The Good, the Bad and the Unready (57 page)

 
Arthur the
Saviour of the Nations
see
Arthur the
IRON DUKE

Francis the
Scarred

Francis, second duke of Guise, 1519–63

Adored by his troops and feared by his enemies, Francis fought in the army of Francis the
FATHER OF LETTERS
and received the scar that won him his nickname at the siege of Boulogne in 1545. Later, in 1552, he distinguished himself at the defence of Metz against the emperor Charles the
HARLEQUIN
, but in 1563 was mortally wounded by a Huguenot assassin as he prepared to besiege Orleans.

Henry the
Scarred

Henry I, third duke of Guise, 1550–88

In a remarkable, indeed unique, father-and-son nickname double, Henry, son of Francis the
SCARRED
, also received a massive scar in battle and won the nickname ‘le Balafre’ for his injuries. His scar was from a frightful gash to his face that he received at the battle of Dormans in 1577. Henry was assassinated by the bodyguard of Henry the
MAN-MILLINER
, who stabbed him to death, burned his body and flung his ashes into the Loire. Like his father, then, Henry lived by the sword, was nicknamed by the sword and died by the sword.

John the
Scot

John, Irish nobleman,
fl
. ninth century

John’s full name of ‘John Scotus Eriugena’ helps to explain this anomaly of nomenclature, since the latter two words go some way to identify the Irishman’s place of origin. In the ninth century the Latin word
Scotus
rather unhelpfully meant both ‘Irish’ and ‘Scottish’ depending on the circumstances.
Eriugena
, however,
was far more specific. It is a word that appears to have been concocted by John himself, meaning ‘born in Ireland, or Erin’.

John, who was well known for his humorous banter, was a companion, chamberlain and adviser on theological matters to Charles the
BALD
. Once, writes the chronicler William of Malmesbury, Charles and John were sitting at a table, both having eaten and drunk to excess. Seeing John do something that mildly offended French taste, Charles rebuked him, saying, ‘What separates a drunkard from a Scot?’ to which the wag John replied, ‘Just a table.’

Eventually John tired of the French court and came to the court of Alfred the
GREAT
in England, where he became a tutor, his students including the young prince himself. His teaching clearly did not go down as well as his jokes, since a few years later some of his pupils stabbed him to death with their pens.

Attila the
Scourge of God

Attila, king of the Huns, 406–53

To the Romans and Greeks, the Huns were an ugly bunch. The fifth-century Roman Ammianus Marcellinus compared them with the ‘stumps, rough hewn… that are used in putting sides into bridges’. Attila, their short and swarthy king, with his beady eyes, big head and flat nose, was no exception.

To historians of the time, Attila was more than just physically unattractive. According to many religious sources, he was ‘Flagel-lum Dei’, or ‘the Scourge of God’, while pagan chronicles dubbed him ‘the Terror of the World’. These grim epithets stemmed from the apparent barbarism of the Scythian hordes as they overwhelmed much of Europe. Attila and his men ravaged vast areas between the Rhine and the Caspian Sea, exacted draconian tributes from the emperor ‘Theodosius the Calligrapher’, and even invaded Italy, sacking modern-day Padua, Verona and Milan.

A Greek writer called Priscus visited the court of Attila and sat and ate at a banquet with him in 448. His description of the event suggests that by then the Scourge of God was not the
fearsome monster portrayed by earlier chroniclers. ‘In everything,’ Priscus recalls, ‘Attila showed himself temperate – his cup was of wood, while to the guests were given goblets of gold and silver. His dress, too, was quite simple, affecting only to be clean.’

Charles the
Scourge of God
see
Charles the
AFFABLE

Charles
A Second Charlemagne
see
Charles the
HARLEQUIN

Sancho the
Settler
see
NOBLE PROFESSIONS

Wilfrid the
Shaggy

Wilfrid, founding father of Catalan political independence, d.897

En route to the Carolingian court, Wilfrid’s father, also called Wilfrid, was killed during a brawl with some Frankish soldiers. In outrage, Wilfrid junior, described in the twelfth-century
Gesta Comitum Barcinonensium
as ‘the Shaggy’ or ‘the Hairy’ owing to the unusually luxuriant growth of hair on his body, made for Charles’s court to demand revenge. And so it was that Wilfrid the Shaggy came face to face with Charles the
BALD
. Little is known of the conversation except that Charles apologized profusely.

According to the
Gesta
, Wilfrid was the proud founder of Catalonia and, like many of his regional contemporaries, defended his territories against Muslim aggression and strove to repopulate deserted territory. Wilfrid continued to show family loyalty when he founded and endowed two monasteries and named his own children as abbot and abbess.