The Good, the Bad and the Unready (28 page)

Many scholars consider this story of Cyrus’s childhood to
be nothing more than formulaic legend. Generally accepted, however, is that Cyrus did indeed go on to overthrow his grandfather sometime between 559 BC and 549 BC, and in so doing united the two tribes of the Medes and the Persians. This consolidation of forces gave rise to what we now know as the Persian Empire, a vast domain that expanded dramatically as Cyrus went on to subdue Lydia in Asia Minor and the kingdom of Babylonia.

Although Cyrus is hailed as a great territorial conqueror, his soubriquet ‘the Great’ is most fitting for the tolerance and mercy he showed towards those he defeated. The Bible, for instance, records his kind treatment of those he captured at Babylon, and how he ensured the safe passage of all the Jewish captives back to their homeland. Cyrus himself saw his achievements as informed by his Zoroastrian belief in religious tolerance. ‘I am Cyrus, King of the World,’ he wrote on a large clay cylinder now housed in the British Library. ‘When I entered Babylon I did not allow anyone to terrorize the land. I kept in view the needs of its people and all its sanctuaries to promote their well being. I put an end to their misfortune.’

Xenophon writes that Cyrus dictated a long will before dying in his bed. But this, like much surrounding the story of his birth, is hogwash. Cyrus died while fighting a war on his eastern frontier. His distraught soldiers carried the body of their beloved king over a thousand miles back home.

 
Frederick the
Great

Frederick II, king of Prussia, 1712–86

Frederick the Great remains one of the most famous German rulers of all time, both for his military successes and for his domestic reforms. An absolute ruler who nevertheless lived under the principle that he was
‘der erste Diener meines Staates
(‘the first servant of my state’), he hauled Prussia up by its lapels and turned a sleepy backwater into one of the most dynamic European nations.

Lauded for promoting the benefits of taking a deep pride in one’s work (his own work ethic bordered on the fanatical) Frederick made Prussia a kinder, gentler nation. He overhauled the outdated judicial system, abolished torture, codified the legal system and lifted stifling constraints upon the press and religions. Culturally, he was acclaimed for his support of the arts. He was himself something of a poet and, until his teeth fell out, he played the flute with a passion, entertaining foreign diplomats with his own compositions. His musical tastes, meanwhile, like his style of government, were absolute. C. P. E. Bach was exalted and a court favourite; Mozart and Haydn were ‘degenerate’.

Prussia’s territorial expansion and increased prestige on the European stage are the main factors behind Frederick’s nickname. His successful opposition to larger forces in the Seven Years War (helped undoubtedly by the death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia) and his seizure of the Austrian province of Silesia (even though this was in flagrant breach of an established treaty) ensured Prussia’s growth and the warm-hearted nickname given to him by the Germans of ‘der Alte Fritz’, or ‘Old Fritz’.

The French were more reserved in their nicknames for him. At the outset of his reign some derisively dubbed him ‘le Sablon-nier’, or ‘the Sand Dealer’, since so much of the land he inherited was desolate and sandy. Voltaire, meanwhile, with whom Frederick had a love/hate relationship, nicknamed him Alaric-Cotin’. This is damning with faint praise, since the original Alaric was a ferocious fifth-century Visigoth king, while Charles Cotin was a sixteenth-century poet whose output was decidedly second-rate.

 
Henry the
Great

Henry IV, king of France, 1553–1610

A short, none-too-fragrant, lecherous old man with bad teeth and thick spectacles hardly seems the stuff of legend, let alone worthy of the name ‘the Great’, but to this day Henry IV is one of France’s most loved monarchs.

No contemporary achieved more than Henry. His war against Spain and his international political manoeuvring gained France independence and some new territory. His founding of new industries, construction of a new highway system and expansion of foreign trade transformed a bankrupt nation into a financial force to be reckoned with. His religious tolerance and working motto that ‘there should be a chicken in every peasant’s pot every Sunday’, meanwhile, won the acclaim of a grateful people.

