Zoe Porphyrogenita

Four Byzantine emperors owed their coronations to Zoe Porphyrogenita (“born in the purple”), the second daughter of Constantine VIII. When Constantine died, Zoe was crowned empress along with her husband, Romanos III Argyros.

One day, Romanos drowned in a bathtub, a death in which Zoe and her lover, Michael IV, were rumored to be involved. Later that day, Zoe married Michael IV, a violation of the tradition of widows waiting a year to remarry. When Michael IV died, their adopted son, Michael V, assumed the throne. He took sole control of the empire by banishing Zoe.

A revolt followed because Zoe was extremely popular. She and her sister, Theodora, soon ruled together quite contentiously. For his actions, Michael V was later blinded and castrated.

Eventually growing tired of political life and her sister’s ambitions, Zoe took another husband, Constantine IX, whom she allowed to rule until her death in 1050.

8 Brunhilda Of Austrasia

Born to the Visigoth king Athanagild, Brunhilda was married off to Sigebert I, the ruler of the Frankish kingdom of Austrasia. Her sister married Sigebert’s half brother, but she was soon murdered at the prompting of her husband’s mistress. Brunhilda made it her life’s work to avenge her sister.

Less than a decade later, war broke out between the two half brothers. However, Sigebert quickly met his end at the hands of an assassin and Brunhilda was imprisoned.

Eventually, she returned to power, seizing the regency in her son’s name. When he died relatively young, Brunhilda tried in vain to rule through her grandsons, who went to war when the elder grandson exiled her from his court.

Finally, she ruled for a short time through her great-grandson Sigebert II before being betrayed and killed by Chlothar II of Neustria. Chlothar had Brunhilda dragged to death by a horse.

7 Jadwiga Of Poland

The first female monarch of Poland, Jadwiga (aka Hedwig) was the youngest daughter of Louis the Great, king of Hungary and Poland. After his death, her older sister, Maria, was named Louis’s successor to the Hungarian throne.

But Polish nobility was wary of Maria’s husband and his ties to the Holy Roman Empire. So they persuaded Jadwiga’s mother to choose Jadwiga to rule Poland even though she was only 10 at the time.

In 1384, Jadwiga traveled to Krakow, where she was crowned “king.” Though she was already betrothed to William of Habsburg, Polish nobility “encouraged” her to marry a man named Jogaila, who was the Grand Duke of Lithuania and a more politically expedient match.

Jadwiga continued to reign as coruler with her new husband, building a legacy as one of Poland’s greatest monarchs. She died at age 25 during childbirth.

6 Queen Seondeok Of Silla

Queen Seondeok was the 27th ruler of Silla, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, as well as its first female monarch. Appointed to the throne because her father had no male heirs, Queen Seondeok quickly established herself as a thoughtful, intelligent, and just ruler.

Her prolonged desire for cultural advancement helped create a road map for the eventual unification of the Three Kingdoms. Queen Seondeok was also responsible for the construction of what is now the oldest surviving observatory in the world: Cheomseongdae.

One of the best-known stories of Queen Seondeok takes place when she was a child. Her father received a gift of peony seeds with a painting of peony blossoms. Queen Seondeok correctly deduced that the blossoms didn’t have a scent because no butterflies were flying around them in the picture.

She was also said to have predicted the exact date of her death.

5 Queen Ana Nzinga

Ruling as regent for her nephew over what is now Angola, Queen Ana Nzinga waded through the difficult waters of the African slave trade era with the aplomb that has made her legacy endure to this day. Sandwiched between hostile neighbors, she formed an alliance with Portugal.

But Portugal soon betrayed her. Forced to flee with her people, Queen Ana Nzinga offered refuge for runaway slaves and trained militias in an effort to retake her land from the Portuguese.

After a lengthy war with the Portuguese, she eventually gave up on her hope of defeating them. Instead, she focused on raising the status of her new kingdom, Matamba.

When she finally died, Matamba was doing quite well commercially, enabling them to deal with Portugal on more equal footing. Perhaps her greatest legacy is that she may have been the first “slave” abolitionist.

4 Rani Lakshmi Bai

In her youth, Lakshmi Bai learned to fight, becoming proficient in a number of disciplines like martial arts and sword fighting. These traits served her well later in life when she ascended to the throne of Jhansi, a state in northern India.

She assumed the throne after her husband died, becoming the regent for their adopted son. However, the East India Company refused to recognize her son’s right to rule because he was adopted. So they annexed the state.

Refusing to cede her kingdom to the British, Lakshmi Bai assembled an army to revolt against the occupying forces. As the Indian Mutiny began, the 22-year-old queen personally led her soldiers, bravely fighting even as her forces were overwhelmed by the East India Company.

Eventually, after a number of defeats, Lakshmi Bai dressed up as a man and met her death during battle.

3 Toregene Khatun

Wife of one Mongol ruler, Ogedei Khan, and mother of another ruler, Guyuk Khan, Toregene Khatun was also the ruler, the Great Khan, for a period of time herself. When her husband died, Toregene grabbed for power, using her political guile to build a consensus that she should rule to maintain stability until a new Great Khan could be chosen.

Though her reign was relatively peaceful, especially for a Mongol, Toregene worked to further her country’s cause by currying favor with a number of foreign dignitaries. Her nominee for the succeeding Great Khan was her son, Guyuk, who faced stiff opposition from a number of sources. He was finally elected after four tumultuous years.

2 Christina, Queen Of Sweden

One of the most vivacious and well-educated women of the 17th century, Christina assumed the throne of Sweden at age six upon the death of her father, King Gustav II Adolph. However, she didn’t start ruling until she reached age 18.

Her refusal to marry was one of the main reasons for her unexpected abdication of the throne at age 27. Faced with an unhappy populace begging for a king and his heirs, Christina left the country, heading to Rome to enjoy the company of Pope Alexander VII and others. Her secret conversion to Roman Catholicism may have played a role in her abdication as well.

After trying unsuccessfully to obtain the throne of Poland, Christina settled down to a life of leisure and patronage of the arts. The Pope later described her as “a queen without a realm, a Christian without faith, and a woman without shame.”

1 Tomyris

After her husband’s death, Tomyris became the queen of a tribe known as the Massagetae. Her greatest feat was defending her kingdom against the Persian king Cyrus the Great. Rebuffing his offer of marriage, Tomyris attempted to dissuade Cyrus from starting a war. She warned him: “Be content to rule your own people and try to endure the sight of me ruling mine.”

Nevertheless, the Persians invaded and Cyrus kidnapped her son, who later killed himself in captivity. The Persian king finally fell in battle against the Massagetae. Afterward, Tomyris was purported to have scoured the battlefield for Cyrus’s body, cut off the king’s head when she found him, and placed his head in a skin filled with human blood.

