The Good, the Bad and the Unready (51 page)
Read The Good, the Bad and the Unready Online
Authors: Robert Easton
Geoffrey
Plantagenet
Geoffrey V, count of Anjou, 1113–51
Of all the world’s flora, Geoffrey liked to wear a sprig of broom, or
planta genista
, in his cap. His son, who became Henry
CURTMANTLE
of England, inherited the soubriquet, which became the name of the royal dynasty.
Lady Wu the
Poisoner
Wu Hou, empress of China, 625–705
The winsome Wu arrived in court in 638 and joined the corps of junior concubines. Driven by insatiable imperial ambition, however, she soon rose out of servile anonymity and into the history books as one of the most powerful – and most barbarous – figures of the Tang dynasty.
Her first step to achieve her dynastic ambition was to strangle her own baby and pin the murder on a rival. She then gradually won the affections of the new emperor, Kao Tsung, and eventually became his favourite concubine. But being someone’s plaything was not for Wu, and she contrived to achieve the top position in the land, whatever the cost. On her way to power, she is said to have:
• poisoned a sister, a niece and a son
• forced another son to hang himself
• had four grandchildren whipped to death
• ordered the execution of two stepsons, and sixteen of their male heirs
• killed four daughters-in-law, one by starvation
• executed thirty-six government officials and generals and
• overseen the slaughter of 3,000 families.
Once enthroned in 660, the new empress lost little time in exacting revenge on those who had opposed her elevation. The former empress Wang and the senior concubine were singled out for special treatment, being mercilessly flogged, dismembered and then tossed into a vat full of wine to die.
With the emperor frequently ill, and politically inferior, Wu enjoyed absolute control, styling herself among other things as ‘Holy Mother’ and ‘Divine Sovereign’. And she ran China with consummate ability, encouraging agricultural advancement, independent thinking and commercial efficiency. China had not been so prosperous – or so peaceful – for generations.
The Popish and Protestant Dukes
James II, king of England and Ireland, and VII, king of Scotland, 1633–1701
James Scott, first duke of Monmouth, 1649–85
During the Civil War, James, the duke of York, holed up in France, and he only returned to England when the Commonwealth under
NOSE ALMIGHTY
had foundered and James’s brother, Charles the
MERRY MONARCH
, had been restored to power. Assessing his qualities in comparison with those of his older brother, the English found James to be distinctly second best. Whereas Charles was jolly and genial, James was grindingly dull.
But it was his lack of religious tolerance rather than his lack of personality that infuriated a nation and eventually brought about his downfall. James converted to Catholicism in 1670, a fact made public knowledge three years later, when he resigned as Lord High Admiral in opposition to the Test Act, a bill that prevented Catholics from holding positions of authority. From this moment on, the heir apparent was known scathingly by many of his future subjects as ‘the Popish Duke’. Things got worse for James in 1678 when an anti-Catholic protester called Titus Oates stated under oath that he had uncovered a massive plot to murder Charles and to replace him with James and his Catholic supporters. While most of Oates’s charges were utter fabrication, they nevertheless fuelled anti-papal sentiment, and in 1685, when Charles died and James ascended the throne, opinions on having a Catholic English monarch polarized a nation.
On the one hand there were the king and his followers. On the other were Protestants who claimed that Charles’s illegitimate son James, the first duke of Monmouth, was the rightful heir. Monmouth – dubbed ‘the Protestant Duke’ to balance the king’s epithet – led a military campaign to seize power. The rebellion was quickly snuffed out, however, as was Monmouth, who was captured and beheaded.
King James forged ahead with his mission to make England Catholic. With what some consider recklessness, he promoted his religious friends to positions of importance and had the ‘Bloody Assizes’ punish any Protestants who dared to rebel. When in 1688 James’s wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a boy and thus put paid to any hopes that the crown would pass to the Protestant children of James’s first marriage, Parliament invited the Protestant William of Orange and his wife, Mary, to save England from a Catholic future. James and his family fled to France where they nurtured their son James the
WARMING-PAN BABY
to become a pretender to the English throne.
Poor Fred
Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, 1707–51
When they came to England in 1714, the future king George the
GREAT PATRON OF MANKIND
and Princess Caroline of Ansbach left their seven-year-old son in Germany and did not see him again until he arrived in England in 1728 as a grown man. By then they had had more children, and they rejected Frederick
both as a son and as a person, referringto him as a ‘foundling’ and nicknaming him ‘Griff’ because he had the appearance of the ugly mythical beast the griffin. Poor Fred.
Frederick incurred the wrath of his father over his womanizing and wastrel ways. He also incurred the wrath of his mother to the point that she is reported to have said about him, ‘That wretch! That villain! I wish the ground would open at this moment and sink the monster to the lowest hole in hell!’ Poor Fred.
Living in virtual exile with his wife, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, with whom he had eight children, including Farmer
GEORGE
, Frederick, unlike his father, madean attempt to assimilate himself into English life. He studied the rules of cricket and, although not a proficient player himself, became a committed patron of the game. It is alleged that during a match a ball struck him on the head and killed him. Poor Fred.
He is buried at Westminster Abbey. Not found on his tomb is the popular anonymous epigram that was written shortly after his death:
Here lies poor Fred
Who was alive, and is dead
Had it been his father
I had much rather.
Charles the
Pope’s Errand-Boy
see
Charles the
PARSON’S EMPEROR
James the
Popish Duke
see
the
POPISH AND PROTESTANT DUKES
John the
Posthumous
John I, king of France, 1316
Official histories record that John was the posthumous son of Louis the
QUARRELLER
and lived only five days before being succeeded by his uncle, ‘Philip the Tall’. Unofficial and more colourful histories state that barons loyal to the king, fearing Philip would murder him, substituted a dead child in his cot and whisked him off to Siena. There, Giannino Baglioni, as he was known, became a merchant banker, but was killed soon after he was informed of his true identity.
Ptolemy the
Pot-Bellied
see
POTLEMAIC KINGS