The Good, the Bad and the Unready (56 page)

Otto
Rufus
see
Otto the
BLOODY

William
Rufus

William II, king of England, c.1056–1100

In the summer of 1100 a charcoal burner was travelling through the New Forest when he happened across the still-warm body of his king. Reverently he lugged it on to his cart and hauled it to Winchester, where it was buried with due, but not elaborate,
ceremony. The nation hardly shed a tear for their mean, selfish and now-dead king.

In life William had been a cruel and coarse dandy of a man who had little taste for anything beyond hunting and military exercise, and who alarmed many of his subjects with his crass ostentation. Once, for example, when one of his chamberlains produced a new pair of shoes for him, William asked what they had cost. ‘Three shillings!’ he exclaimed. ‘You son of a whore! Since when has a king worn shoes as cheap as those! Go and buy me some for a mark of silver!’ The chamberlain duly left court, but went and bought a second, equally priced, pair of shoes and lied that they had indeed cost a mark.

William may well have thought that he cut a dash, what with his shoes, fashionable clothing and long hair with its centre parting, but all his subjects saw was a short, stocky, pot-bellied tyrant, a vain, blasphemous cynic whose only notable features were his red hair (for which he received the moniker ‘Rufus’) and his ruddy complexion, which became particularly inflamed when he was excited.

With tolerable certainty we can accept that a nobleman called Walter Tirel fired the arrow that killed William. Whether it was deliberate or an accident, with the arrow first glancing off a hart and then ricocheting off a tree before ending up in the king, is a matter for debate.

William the
Sailor King

William IV, king of England, 1765–1837

In 1779, at the age of fourteen, William went to sea. Starting as a humble able seaman, he rose through the ranks, seeing action off Cape St Vincent, participating in the relief of Gibraltar and serving under Nelson in the West Indies. In 1788 he took command of his own frigate.

Like many a sailor, William had a girl in every port. His ‘best girl’ was actress Dorothea Jordan, with whom he lived for twenty years, but he left her when she took to the bottle. At the age of sixty-five he finally added the title of ‘King’ to that of ‘Lord High Admiral’. By now the former sailor appeared, at least from a distance, like a respectable old admiral. When one came nearer, however, it was obvious that this garrulous, undignified grouch with a curiously pear-shaped head had neither the bearing nor manners of a grand old man of the sea. William drank and gambled to excess, spat in public and was considered to be extremely dim.

In polite circles William may have been called ‘the Sailor King’, but popularly he was known as ‘Silly Billy’. Once, it is alleged, he was visiting Bedlam asylum for the insane when a patient pointed at him and yelled out, ‘Silly Billy! Silly Billy!’ The name stuck.

George the
Sailor Prince

George V, king of England, 1865–1936

The fifteen years that Prince George spent as a naval officer on HMS
Britannia
and
HMS
Bacchante
were the making of him as king. Fifteen years of discipline, doing what he was told and
saluting others instead of being saluted himself moulded him into a young man with a categorical sense of duty.

George had no desire to be king, but on the death of his elder brother Albert (known as ‘Eddy’ to the family) he was prepared to live the life that a nation expected of him. Although a private man, preferring stamp collecting to public display, he visited the Grand Fleet no fewer than five times during the First World War, and made even more visits to his army.

‘The Sailor Prince’ will always be associated with the seaside resort of Bognor Regis in West Sussex. In 1928 George spent some weeks in Bognor recuperating after a severe bout of septicaemia. Eight years later as he lay dying, his wife, Queen Mary, suggested he might visit the town again. George’s reply was ‘Bugger Bognor!’ –allegedly his last words.

Erik the
Saint

Erik IX, king of Sweden, d.1160

Under the guidance of an Englishman called Henry who became the first bishop of Uppsala, Erik strove to promote his Christian faith among the Swedes. He erected churches, appointed preachers and, notably, promoted marriage as an institution in which wives as well as husbands had a right to family property. Using evangelical methods similar to those of ‘Vladimir the Great’ (
see
Great… but
NOT THAT GREAT
), he led an expedition to Finland where he forced the inhabitants, at the point of a sword, to be baptized.

Back home in Uppsala, Erik was on his way home after hearing Mass when a Danish prince hacked him to death, and it is widely held that a spring immediately appeared on the very spot where he was murdered. Almost overnight his bones became an object of veneration, and ‘St Erik’ became the patron saint of Sweden. A statue of the holy king – a young knight carrying the sword and banner of the realm – became an obligatory accessory in all churches, a memorial to a pious monarch and a symbol of dawning nationalism.

 
Louis the
Saint

Louis IX, king of France, 1214–70

In his
Life of Saint Louis
, John, lord of Joinville, writes of the king’s considerable wisdom, a trait for which many dubbed him ‘the Solomon of France’. The tall, good-humoured Louis would often hold court in the wood at Vincennes, where, leaning against an oak tree, he would listen to people’s complaints and administer justice, a practice that won him considerable public acclaim. But it is for his piety and religious devotion that he is most remembered.

In moral uprightness Louis led by example. He heard Mass daily, and the sermons that he loved to hear inspired him to go on crusades, during which his sufferings merely increased his faith. Back in France he upbraided John of Joinville for saying that he would rather commit thirty mortal sins than become a leper, and indeed Louis shocked his subjects by publicly kissing lepers’ hands. In 1254 he passed laws making blasphemy, gambling and prostitution criminal offences.

Some thought such piety unbecoming in a king. His simple attire of woollen tunic and sleeveless jacket was deemed too modest for a monarch, while his lavish generosity to the Church and the poor was considered unattractive self-aggrandizement. Soft-spoken Louis, canonized less than thirty years after his death, took such complaints in his stride. ‘I would rather have such excessive sums as I spend,’ he countered, ‘devoted to almsgiving for the love of God than used in empty ostentation and the vanities of this world.’

Frederick the
Sand Dealer
see
Frederick the
GREAT

Ptolemy the
Saviour
see
PTOLEMAIC KINGS