+ Further Reading

Women have played a fascinating role in history – from rulers to warriors and everything in between. Here are a few more fascinating but not too stereotypical tales of the fairer sex:

10 Amazing Female Spies Who Brought Down The Nazis
10 Women Who Transformed Themselves Into Superheroes
10 Women Warriors Forgotten By History
10 Overlooked Women Who Outdid Famous Men

The Habsburgs were one of Europe’s greatest royal dynasties. Over the centuries, branches of the family ruled countries as diverse as modern Germany, Spain, Slovakia, Peru, Mexico, and Croatia. They were Holy Roman emperors and heads of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it was the assassination of one of their clan, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, that started World War I.

In short, this great dynasty shaped not just modern Europe, but the history of the entire world. Oh, and they did it all while being certifiably insane.

10 Leopold I Loved Weird Blood Sports

In the 17th century, it was expected that royals would show their manliness by killing animals. Most chose to do so by organizing hunting parties, but Leopold I was different. The Holy Roman emperor wasn’t content with simply shooting animals. He had to kill them in the craziest way possible.

One of Leopold’s favorite “sports” involved getting his courtiers to wrap a live fox in a blanket. Leopold would then arrange a gang of dwarfs to beat the helpless creature with sticks until it was dead.

Killing animals at a severe disadvantage seems to have been Leopold’s specialty. At various times, he used falcons to hunt herons and had deer submerged in a deep pool before shooting them one by one with a crossbow. But the prize for craziest Habsburg blood sport probably goes to Rudolf II, who used cheetahs to hunt in the streets of Prague. Speaking of Rudolf . . . 

9 Rudolf II Was A Crazy Alchemist

Rudolf II was the last Habsburg emperor to base his court in Prague. This is probably because he absolutely trashed the dynasty’s reputation while there. Despite being Holy Roman emperor, Rudolf was less interested in ruling than he was in turning himself into a wizard.

A fervent occultist, Rudolf believed in some deeply strange stuff. He thought he was on the verge of discovering a philosopher’s stone and granting himself eternal life. He hired famous alchemists like the wife-swapping Englishman John Dee to turn metal into gold and consorted with mystics like Nostradamus, who wrote horoscopes for him.

On top of that, Rudolf liked to collect mystical and occult objects. He has even been linked to the ancient Jewish legend of the Golem, with the mythical beast supposedly being created on the streets of Prague.

8 Franz Ferdinand Shot Anything That Moved

Before he became famous as the beginning of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was famous for killing any animal he saw. A passionate hunter, Franz traveled the breadth of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, unleashing bullet-based death on its fauna. On a single day in the 19th century, he killed 2,140 animals. By the time he met his end at age 51, it was estimated that he had personally shot nearly 300,000 living creatures.

The vast bulk of this insane number was taken up by pheasants, partridge, and deer. Deer particularly caused a problem, since Franz liked to hang his hunting trophies. By the end of his life, his estate at Konopischt had 100,000 dead deer on its walls, and visitors were in constant danger of being impaled on their antlers. He even kept two elephants he’d shot as a gigantic wastepaper bin and a glorified ashtray, respectively.

7 Karl I Made The Worst Peace Deal In History

Today, the Habsburgs are known for allying their Austro-Hungarian Empire with Germany in World War I, but they were far from the Kaiser’s closest allies. As the war dragged on, new emperor Karl I (aka Charles I) secretly contacted France to secure a peace treaty. His efforts have been described as possibly the worst attempted peace deal in history.

Karl was desperate not to have his empire divided after the war was over, so he opened negotiations by essentially promising the French anything they wanted. This led the French prime minister, Georges Clemenceau, to realize that the Austro-Hungarians must be so weak that their armies would soon collapse. Rather than respond to Karl’s overtures, he published his message, destroying the last traces of morale in the empire.

Not only was such a public rejection a body blow for Karl, but news of it inevitably got back to the kaiser, almost costing Karl his only ally.

6 The Entire Family Was Hopelessly Inbred

The Habsburgs lived in a Europe where royal possession was decided by inheritance. If one of their number married into a new family, they might wind up having to split their insanely vast territory with another group of royals. Their simple solution for this was to inbreed like mad.

Leopold I, for example, married his own niece, Margaret Theresa of Spain, and insisted that she call him “uncle” while being intimate. It was common for Habsburgs to shack up with cousins or aunts, and marrying outside the family was frowned on.

Predictably, this did not end well. The line of the dynasty that ruled Imperial Spain and its colonies in the New World came to an abrupt end when Carlos II turned out to be a genetic basket case. Physically disabled, mentally impaired, and infertile, Carlos died childless in 1700. Habsburg rule of Spain expired with him.

5 The Entire Family Was Hopelessly Deformed

The dangers of inbreeding go beyond madness and infertility. In a family as hopelessly twisted as the Habsburgs, it can manifest itself physically. From paintings, it’s clear that the entire family was woefully, freakishly deformed.

This deformity came in the form of the dreaded “Habsburg Jaw.” Family members all tended to have a hugely pronounced underbite and chins that looked like aircraft landing strips. Charles V had the jaw so bad that he couldn’t eat in public. If Leopold I was outside when it rained, his mouth would fill with water. Carlos II was physically incapable of either speaking or eating solid food.

As Simon Winder pointed out in Danubia, the Habsburg men could at least grow beards to hide their prominent chins. The women were doomed to forever have their deformities on display.

4 Ferdinand I Was A Genuine Idiot

Although inbreeding was common in Europe’s royal families, rarely did affected children ascend to the throne. Ferdinand I was the exception. In 1835, he became emperor of the Habsburg Lands, despite having the mental age of a child.

Ferdinand was too impaired to figure out how to open doors. He found signing his name impossible. One of his favorite activities was to put a wastepaper basket on his head and roll on the floor. At one point, he refused to believe that an eagle he saw was real because it only had one head, and the eagle on the family crest had two.

Despite his difficulties, Ferdinand ruled for over a decade before being deposed in a coup in 1848. One of his last known utterances as ruler came when he heard that the people of Austria were in open revolution. “Are they allowed to do that?” the amiable idiot asked.

3 Maximilian Was Tricked Into Ruling Mexico

In 1863, Mexico’s elite conspired with Napoleon III of France to replace the liberal Mexican president Benito Juarez with a French puppet. All they needed was an idiot to act as their figurehead. That idiot was Ferdinand Maximilian.

A minor Habsburg, Maximilian was, by all accounts, a friendly guy—and also naive. When Napoleon told him that the people of Mexico had voted him their emperor, he apparently believed it. Setting sail for the New World, Maximilian arrived as Mexico’s new leader in 1864. Almost immediately, the country plunged into civil war.

Unbeknownst to Maximilian, French troops were using his ascension as an excuse to eliminate President Juarez, but Juarez fought back. By 1867, he’d driven the French from his country. Apparently believing he was popular, Maximilian refused to join their retreat, saying that he wanted to stay with his new people. His “people” responded by executing him.

2 The Whole Family Was Plagued By A Creepy Curse

In 1848, Emperor Franz Joseph executed a group of Hungarian rebels. One of them was the son of Countess Karolyi, who placed a curse on Franz Joseph. That curse would be blamed for the horrific tragedies that beset the family from then on.

Franz Joseph barely escaped an assassination attempt, while his wife was murdered by an Italian anarchist. His son died in a murder-suicide pact with his lover. Another Habsburg fell off a horse. Another burned to death in a house fire. Two committed suicide. One vanished on the high seas, never to be seen again.

