The Good, the Bad and the Unready (46 page)
Read The Good, the Bad and the Unready Online
Authors: Robert Easton
Charles the
Most Christian King
see
Charles the
BALD
Maria the
Mother of Her Country
Maria Theresa, archduchess of Austria and queen of Hungary and Bohemia, 1717–80
When she came to the Austrian throne in 1740, Maria Theresa found the national coffers nearly empty, the army savagely depleted, and her own knowledge of state affairs limited at best. Most of the first fifteen years of her reign, therefore, were spent learning statecraft, implementing tax reforms and doubling the size of a military that saw considerable action against her main adversary, Frederick the
GREAT
. In 1763 Maria Theresa signed a treaty that ended all hostilities and recognized Prussian possession of Silesia.
Two years later, however, the sudden death of her husband, Francis Stephen – a man whom she truly loved – turned her life upside down. From then on, Maria Theresa was alone. And so, relying on her maternal instincts, she treated her nation as an only child.
First, she arranged marriages for her real children in the best interests of Austria; a major coup was the union between her teenage daughter Marie and Louis XVI
(see
the
BAKER AND THE BAKER’S WIFE
). Next, she bolstered the nation’s cultural programmes by becoming a visible as well as a vocal patron of Austria’s arts and sciences. Third, she reformed what she deemed to be a nation in moral delinquency, abolishing the gaming laws as well as the right of sanctuary. Meanwhile, her notorious ‘
Sittenkommission
, sometimes referred to as the ‘chastity police’, made strict demands on her people: a woman baring an ankle could end up in jail, and a woman walking unescorted through
the streets of Vienna at night risked being sent to a rehabilitation camp for prostitutes.
Absolute and authoritarian she may have been, but Maria Theresa was a generous and loving mother figure to her country and provided a solid platform for the continuation of the Habsburg Dynasty into the modern age.
Mrs Brown
see
Victoria the
WIDOW OF WINDSOR
Mrs Freeman
see
QUEEN SARAH
Mrs Morley
see
QUEEN SARAH
Kamehameha the
Napoleon of the Pacific
see
Kamehameha the
GREAT
Henry the
Navigator
Henry, prince of Portugal, 1394–1460
Henry’s nickname of ‘the Navigator’ was first given general currency in the nineteenth century. In a work of 1842 the German geographical statistician J. E. Wappaus describes the prince as ‘Heinrich der Seefahrer’. It is a misnomer. Henry was actually something of a landlubber, orchestrating the maritime expeditions of others rather than taking to the seas himself.
Henry, the fourth son of ‘John the Bastard’, was a pious man. He took a vow of celibacy, often wore a hair shirt and became governor of the military Order of Christ, a sort of Portuguese successor to the Knights Templar. He was also a rich man, controlling the nation’s tuna-fishing and soap-production industries. In the 1440s he used his wealth to sponsor a number of expeditions along the west coast of Africa in the hope that something might be discovered – perhaps even a new source of gold – that would make him even richer. To further his ambitions, he expanded his home in Sagres on the south-west tip of Portugal to include a shipbuilding yard and a centre devoted to cartography, navigation and exploration.
In 1441 his ship literally came in when a Portuguese vessel returned from sub-Saharan Africa with a small amount of gold. By 1452 African trade was flourishing and enough gold had been shipped back to fund several major journeys of exploration and bring about Portugal’s transformation from a small European country into a significant colonial empire.
Noble Professions
In addition to such luminaries as Albert the
ASTROLOGER
and
FARMER GEORGE
, several royals appear in the history books with a professional soubriquet. This appears to be an exclusively male preserve: for an act of domestic policy and for his hobby, for example, Louis XVI of France is known by the two nicknames ‘the Baker’ and ‘the Locksmith King’; Marie Antoinette, on the other hand, is popularly labelled, not for her actions or interests, but for her affiliation to her husband (
see
the
BAKER AND THE BAKER’S WIFE
). As can be seen by the sample below, not all nicknames are to be taken at face value.
Henry Beauclerc
Henry I, king of England, 1069–1135
As the youngest son of William the
CONQUEROR
, Henry was singled out for a life in the Church and accordingly was given an excellent education, leading to his nickname of ‘Beauclerc’, meaning ‘fine scholar’. With the convenient death of William
RUFUS
, and the absence abroad of his brother Robert
CURTHOSE
, the scholar exchanged the confines of his study for the court.
David the Builder
David, king of Georgia, 1073–1125
In 1121 David liberated the city of Tblisi after more than four centuries of Arab rule and, by means of a massive reconstruction policy, rapidly transformed it into a cosmopolitan metropolis at the centre of a trade route linking Europe with Asia.
Leo the Butcher
Leo II, Roman emperor of the East, c.401–74
Leo was a butcher of people rather than of meat for the table. This lifelong soldier showed his violent streak soon after his coronation by killing anyone who opposed his replacement of the patriarch called ‘Timothy the Cat’ with one disarmingly called ‘Timothy Wobble-Hat’. Later, he was not above butchering his own son Patricius to maintain power.
Michael the Caulker
Michael V, Byzantine emperor, d.c.1042
As far as we know, Michael never caulked in his life – not even once
– since in an odd transplant of nomenclature he was nicknamed after his father’s profession, that of sealing ships’ hulls to ensure that they stayed watertight.
Denis the Farmer
Denis, king of Portugal, 1261–1325
The sheer energy of Denis’s agricultural reforms impressed his subjects into giving him the epithet ‘o Lavrador’. His greatest legacy was the planting of the ‘Pinhal de Leiria’, a pine forest protecting fields of crops from advancing coastal sands.
Alfonso the Monk
Alfonso IV, king of Asturias and Leon, d.933
Called to the monastic life, Alfonso abdicated the throne in favour of his brother Ramiro. Within a few years, however, secular temptations proved too great, and when Ramiro was away on a raiding expedition, Alfonso slung his habit to one side and tried to seize the throne. The attempted coup failed, and Alfonso was blinded.
Sancho the Settler
Sancho I, king of Portugal, 1154–1211
Wars with the Moors had left much of twelfth-century Portugal a wasteland. Sancho ‘o Povoador’ spent much time and effort in restoring and repopulating the country, especially in the Algarve.
Robert the Steward
Robert II, king of Scotland, 1316–90
In the same vein as Michael the
CAULKER
(
see above
), Robert’s epithet alludes to his father’s profession rather than to his own. Robert was the son of Walter, the sixth high steward of Scotland, and of Margery, the daughter of Robert the
BRUCE
. His red eyes and feeble appearance gave rise to his other nickname, Auld Blearie’.
Theobald the Troubadour
Theobald, king of Navarre, 1201–53
Gertrude, Agnes and Margaret, Theobald’s three successive wives, all had their charms, but his one and only true love was Blanche of Castile, the wife of Louis the
LION
. Theobald ‘le Chansonnier’ composed dozens of songs in her honour, including one in which he writes of the values of platonic versus physical love by referring to an old hag’s crotch and his own pot belly.