The Good, the Bad and the Unready (25 page)

René I, duke of Anjou and king of Sicily, 1409–80

Once upon a time there lived a king called René. His subjects loved him and called him ‘Good King Rene’, not only because he was kind and generous but also because he was the stuff of legend: a romantic dreamer in love with the chivalric ideal; a courageous soldier who wrote love poems and adventure stories; and a man who (in a reverse of fairy-tale convention) was rescued from prison in a high tower by a gallant and brave woman.

After fighting alongside Joan of Arc, ‘the Maid of Orléans’, in the army of his brother-in-law ‘Charles the Victorious’, René fought for the right to inherit the duchy of Lorraine, but lost, ending up in Philip the
GOOD’S
fortress at Dijon. Once imprisoned in the high tower of the chateau, René developed an interest in art, painting miniatures on glass (possibly under the tutelage of the Dutch master Jan van Eyck) and decorating one of the rooms in the castle. But while René experimented with interior design, his young wife Isabel feverishly (and eventually successfully) campaigned for his release.

Once free, René spent four fruitless years battling against ‘Alfonso the Magnanimous’ for the kingdom of Naples. Eventually he cut his losses, headed back to France and established a
brilliant court at Angers, where he indulged his love of Arthurian chivalry and courtly splendour; feasts, mystery plays and minstrelsy were crowned by the heroics of the tournament, an event so adored by Rene that he wrote a handbook on the subject, the magnificently illustrated
Manual for the Perfect Organization of Tourneys
. When his beloved Isabel died, Rene was inconsolable, though only for a year, after which he became smitten with the very plain and very pious Jeanne of Laval, the daughter of a Breton nobleman, for whom he wrote a 10,000-verse pastoral love poem. The once-storybook prince spent his sunset years as a living legend, one of the last representatives of medieval chivalry and culture, concentrating on his poetry and his art. Fittingly for such a man of romance, ‘Rene d’Anjou’ is the name of a rather lovely pink rose.

Good Queen Bess

Elizabeth I, queen of England, 1533–1603

Even those who disliked Elizabeth had to admit that she possessed a special aura. The slim, pale monarch inherited the magnetism of her father,
BLUFF KING HAL
, and the sheer presence of her mother, Anne the
GREAT WHORE
, and court and public alike were dazzled by their fascinating and attractive queen. She did have some detractors – a dissident named Edward Deering once famously used a sermon to denounce her as An Untamed Heifer’ –but in the main Elizabeth was immensely popular. Soon after her coronation in 1559 her subjects dubbed their new monarch ‘Gloriana’ and ‘Good Queen Bess’.

Elizabeth loved pearls above all precious stones and wore them in necklaces, bracelets and earrings, as well as on her clothing and in her hair. It was an appropriate gem for two reasons. First, Elizabeth was commonly known as ‘the Queen of the Sea’ since, like her father, she had a passion for all things maritime and, once the Spanish Armada had been destroyed, effectively ruled the waves. Second, pearls were a symbol of virginity, and as well as playing the virginal excellently (she was
an accomplished performer of pieces by composers such as Byrd and Tallis) Elizabeth played her role as ‘the Virgin Queen’ very finely too. Some questioned her right to this title, facetiously conferring upon her the nickname ‘the World’s Wonder’. On the other hand her court favourite Walter Raleigh went so far as to name a territory in North America ‘Virginia’ in her honour.

As the years rolled on, the good Elizabeth had to work hard to maintain her appearance. She used a solution containing egg white, borax and poppy seed to keep her skin white, and would rub urine on to her face to prevent wrinkles. There was little she could do about her teeth, however: owing to her love for sugar, they turned rotten and black.

James the
Good Regent

James Stewart, first earl of Moray, c.1531–70

The historian P. Hume Brown writes that soon after James’s death ‘men spoke of Moray with affection and reverence as “the Good Regent”.’ Later generations, it seems, have cooled somewhat in their appreciation of this son of James the
ILL-BELOVED
, principally because of his conduct towards his half-sister Mary the
MERMAID
.

In 1565 James found himself out of favour and indeed out of Scotland for his vehement opposition to Mary’s marriage to the swaggering Lord Darnley. Mary soon forgave him, however, and welcomed him back into her court, apparently unaware of the part he had played in the murder of David Rizzio, one of her chief counsellors.

It was when Mary abdicated in 1567, however, and James became regent, that his true allegiances came to the fore. To the dismay of Mary, James not only forced her to flee south of the border after the defeat of her Catholic forces at the battle of Langside but also did everything in his power to perpetuate her incarceration there, giving his full support to Mary and Darnley’s son, the young Protestant James the
WISEST FOOL IN CHRISTENDOM
.

With Mary incapacitated, James instigated a series of religious
reforms that ensured the success of the Reformation in Scotland. To some, therefore, he was a hero. To others he was a traitor, and on a cold January morning in 1570 James was murdered in what is the first recorded assassination with a firearm.

The
Good Sir James
see
James the
BLACK DOUGLAS

Duncan the
Gracious

Duncan I, king of Scotland, c.1001–40

History, perhaps sarcastically, has given King Duncan I the epithet ‘the Gracious’, and in his play
Macbeth
William Shakespeare has two characters (a nobleman called Lennox and Macbeth himself) acknowledge him as such. Shakespeare portrays Duncan as a grey-haired elderly king, but here the bard is playing fast and loose with the historical record, for in truth Duncan was in his early thirties when he came to the throne and, far from being mild-mannered, was regarded as impetuous and arrogant. Part of his unpopularity may have stemmed from his marriage to a cousin of Siward, the earl of Northumberland, and his attempt to introduce English ways into the Scottish court.

As a military man he was useless. He was defeated in battle by his cousin Thorfinn, the earl of Orkney, suffered heavy losses in a fruitless siege of Durham, and finally was hacked down by Macbeth at the battle of Pitgaveny. Of the very few who mourned his passing was his son Malcolm
BIGHEAD
, who avenged his death by killing Macbeth in 1057.

 
Victoria the
Grandmother of Europe
see
Victoria the
WIDOW OF WINDSOR

Akbar the
Great

Akbar, emperor of India, 1542–1605

In 1556, when only thirteen, Akbar ascended the Mughal throne when his father, Humayun, descended a flight of stairs faster than he would have wished, and died. Akbar defeated three challengers to his office and conquered or annexed (among others) Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bengal and Kashmir, so that the Mughal Empire under him covered the entire Hindustan plain, from the Indus in the west, to the Ganges in the east, and the Himalayas in the north.

In order to govern this vastly increased territory successfully, Akbar developed a bureaucracy second to none. Military governors were put in charge of autonomous imperial provinces, and tax collection was ruthlessly efficient. Alert, meanwhile, to the fact that no Muslim Empire in India would survive without the support of the majority Hindus, he went out of his way to win their favour. This he achieved, in part, by encouraging inter-faith discourse, employing a large number of Hindus in his civil service and, out of some 5,000 wives, electing a Hindu woman to become the mother of his successor. Some historians have acclaimed him as ‘the Guardian of Mankind’ owing to his promotion of equal justice for all, and for the care he showed for his subjects. An example of his generosity to his people was his compilation of a library of some 24,000 books, even though he himself was illiterate.