Others went mad. After Mexican “emperor” Maximilian’s death, his consort spent 30 years in an insane asylum. For seven decades, the family was plagued with misery, culminating in the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. His death triggered World War I, which would lead to the dismantling of the entire Habsburg Empire.

1 Their Last Member Is On The Path To Sainthood

Remember Karl I, the guy who tried to make that terrible peace deal with France? Although he stepped down as emperor in 1918, ending the royal Habsburg line, his story isn’t quite over yet. He’s well on his way to becoming a Catholic saint.

Currently known as Karl the Blessed, he’s considered a prime candidate for future sainthood. In 2008, the Catholic Church attributed a second miracle to him, meaning that he may soon be canonized.

If so, he would likely become the first saint in history to have authorized the use of chemical weapons. (The Austrian forces used chlorine gas in World War I.) Still, it would make a fittingly bizarre end to this strangest of lineages. Only emperor for two years of his life, Karl I may yet go down as the longest-revered of all the Habsburgs.

The emperors of the ancient world held an incredible amount of power. Those who ruled over the kingdoms of ancient China were called the sons of Heaven. They were deified men whose every word was to be followed without question.

When a whole kingdom follows your every word, it can be hard to stay stable, but it’s easy to fall into a decadent and unstable life. That much power can drive a man insane. Sometimes, it did.

10 King Zhou Of Shang Had A Lake Of Wine

As the reign of King Zhou went on, he started to get comfortable. He was the king of a great dynasty, and he resolved to enjoy it—in some absolutely unbelievable ways.

Zhou ordered the construction of the Pool Of Wine And Forest Of Meat, which was exactly what the name suggests. This was a massive, man-made lake filled with nothing but liquor. It was big enough for several canoes. In the center of the pool was a little island, dotted with trees. The tree’s branches, though, were skewers full of meat. Zhou and his concubines would pass their time drifting around in the canoes, drinking the liquor and plucking off meat.

As you might expect, all that decadence didn’t make King Zhou particularly popular. When he saw the people rising against him, Zhou set himself on fire—because, apparently, he was better at coming up with ideas for parties than painless suicide methods. His pool of liquor was destroyed, and his successors, who were significantly less fun, banned alcohol across the kingdom.

9 King Wu Of Qin Died In Powerlifting Contest

King Wu was a massive hulk of a man, obsessed with showing off his muscles. He valued strength above all else. He kicked all the book-reading nerds out of power and filled the highest ranks in his kingdom with musclemen, chosen for their ability to lift heavy things above their heads.

That love for lifting heavy things would be his end. One of the strongest men in the kingdom, Meng Yue, challenged him to a cauldron-lifting contest. It seems that Meng won: While Wu was lifting his cauldron up, his knees snapped, and he collapsed.

Wu spent about eight months slowly and painfully dying before his body finally gave up, which was bad news for Meng. As his reward for soundly beating the king in a powerlifting contest, Meng and his entire family were hunted down and killed.

8 Emperor Wu Of Jin Let A Goat Choose His Concubines

One of the major benefits of being the emperor was the harems. They were meant to be a little perk for ruling the country, but for Emperor Wu, they were more of a distraction.

Emperor Wu dedicated most of his time to his harem. He would pull every pretty girl he could find out of her home to make her his concubine, especially preying on his officials’ daughters. This, for Emperor Wu, was important work—so much so that he made it a crime to get married until he was finished picking his concubines.

By the end, Emperor Wu had more than 10,000 women in his harem. To choose his partner for the night, he would ride around in a cart drawn by goats. When the goats stopped, he’d sleep with whichever woman they’d brought him to.

7 Emperor Gaozu Peed In Scholars’ Hats

Emperor Gaozu wasn’t the biggest supporter of education. He believed in military might and obedience to a strong, centralized government, and he didn’t really see any point in wasting time learning to read or discussing philosophy. “All I possess I have won on horseback,” he told one of his advisors. “Why should I bother with [the Books of] Odes and History?”

This wasn’t just simple disinterest; education actively enraged him. In Gaozu’s time, most scholars were followers of Confucius, and they walked with pointy hats. He spent most of his time launching into curse-filled tirades about how awful they were. When he actually saw a scholar, he’d rip off the scholar’s hat and pee in it.

When his advisor, Lu Jia, wrote a flattering book about his victories, though, Gaozu changed his tune. In one of history’s rare instances of someone admitting they were wrong, Gaozu set up Confucian schools across the empire and made it the state ideology.

6 Emperor Xuanzong Had 40,000 Concubines

Traditionally, in Xuanzong’s time, emperors would release their concubines when their reign came to an end. Since it often only took a couple of years for someone to get fed up and assassinate the king, that meant that being a concubine was only a temporary position.

Xuanzong, however, stubbornly refused to die. His reign went on for 44 years, and his harem just kept getting bigger. By the end, he had over 40,000 women. Xuanzong almost certainly didn’t have time to meet them all, so instead, they just sat around learning poetry, mathematics, and the classics and taking care of mulberry trees.

That doesn’t mean he stopped adding to his harem, though. When he was 60 years old, Xuanzong made his own son divorce his wife so that he could make his daughter-in-law one of his concubines.

5 Emperor Houfei Used His General’s Belly For Target Practice

Emperor Houfei was nine years old when he ascended to the throne. Nine, as the Chinese learned, is a bit too young to be given absolute power over an empire—and Emperor Houfei went mad with power in the way only a child could. He managed to survive for five years before people finally got fed up and killed him. The beginning of the end came when he saw his general, Xiao Daocheng, sleeping naked.

Houfei was captivated by the round bulge of Xiao’s massive belly, and he had a stroke of inspiration. He pinned a target to the general’s gut and used it as target practice. He would have used real arrows, but his attendant managed to convince him to use blunted ones. If he kept his general alive, his attendant told him, he could shoot arrows at his belly every day.

Xiao got his revenge. He sent a man into Houfei’s room while he was sleeping to cut off his head. Xiao then took over the empire himself.

4 Emperor Jing Killed A Man For Beating Him At A Board Game

Anyone who has flipped a Monopoly game in outrage has a kindred spirit in Emperor Jing. He lost his temper during a game of Liubo, an ancient Chinese game played on a heavy stone board. Emperor Jing was losing, and his opponent, apparently, hurt his feelings. He threw the stone board at his opponent’s head, hitting him so hard that he killed him.

Unfortunately for Emperor Jing, his opponent was the prince and heir to the Wu Empire. The King of Wu vowed revenge. He united seven kingdoms and led a revolt against Jing.

Emperor Jing, though, was better at war than he was at Liubo. He managed to crush the rebellion. Then he shrunk the kingdoms of those who dared to question him and his policy of killing anyone who beats him at a board game.

