The Good, the Bad and the Unready (22 page)

Manuel I, king of Portugal, 1469–1521

As the ninth child of Fernando, the brother of ‘Alfonso the African’, Manuel was fortunate to have reigned at all, but due to some marriages and murders of convenience Manuel found himself succeeding John II as king of Portugal in 1495. It was Manuel’s predecessor who had planned an expedition in search of a sea route to India and had appointed Vasco da Gama to lead it, but fortunately for Manuel, it was under
his
reign that the expedition actually took place. It was fortunate, too, that Vasco da Gama’s friend Peter Alvarez Cabral was put in charge of a fleet destined for India, and that he veered so far west that he landed in Brazil.

These were just two of several voyages of exploration during Manuel’s tenure that heralded the beginning of an era in Portuguese history of unprecedented imperial wealth, power and vitality. By 1503 Manuel enjoyed virtual control of the spice trade, so much so that Francis the
FATHER OF LETTERS
was known to call him ‘the Grocer King’.

Unfortunately, as a direct result of this international expansion, domestic corruption went unchecked and Portugal’s agricultural and industrial welfare was neglected. Manuel’s despotic nature, furthermore, as well as his deceitful kowtowing to the demands of Isabella and Ferdinand (
see
the
CATHOLIC KINGS
) to rid Portugal of its Jewish population, led to untold horrors and the severe depletion of his country’s learning, science and artistry.

Manuel is buried in the Jerónimos Monastery together with Vasco da Gama, the man who principally made his rule, and the lives of many (but certainly not all) of his subjects, so happy.

Henry the
Fowler

Henry I, king of Germany, c.876–936

‘Heinrich der Vogler’ was so named because he was found hunting wildfowl when informed of his election to the throne. Using
this principle, Elizabeth II of Great Britain may (or may not) go down in history as ‘the Rhino Watcher’, as that was her precise activity high in a fig tree at Treetops Hotel in the Aberdare Forest game reserve in Kenya when she became queen.

Merfyn the
Freckled

Merfyn, king of Gwynedd, c.780–844

Merfyn’s spotty face is better known to history than his birthplace. According to bardic tradition, he came from ‘the land of Manaw’, which refers either to the Isle of Man or to a region on the banks of the Forth. Once he had arrived in the Welsh principality, he allied himself to the royal house of Powys by marrying a woman called Nest, and for nineteen years held his position against all rivals and Danish invasion with such authority that, on his death in 844, Merfyn ‘Frych’ was able to hand over the kingdom of Gwynedd to his son ‘Rhodri the Great’ in robust health.

Victor Emmanuel the
Gallant King

Victor Emmanuel II, king of Italy, 1820–78

Victor Emmanuel’s popular nickname was ‘Guaff, in reference to his podgy, upturned nose, but the statesman Massimo d’Azeglio thought this to be no epithet for a monarch, and tried to convince nineteenth-century Europe that he was in fact a
re galantuomo
– a gallant gentleman king. But it was something of an uphill struggle. For while Victor Emmanuel could be charming when he wanted to be, there are ample records of his decidedly ungallant behaviour. At formal banquets, for instance, he would regularly sit in morose silence and not say a word. He was often tactless towards his subjects in central and southern Italy, speaking to them in French, the language of his Piedmont home, rather than in Italian. Moreover, he was notorious for his boasting. Once he bragged to Victoria the
WIDOW OF WINDSOR
that he was a better politician than any of his ministers and that he was writing a book to prove it. In actuality, he was a source of consternation to his entire cabinet and, as one historian has put it, ‘was incapable of writing a single page of literate prose’.

After a predominantly military education, in which his school reports were hardly effusive (Always asleep,’ complained one teacher; ‘Thoroughly bored and indolent,’ wrote another), Victor Emmanuel ascended the throne on the abdication of his distant and unloving father, ‘Charles Albert the Vacillating King’. In a reign almost devoid of honourable actions, one act of ‘gallantry’ is worthy of mention. In 1852 he took the momentous decision of handing the control of the government over to the ambitious and politically astute Count Cavour, whose skilful manoeuvrings over the next few years culminated in Victor Emmanuel’s becoming the first king of a united Italy. This, however, could not diminish the contempt with which he was regarded in certain circles. The British diarist Charles Greville, for instance, thought him to be ‘the most debauched and dissolute fellow in the world’, while the Tuscan politician Baron Ricasoli, who publicly praised his monarch, acknowledged in a private conversation that of the three qualities essential in a good ruler – bravery, honesty and education – Victor Emmanuel lacked them all.

 
Gambaron
see
Robert
CURTHOSE

John of
Gaunt

John, duke of Lancaster, 1340–99