But it is as much for his colourful personal life as for his public persona that he is remembered: Henry would hunt during the day, gorge himself during the evening, and wench at night; he was so small that he always needed a mounting block to climb a horse; he was so fond of food, especially oysters and melons, that he often suffered agonizing bouts of indigestion; and he was so sexually prolific that he suffered almost permanently from one venereal disease or another.

Of his sixty or so mistresses, the most famous was Gabrielle d’Estrées (known as ‘la Belle Gabrielle’), who called her lover ‘Mon Soldat’. Just how she could be so close to ‘My Soldier’ defies comprehension. Like James the
WISEST FOOL IN CHRISTENDOM
, Henry had no time for personal hygiene, and it is no surprise to learn that on her wedding night Marie de Medici drenched herself in scent. Although widespread, the story that Henry chewed garlic like sweets, so much so that he once felled an ox at twenty paces, is sadly apocryphal. It is attested, however, that he did have a fondness for onion soup.

Smelly and shabby he may have been, but he also possessed a charm that proved irresistible. Romantic (he once paused in the middle of a battle to write a love letter), courageous (‘le Roi
des Braves’ –‘ the King of Brave Men’ –fought in more than 200 battles and skirmishes), cultured (he had a passion for cartography and garden design) and brusque (‘I rule with my arse in the saddle and a gun in my fist,’ he once declared), Henry embodied many Gallic qualities. And a nation loved him.

Iyasu the
Great

Iyasu I, emperor of Ethiopia, d.1706

Like his predecessors, Iyasu was a military man, leading his troops in nearly a dozen campaigns to compel warring clans to lay down their arms and work towards a unified kingdom. But what made Iyasu’s reign unusual – what earned him the nickname ‘the Great’ –was his conduct off the battlefield: Iyasu was passionate about financial and administrative reform. He improved the country’s judicial system, reorganized the way in which taxes were imposed and collected, and enhanced trade, in part by relaxing the rigidly anti-European policy of his forebears.

Iyasu suffered from a mystery skin disease, and one of the first Europeans to visit his court was a French physician named Charles Poncet, who arrived c.1700 to treat him. Poncet reported that, in addition to Iyasu’s famed military prowess, the monarch did indeed have other great qualities: a ‘quick and piercing wit, a sweet and affable humour [and]… an extraordinary love of justice which he carried out with exactness’. Before long, the emperor was completely cured of his troublesome condition and Iyasu was so pleased with Poncet that he gave him some slaves and a young elephant to take home.

Kamehameha the
Great

Kamehameha I, king of Hawaii, 1758–1819

During her pregnancy with him, Kamehameha’s mother had a craving to eat the eyeball of a chief. That particular delicacy being unavailable, she munched instead on the eyeball of a man-eating shark, a dish that led local priests to prophesy that
the child would become a killer of chiefs. Alapainui, the chief of Hawaii at the time and the unborn child’s grandfather, was understandably worried and hurriedly arranged to have the newborn baby killed. The child, named Paiea, was whisked away at birth, however, and only returned to his grandfather’s household five years later when Alapainui had forgotten his fears. There, little Paiea was noted as a joyless, sullen boy and was given the new name ‘Kamehameha’, meaning ‘the Lonely One’.

As an adult Kamehameha became chief of the northern half of the island of Hawaii, but eventually, thanks in part to the counsel of one wife, who was 6 feet tall and weighed 300 pounds, and the presence of another, a frail 11-year-old whom he married for political reasons, he brought the entire island chain of Hawaii under his control. The islands managed to retain their independence by implementing the policy of denying any
haoles
(white men) the right to own land, but this did not prevent Hawaiians under Kamehameha from welcoming foreign visitors and their innovations, such as coffee, pineapples and, rather more sinis-terly, muskets. Aided by these guns, Kamehameha became a ‘great’ conqueror, and his military achievements (though not his size) earned him comparison with his French contemporary and the nickname ‘the Napoleon of the Pacific’.

Llewellyn the
Great