3 King Fu Sheng Made It A Crime To Say ‘Without’

Legend has it that that King Fu Sheng’s eye was pecked out when he tried to steal an eagle’s eggs. That might be a myth, but the man was definitely blind in one eye, and he was a bit sensitive about it. He was so paranoid that he believed anyone who said the words “missing,” “lacking,” “less,” or “without” must be mocking him—so he made it a crime. Anyone who uttered one of those words in his presence was sentenced to death.

Murder was how Fu Sheng solved most of his problems. His astrologers advised him that if he didn’t change his ways, his reign would be short, but he didn’t really listen. Before his two years as king were up, he’d executed his wife, her father, and her uncle, and he was working his way through his own family.

When his cousins found out he was planning on taking them on next, they attacked his castle, pulled him out of his room, and had him dragged to death by a horse. For all of his efforts to stop people from making fun of him, Fu Sheng went down in history as the “One-Eyed Tyrant.”

2 Emperor Wenxuan Walked Around Naked Wearing Makeup

Wenxuan’s reign started off well, but as time went on, he started devoting less and less time to managing the state and more and more time to getting blindingly drunk. It didn’t take long before he was nearly perpetually drunk, and he completely lost control. He had a bad habit of taking all of his clothes off, putting makeup on his face, and wandering into his noble’s bedrooms. He’d even wander around naked in the winter.

His worst habit, though, was getting drunk and killing people. One time, he stopped a woman on the street and asked, “What is the Son of Heaven like?” When she answered, “He is so crazy that he really cannot be considered a Son of Heaven,” he beheaded her.

This wasn’t an isolated event. He drunkenly killed people so often that whenever he got drunk, his minister would bring him a condemned prisoner to murder so that he could get it out of his system before he took it out on the innocent.

1 Emperor Zhengde Liked To Play Make-Believe

Zhengde became emperor when he was 13 years old, and he wasn’t quite done with the days of childhood. He still liked to make believe, and because he was the emperor, everyone else had to go along with it.

He would force his ministers to dress up as merchants so that he could pretend he was a commoner visiting their shops. This, under Emperor Zhengde, was an imperial duty. Anyone who would not play make-believe with him was removed from their post.

He built a 200-room building called the “Leopard Quarter” next to the imperial zoo. He and his friends would spend their time there drinking and hunting the animals in the zoo, pretending they were in the jungles chasing wild game.

Zhengde also told his people that he had an identical double named General Zhu Shou. He would give orders for them to pass on to Zhu Shou. Then he would change his clothes and come back out, now forcing everyone to call him Zhu Shou. His men would have to tell him his own orders, and he would pretend to be surprised.

For an imaginary person, Zhu Shou was actually a pretty capable general. Zhengde stayed in power until he turned 29. In the end, though, the liquor got him. Drunk out his mind, he fell out of a boat. The cold water left him with an illness that ended his life.

In a time when the only way to rule was to be born into it or to take it by force, there was a great danger in being king. The moment a ruler took his seat on the throne, his life was in jeopardy.

See Also: Top 10 Truly Insane Rulers

Some survived. Some built empires and dynasties and died old, in their sleep, on silk sheets lined in gold. But others weren’t so lucky.

A handful of rulers only ever managed to keep their power for a few days or even hours — and left behind nothing but the incredible tragedy of their brief lives.

10 Prince Milan Obrenovic II: 26 Days

Prince Milan Obrenovic II ruled Serbia for 26 days — and, according to most accounts, he didn’t have any idea he was in power.

He was sick his entire life. It seemed to be a family curse — he was his parent’s sixth child, but the first who’d be healthy enough to survive childhood. By the time he turned 20, he was completely bed-ridden — but to two parents who had already lost five children, he was still their miracle boy.

Milan’s father, Miloš, abdicated the throne in 1839 and named his sickly son ruler of Serbia — but his son, who was dying of pneumonia, didn’t even understand what was happening.

He didn’t sign a single document or give a single rule the entire time. He was too sick to get out of bed, or even grasp the magnanimity (s/b magnitude) of what had happened to him. It’s said that he seemed to think his father was just on a trip and would ask people when he would return.

On the 26th day of his reign, Milan succumbed to his illness and died in his bed. He was 20 years old. When he died, he was in his mother’s arms.^[1]

9 Gordian I and Gordian II: 21 Days

In the year 238 AD, Rome saw six emperors rise and five of them fall. Every reign that year was brief — but none shorter than the reign of Gordian I and Gordian II, the men who ruled the empire as father and son.

Gordian I insisted his son rule with him. The Senate had asked him to rule alone, but the elder Goridan was an old man — already 80 years old — and his son more important to him than anything on earth.

He brought his son with him in everything he did. When he became proconsul of Africa, he made his son his right-hand man; and when he was made emperor, he refused to rule without his boy.

Gordian’s demand was an act of love from a doting father — but it would end costing his son his life. 21 days after the pair took control of Rome, a rebel army attacked Gordian II in Carthage, where they overran his men and killed him in battle.

Gordian I had lost the light of his life. He was an eighty-year-old man who had outlived his son. As soon he heard the news, he retreated to his room, hung a belt around his neck, and ended his own life.^[2]

8 Lady Jane Grey: 9 Days

Lady Jane Grey never expected to become queen. She was just a 15-year-old girl; the cousin of the king, but only fourth in the line of succession. And yet, four days after the death of King Edward VI in 1553, she was awoken with the news that she was to rule England.

Edward VI was supposed to pass his crown to his sister, Mary — but he was a devout Protestant and wouldn’t stand to see his Catholic sister take power. And so, days before his death, he wrote a will appointing Jane Grey his successor, lighting a spark that would ignite England into chaos.

Mary rose an insurrection against her cousin almost immediately. Nine days after her coronation, Lady Jane Grey was thrown in prison for high treason, sentenced to be “burned alive on Tower Hill or beheaded as the Queen pleases.”

It took a year for the Queen’s order to come in, but when it did, they took Jane’s husband first. She had to watch as Mary’s men dragged him out of her room, cut off his head, and rolled his corpse out on a cart.

When it was her turn, she seemed brave, for a moment. She recited a psalm asking God for mercy and, when the executioner asked her for forgiveness, simply asked him to make her death quick.

She didn’t panic until, blindfolded, she was ordered to put her head on the block — and, in that fit of irrationality that comes with fear, became terrified that she couldn’t find it and cried out: “What shall I do? Where is it?”

The Deputy Lieutenant of Tower Hill led her to her place, and the executioner did what she asked him to do.^[3]

7 King Thong Lan: 7 Days

Thong Lan was 15-years-old when he was appointed king of Ayutthaya, an ancient kingdom in Thailand. For one brief week, he was the most powerful man in the nation — but he didn’t have time to do anything burn mourn and die.

In 1388, Thong Lan’s father, Boromrachathirat I, got sick and died en route to a battle. In a matter of days, Thong Lan was forced to deal with the news that his father would never be coming home, that he would have to rule in his place, and — shortly after — that an army was coming to kill him.

A local ruler, Ramesuan, amassed an army the second he heard that young Thong Lan was on the throne, and within days, he was at the door of his palace.

Thong Lan had never done anything to Ramesuan. In fact, by all accounts, Ramsuan and his father had been friends. But for reasons historians can only guess at, Ramesan didn’t hesitate for a second before taking his friend’s young son’s life.

Ramesuan had Thong Lan dragged out to a Buddhist temple, wrapped in a velvet sack, and beaten to death with a club just seven days after his father’s death.^[4]

6 King John I: 5 Days

King John I is the only French king that spent his entire life as the uncontested ruler of France — but he was only king for five days.

John I was the only male son of King Louis X, but when Louis died on June 5, 1316, he was still in his mother’s womb.

Rather than complicate the line of succession, the French rulers decided to wait until John was born and make him king. And so, from the moment he was born on Nov. 15, he was the sovereign ruler of France.

John I, however, lived in a time when child deaths were rampant. As royalty, he had a better chance than most, but it was enough. The baby saw five days of life, then left the world.

There were conspiracy theories about his death — that he’d been murdered by his godmother or his uncle, or even that he’d replaced with a commoner’s baby and lived out a full life as an unknown merchant — but there’s no proof that any of them are true.

Odds are that the story is a simple as it seems: he was a baby who didn’t make it.^[5]

5 Dipendra of Nepal: 3 Days

One of the shortest reigns in history happened just 19 years ago. It was the brief but horrid reign of Dipendra of Nepal: the boy king who massacred his own family.

On June 1, 2001, Dipendra arrived at a family party so drunk that he could barely walk and ready to fight. He went straight into arguing with his father, furious that he and his mother were trying to discourage him from marrying the woman he loved.

He left in fury, then came back, armed with multiple automatic weapons. And to everyone’s horror, he opened fire on them all, starting with his father.

“He went wild and started shooting whoever came in front of him,” a survivor of the massacre, Dr. Shahi, told the New York Times. “How many weapons he used, I’m not sure. I didn’t count. It was too fast.”

Dipendra murdered his father, his mother, his brother, his sister, and five other members of the royal family before turning his weapon and shooting himself in the head.

Nobody knows for sure why he did it. Some say it was because his parents tried to stop his wedding, while others find it all so unbelievable that they’ve built conspiracy theories saying Dipendra was framed.

But Dipendra’s friends say that, in the years before the massacre, his mental health was slipping. Dipendra was on antidepressants, and friends had expressed that he needed help.

The bullet he turned on himself killed him slowly. Instead of dying right away, Dipendra slipped into a coma. For three days, before he stopped breathing, the man who’d killed the royal family was king.^[6]

4 Sultan Sayyid Khalid bin Barghash: 2 Days

The shortest-lived Sultan of Zanzibar saw his reign met an abrupt end in history’s shortest war.

On Aug. 25, 1896, Sayyid Khalid bin Barghash ascended to the throne of Zanzibar — and, almost immediately, was ordered to step down.

The British Empire saw Sayyid as a difficult ruler. They wanted someone more willing to bend to their will in charge, and so — calling on a treaty that required Zanzibar to get permission from the British before naming anyone Sultan — they demanded Sayyid give up his place.

Soon, the British Navy was outside his palace, ordering him to haul down his flag and leave. They gave him until 9:00 on Aug. 27th to comply or the palace would be destroyed.

When Sayyid refused, the British opened fire. For 38 minutes, they shelled his palace, engulfing it into flames and killing 500 people in the process, before the Sultan’s men surrendered.

It was the shortest war in history — and with it ended one of the shortest reigns.^[7]

3 Minshinzaw: 18 Hours

Minshinzaw spent his life in exile. He was cast out of his home country of Pagan, in modern Myanmar, by his own father in 1152 after he criticized him for marrying a foreign woman. But even though his father had kicked him out, he never stopped working to impress him.

In exile, he took control of the land he’d settled in and made it more prosperous than it had ever been. He set up dams and canals that tripled their harvest and developed a focus on education that drew in some of the greatest minds.

But when his father died in 1167, Minshinzaw didn’t hesitate to take up his responsibility to the people of Pagan. He left his land behind and return to what had once been his kingdom to take the throne. He returned home, where his younger brother, Narathu, pronounced him king.

What Minshinzaw didn’t know, though, was that Narathu was after the throne. He had already smothered their father in his sleep with bedsheets.

Minshinzaw didn’t make it through the night. While he slept, his brother poisoned him, wiping out the last person standing in the way of the throne.^[8]

2 Tsar Michael II: 16 Hours

Michael II woke up on the morning of March 15, 1917, to learn that his brother had abdicated the throne and named him Tsar.

It wasn’t a great gift. In 1917, the Russian Revolution was already in swing, and Michael knew no emperor would last long. And so he did what every other person on this list ought to have done: he gave up the throne.

Michael declared that he would only take power if he was elected by universal suffrage and stepped down within 16 hours of being proclaimed Tsar. Then he returned to his villa and hoped for a simple life.

It didn’t work out. He was arrested shortly after abdicating the throne and kept on house arrest for a year. Then, on June 12, 1918, a member of the Secret Police named Gavril Myasnikov broke into his house, forced him into a carriage, rode him out into the forest, and shot him.

Michael’s secretary and closest friend, Nicholas Johnson, was dragged out and shot with him. Johnson was shot first. When they shot Michael, he was reaching out to his wounded friend, trying to give him comfort as he died.^[9]

1 Empress Yuan: Less Than 5 Hours

Nobody knows Empress Yuan’s full name. Nobody ever wrote it down. All that’s recorded is that she was the only child of Emperor Xiaoming, and that, for a few hours in 528 AD, she ruled China.

She was never anything more than a puppet in her grandmother’s game. When she was born, her father was already in ill health, and her grandmother, Empress Dowager Hu, was determined to stay in power. And so, to make sure the succession would fall to baby Yuan, she told the world that the baby was a boy.

Empress Yuan was only 50 days old when her father died and she was named ruler. And immediately, her grandmother used her power to replace her with another child she could control: a 3-year-old name Yuan Zhao.

The plan worked, in a sense — but it infuriated a nation. The people revolted against Empress Dowager Hu almost immediately. The babies she’d manipulated were killed with her.

Empress Dowager Hu and 3-year-old Yuan Zhu were dragged out of the castle and drowned in the Yellow River. And everyone connected to her — some 13,000 people in all — were slaughtered in a horrific massacre.

Only 83 names of the 13,000 killed were ever recorded. We can’t say for sure what happened to Empress Yuan, but the Emperor’s little girl was never heard from again.^[10]

It’s just a “thing” that happens—it doesn’t matter if they’re in the public eye or not. Rulers love to kill their wives and get away with it. I mean, it’s not just rulers. People kill people every day, unfortunately.

Yet, when it’s a leader who’s doing the deed, history loves to turn the image of their rule into a blood-stained epic adventure, filled with triumphs, egomaniacal escapades, all climaxing at wife killing.

And you know where all that glory got them? On this top ten list. Here are the top ten rulers who killed their wives.

Related: 10 Monarchs Who Executed Their Sons

10 King Henry VIII
1491–1547

King Henry VIII is a celebrity on this list. He is the OG king-gone-wife-murderer. He not only killed two of his wives and many family members but was also known for his six marriages and the plethora of mistresses who occupied his bed.

The 16th-century English King was also known for his divorce from Queen Katherine of Aragon, who refused the divorce he wanted. The Roman Catholic church would not allow it. So King Henry only did what you would expect a king to do. He separated himself from the Church and created his own church. It makes sense, right?

The first of his wives to be sentenced to death was Anne Boleyn, whom he courted for six long years. She is also the reason why King Henry VIII wanted a divorce in the first place.

During this time, Anne’s sister Mary, also his mistress, had birthed two children, one a daughter and the next a son. Unfortunately, these children were illegitimate and considered bastards with no claim to the throne. Anne only gave King Henry VIII a girl, Elizabeth, which was a big disappointment to him. After the birth of Elizabeth, it became clear to him that Anne would not produce a son. Because of this reason—and a few more—King Henry VIII had her beheaded on May 19, 1536, at 35 years old. She was convicted of treason and having affairs with five men.

The next wife to make it on King Henry VIII’s chopping block was Catherine Howard. Catherine was the cousin of Anne Boleyn. She was Queen from 1540 to 1541 as the fifth wife of King Henry before being executed and beheaded on February 13, 1542. He accused her of adultery.

Catherine did manage to throw some major shade the king’s way before she died. Her last words, spoken from the scaffold, were, “I die a Queen, but I would rather die the wife of Thomas Culpeper.” Culpeper was a close friend to the king and related to her.

9 King Herod the Great
37 BC–4 BC

King Herod the Great (not the Herod during the life of Jesus Christ) sits in the annals of history as King of Judea from 37 BC to 4 BC. He killed one of his wives, Mariamme, who was the granddaughter of a former Judean High Priest, along with their two sons, Mariamme’s brother, grandfather, and mother.

Herod had eight other wives and children with six of them, fathering a total of 14 children. Mariamme was executed in 29 BC over accusations of adultery and having tried to kill the King. Go figure. I guess he beat her to the punchline.

8 Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, the Roman Emperor: AD 54–AD 68

Between the years AD 54 and AD 68, the Roman Empire was ruled by “666” himself: Nero. His original name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, and he was the fifth Roman Emperor and the stepson and heir of Emperor Claudius.

Within 35 months, he would dramatically change from the type of ruler who at first disliked signing death warrants to ordering his mother’s death in AD 59. She wasn’t that innocent, though. Agrippina was intense, to say the least.

But back to Nero.

Nero beat his wife regularly and finally murdered her after falling in love with Poppaea Sabina, a senator’s young (ex)wife. Nero also killed his stepbrother and his stepbrother’s wife and mother. On top of that, people believed he was the one who had set fire to Rome even though he was miles upon miles away. Nero, in turn, tried to blame it on the Christians.

Nero’s name has become synonymous with evil, primarily known for persecuting Christians and killing his wife. He committed suicide in AD 68.

7 King Claudius
Hamlet

Diving into fiction here, one of the best examples of a ruler killing his wife, although in this case, it’s unintentional, is King Claudius. King Claudius is Hamlet’s uncle and the main antagonist of the Shakespearian tragedy Hamlet. Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, drinks from a cup of poison Claudius intends to give to Hamlet. Claudius did protest (the equivalent of a half-hearted, “No, don’t”), but instead of actually taking the chalice away from her, he just let her drink it. 

Yeah, she dies. It’s Hamlet.

The only people who survive in that play are Horatio and Fortinbras.

6 Mayor Barry Waites
1990s

Is a mayor a ruler? Technically yes, but “mayor” just doesn’t sound very ruler-like.

In 1998, the mayor of Lanett, Alabama, murdered his wife, Charlotte. His initial story—that he was at work all day when he got the call from his daughter that her mother was dead—was pretty convincing. Convincing enough to send authorities on a wild goose chase. Officials never found a decent suspect, so the case went on the back burner for three years…until re-election season.

Waites’s running mate claimed that Waites was the one who killed Charlotte, strangled her, beat her, and threw her so hard that she sustained a life-threatening head injury. Eventually, police learned that Waites was in severe financial trouble, had cheated his two daughters after Charlotte’s death, and, surprise, killed his late wife.

He was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2006.

5 King John of England
1199–1216

Also known as Bad King John, you might recognize this King of England from Robin Hood fame. But the story and movies don’t do justice to how cruel the guy actually was.

While his brother, Richard the Lionheart, was away fighting the armies of Islam, John hooked up with France’s King Philip Augustus so he could steal England’s crown for himself. However, under the pressure of high-ranking rebels, King John signed the “Magna Carta” in 1215, a document that limited the powers of England’s monarchs.

Many of the novels surrounding his rule bring up the fact that he would rape his wives. But it gets worse. He was a straight-up murderer and murdered quite a few people. He even starved his wife to death along with 22 knights inside of Dorset’s Corfe Castle and ordered the murder of his nephew.

King John was the youngest and favorite son of King Henry II. According to “tales,” he died from eating a surfeit of peaches. However, he most likely died from dysentery in 1216, covered in his own excrement. 

4 Afzal Khan
17th century

Though not a ruler, Afzal Khan was one of the most powerful men in the sultan’s army in 17th-century India…who had 63 sixty wives…and had them all killed. At the time, the 7’0″ man was the most powerful general in the sultan’s court. He was brave, respected, and an incredible military man.

He did have a weakness, though: omens.

Afzal Khan was preparing for a military campaign against the Maratha Ruler when he consulted astrologers to tell him how it would go. Their answer: not well. There was doom in the air. Fearing that his wives would remarry after he died in battle, Khan ordered their execution. We still aren’t sure if they were pushed down a well or slain by his own hands.

The astrologers weren’t wrong, though. Afzal Khan did die in this battle.

3 King Shahryar
1,001 Nights

It may be fiction, but the dead wives of ruler King Shahryar are essentially the catalyst to 1,001 Nights. Queen Shahrazad is the daughter of the king’s vizier and the storyteller of 1,001 Nights. Even though she goes against her father’s wishes, she marries the king, who has vowed to kill a new bride every morning.

Why? Because he was jilted once. Now he believes that every woman he marries will do him wrong. So instead of, you know, getting over it, he executes his brides. Enter Shahrazad, who, each night, tells him a story, ending in a cliffhanger so compelling that the king keeps her alive so she can finish the story the next night.

At the end of the 1,001 nights of storytelling, the king is a new, gentler man whose faith in women has been restored. But let’s not forget that he killed lots of women before this.

2 Caligula
AD 12–AD 41

This is a death-by-association situation.

Gaius Caesar Germanicus, also known as Caligula, was a pretty awful emperor. He was a ruthless murderer who believed he was a living god. He kind of resembled a goat (which is why he prohibited people from speaking about goats near him) and supposedly fed a few members of a gladiatorial game’s crowd to the animals.

To be fair, the Emperor before him, Tiberius, did imprison Caligula’s mother and two brothers. His mother and one of his brothers starved to death. The other brother committed suicide. On top of that, he suffered an illness that supposedly changed his personality.

Anyway, long story short, after four marriages, forcing parents to watch the executions of their children, and a brief and wild rule over the Roman Empire, Caligula was assassinated. A group of Romans attacked him after a public sporting event and stabbed him 30 times (more than Caesar). The mob then murdered Caligula’s fourth wife, to whom he was still married at the time, and his daughter.

1 Wu Zetain: Empress of China
655–690

As our last ruler, let’s switch it up. How about a ruler killing their husband?

Wu Zetain was the first and only woman to have sat on the throne of China. Born in AD 624, she started out as a concubine to the Tang Emperor Taizong. Because she knew what she was doing, she seduced the Emperor’s son while the current Emperor was dying. When he finally kicked, she was sent to a monastery like all concubines when the Emperor died.

Yet, while there, the new Emperor Li Zhi visited her at the monastery. He was overcome by her fierce and robust spirit and her impressive knowledge so much that the new Emperor brought her back to court as his special counselor.

Now, Zetain was an incredibly effective leader and particularly ruthless. She did not appreciate criticism, nor did she like people threatening her power. She ordered the execution of two princes who were against her (heads chopped off and brought to the palace), the suicides of her granddaughter and grandson, wiped out members of the Tang clan, and supposedly poisoned her husband.

Zetain knew what she was doing from the beginning, and I’m sure that “poison husband” was part of the plan.

Arguably one of the most famous rulers to have ascended to any throne in human history was Tutankhamun (1341–1323 BC). What sets the 11th Pharaoh of Egypt apart from many others is that he rose to power before his tenth birthday. After a nine-year rule over Egypt, Tutankhamun is suspected of having died of either malaria or another infection.

History tells of many other rulers who were crowned heads of their respective territories before reaching the age of majority. Like the young King Tut, these child rulers saw not only their reigns but also their lives come to a startlingly and tragic early end.

10 Lungtok Gyatso, Ninth Dalai Lama (1805–1815)

The Ninth Dalai Lama, Lungtok Gyatso, was born in 1805 in a little village called Dan Chokhor in Kham, Tibet. Interestingly, a number of sources list Lungtok’s parents as Tenzin Choekyong and Dhondup Dolma, although many sources state that he was, in fact, an orphan. Lungtok was selected over another to be the reincarnation of the Eighth Dalai Lama, Jampel Gyatso.

Around the time of his reign, major regional power shifts took place. The Qing Dynasty struggled to retain power and influence in Tibet, and Tibetan leadership and aristocrats were at odds with Qing officials. The selection of the Dalai Lama was overseen by a Qing official, something that was contested by some Tibetan leaders. This was because the Qianlong Emperor mandated that selection be made from a golden urn supplied by the emperor, effectively giving control of the selection process to the Qing dynasty. The Tibetans managed to forego using the urn after the emperor announced his retirement. At the tonsure ceremony in 1808, the child was given the name Lobzang Tenpai Wangchuk Lungtok Gyatso. He took the throne at the end of that year.

In 1815, Gyatso, who was described as having sharp intellect, taking great interest in dharma, and memorizing lengthy prayers, allegedly fell ill with a cold. It is also reported that the Ninth Dalai Lama was actually assassinated due to the turmoil that ensued during the time of his reign. Notably, the three Dalai Lamas who followed all died young, raising suspicions that they were also murdered.^[1]

9 Alexander IV of Macedon (323–309 BC)

Having to follow in very large footsteps, Alexander IV of Macedon was born in 323 BC, the son of Alexander the Great, after his father died in Babylon the same year. Alexander IV’s rise to the throne was neither immediate nor easy. The young king’s uncle, Arridaeus (who also went by Phillip), succeeded his brother as king but was soon found to be mentally incapable of acting as ruler. The regent to Arridaeus, Perdiccas, campaigned to put a hold on selecting a new successor in an effort to hold onto power and influence for himself. His efforts were met with a lot of resistance, however, and Alexander IV was born soon after.

Perdiccas was killed in 320 BC, and the then-guardian of the royal family, Antipater, was later killed in 319 BC. Antipater’s son, Cassander, plotted his way to the regency, forcing Roxane to flee Epirus with her young son and Polyperchon (a family guardian). There, the pair united with Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great. Alexander IV’s status as successor and true king to the Macedonian throne was realized after Olympias retook Macedon and was named regent. In 316 BC, Cassander eventually managed to besiege and execute Olympias, and Cassander was accepted as regent.

In an effort to end the Third Diadoch War in 311 BC, a peace treaty that recognized Alexander IV’s rights and claim to the throne was established. Cassander, however, decided not to honor the treaty and imprisoned the young king and his mother in the citadel of Amphipolis. In 309 BC, the then thirteen-year-old king and his mother were assassinated by poisoning.^[2]

8 Ptolemy XIII, Theos Philopator (62–47 BC)

In 51 BC, the father of twelve-year-old Ptolemy XIII and his older and more famous sister, Cleopatra VII, died. In the wake of his father’s death, Ptolemy was named senior ruler by the de facto regent, Pothinus, much to the dismay of co-ruler Cleopatra. Under the influence of Roman general Pompey the Great, Pothinus, and Theodotus, Ptolemy’s strong-willed older sister was eventually expelled from Egypt in 48 BC.

Not long after her expulsion, Cleopatra wielded an Arab army to help her siege the Egyptian city of Pelusium, sparking a civil war with her brother. Pompey, unfortunately, sealed his fate after losing to Julius Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus in Greece. To win the favor of Caesar, Ptolemy set a trap for Pompey in Alexandria and ambushed him.

There in Alexandria, a peace treaty was attempted between the warring siblings but failed to produce a positive outcome. While the siblings were detained by Caesar, Pothinus pushed their youngest sister Arsinoe to the forefront and took Alexandria. Arisinoe, however, did not get along with the heads of the Egyptian forces and was successfully offered in exchange for Ptolemy. The young king was no match for Caesar and was defeated in battle. While running for his life, Ptolemy drowned, and Caesar asserted his dominance over Egypt.^[3]

7 Emperor Antoku (1178–1185)

On December 22, 1178, Tokohito was born in Kyoto, Japan, to Emperor Takakura and his wife, Tokuko. The emperor’s son was named Crown Prince soon after his birth that same year. Although Tokohito took the throne a few years later in 1180 under the Taira clan at the tender age of two, it was his grandfather and warrior Taira Kiyomori who had sway and held control over the government. Tokohito took the name Antoku Tennō as the 81st emperor of Japan.

In 1183, the Taira clan was forced out of Kyoto City by men under the control of Minamoto Yoshinaka. Antoku and his clan eventually made their way to Yashima, where they would establish a temporary palace. Here, Minamoto and Antoku’s clans clashed in the Battle of Yashima. The shame of defeat caused Antoku to flee to the sea.

Two years later, the clans waged war against each other in the Battle of Dannoura, where the Taira clan would once again taste defeat and ruin at the hands of Minamoto’s naval fleet. Rather than die at the hands of the Minamoto fleet, many of the Taira clan’s commanders and fighters committed suicide by throwing themselves into the sea. Antoku’s grandmother followed suit, taking not only two of the three imperial regalia with her but the young emperor as well. Antoku and his grandmother plunged into the sea and drowned.^[4]

6 Peter II of Russia (1715–1730)

The grandson of Peter I the Great, Pyotr Alekseyevich was born in 1715 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Sadly, Pyotr’s mother died only 10 days after giving birth to him. Peter I’s son from his second marriage, Tsarevitch Peter Petrovitch, had died, making way for his grandson, Pyotr, to eventually become the Emperor of Russia. This was only made possible after a close adviser to Peter I and Catherine I, A.D. Menshikov, influenced Catherine to include young Pyotr in her will in 1727. Catherine I died, and Pyotr, who took the name Peter II, was declared emperor.

Menshikov wasted no time manipulating the young ruler once he had moved him into his house within the first few months of his reign. Peter II, who was promised to marry Menshikov’s daughter, was not pressed under the adviser’s thumb for much longer as he fell ill and was eventually exiled to Siberia by the aristocratic Dolgoruky family. Peter was instead betrothed to Yekaterina Alekseyevna Dolgorukaya in 1729. With a stroke of horrible luck, however, Peter II died of smallpox on the day set for the wedding. He was only fourteen years old.^[5]

5 Edward VI (1537–1553)

Sixteenth-century England fell prey to the rule of one of the most infamous and ruthless monarchs to have lived, Henry VIII, for more than 30 years. After his death in 1547, he was succeeded by his son, Edward VI. Because the king was a mere nine years of age, a council of nobles had the task of managing the affairs of the kingdom. This group included the king’s uncle, Edward Seymour—until he was overthrown by the Earl of Northumberland, John Dudley.

The political and religious climate at this time was one of Protestant reformation and economic instability. Furthermore, the king’s place as ruler was on rocky ground as the ambitious Northumberland moved to secure the future of his family by hastily marrying his son to Henry VIII’s great-niece, Lady Jane Grey, who was widely accepted by the people as heir to the throne. During this time, Edward VI was discovered to be suffering from tuberculosis. Edward, the last Tudor baby to be born, never married and died at the age of fifteen.^[6]

4 Emperor Zhao Bing (1272–1279)

Emperor Bing of Song, born Zhao Bing in 1272 to a concubine of Emperor Duzong, was destined to become the last emperor of China’s Song dynasty. Before holding the title of emperor, he was given the title “Prince of Xin” in 1274, after which it was changed to “Prince of Guang.”

Bent on conquest and glory, Mongol forces led by general Bayan took the Song capital of Lin’an and, with it, the then-Emperor Gong. Gong’s brothers, four-year-old Zhao Bing and Zhao Shi, fled to Jinhua with the help of their officials. There, Zhao Shi was named Grand Marshal, and his brother Zhao Bing, Vice Grand Marshal. By 1276, a seven-year-old Zhao Shi became the new Song emperor, Emperor Duanzong.

General Bayan was determined to rid China of any remaining Song dynasty members and led an attack on Southern China. The Song army hit a major roadblock in this fight as the young Emperor Duanzong would not live past 1278 due to illness. With low morale, the number of Song soldiers started to diminish. Lu Xiufu, one of the officials who previously helped the brothers escape peril, would once again step in and flee with Zhao Bing to Guangzhou, where he would eventually be named emperor.

Facing imminent defeat in 1279 at the hands of the Mongol naval forces, Lu Xiufu took the seven-year-old Emperor Zhao Bing to a cliff and plunged into the depths of the ocean together. With this act, the Song dynasty had come to a tragic end.^[7]

3 Alexios II Komnenos, Byzantine Emperor (1169–1183)

The life of Alexios II was a turbulent one. The future emperor was born in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in 1169. Eleven years later, his father, Manuel I, died, leaving behind his son and Alexios II’s mother, Maria. Because it was determined that the new emperor, Alexios II, was too young to rule, his mother took up the regency alongside Alexios II’s cousin, who also shared the name Alexios.

Turmoil would soon follow as friends of Alexios II attempted a coup intended to secure the young emperor’s place on the throne. In response to the coup attempt, however, rioting took place in Constantinople, and the failed attempt was capitalized upon by Emperor Manuel’s first cousin, Andronikos Komnenos. Andronikos seized control of the Constantinople government, and a slaughter of thousands of Roman Catholic inhabitants ensued.

In a bid to eventually seize power for himself, Andronikos isolated Alexios II by killing his mother, older sister, and his cousin Alexios. What’s worse is that the young emperor was apparently made to forcibly sign off on the death warrants himself. By 1183, Andronikos made himself co-emperor. In October of that year, the plot to gain absolute power came to a head when Andronikos gave the order to assassinate Alexios II. He was strangled to death with a bowstring.^[8]

2 Edward V of England (1470–1483)

Edward was born at Westminster Abbey in 1470, a time when the War of the Roses raged on. In 1471, at a mere one year old, Edward was deemed Prince of Wales by his father, King Edward IV, who was living in Holland in exile at the time. The young prince lived a very strict and structured upbringing as dictated by his father. Receiving an education, exposure to religion, and having positive influences around him were the order of the day. A betrothal to the Duke of Brittany’s young daughter Anne was also arranged as a means of strengthening political and military ties. Sadly, this marriage union would never come to fruition.

At age twelve, Edward learned of the death of his father in April of 1483. The fallen king’s son became King Edward V soon after. The former king’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was appointed Edward’s protector. Conflict soon arose between the protectorate and the royal council, which was mainly comprised of the family of Edward’s mother, the Woodvilles, who wanted the young king to take the throne right away. In reality, the Woodvilles wanted a regency for their own benefit instead of Edward V under the protection of the Duke of Gloucester.

The duke eventually arrested the Woodville leadership and took custody of Edward V and his younger brother, who were taken to the Tower of London. Gloucester later claimed that the marriage of the king’s father was not valid, and the king and his brother were illegitimate. On June 26, parliament declared Gloucester as King Richard III. The young monarch was ruler for a mere two months and seventeen days.

The disappearance of the young king and his brother is shrouded in a cloud of mystery. It is believed that they were murdered at the Tower of London after being held in heavily guarded captivity. Sir Thomas More later wrote that the young king and his brother were smothered to death. In 1674, two remains believed to be that of the boys were discovered by King Charles II and laid to rest at Westminster Abbey.^[9]

1 John I of France (1316)

John I of France goes down in French history as being the youngest to ever hold the title of king, having the shortest recorded reign in French history, and being the only French monarch to have reigned from the day of his birth to his last.

The only son of King Louis X and Clémence of Hungary was born in Paris on November 15, 1316. Because the child king was born after the death of King Louis X, he was known as “John the Posthumous” (Jean le Posthume).

Tragically, John I only lived to see five days on Earth and was dead on November 20. The infant was buried in Saint-Denis Basilica. It is speculated that John I was killed by his uncle and future king Philippe V as a means of gaining power and control of the throne for himself. Other rumors state that Philippe replaced the still-living child with a dead infant. This claim has never been proven. Decades later, a man claimed to be the supposed king John I but was swiftly detained, imprisoned in Naples, and died there.^[10]