It is said that power often makes people delusional. Well, that is not it. Power also apparently makes them twisted, unhygienic, disgusting, and disturbing. Don’t take our word, read about these royals from the past and decide for yourself.
1. Nero, the Roman emperor who executed his mother and killed his wife. Moreover, he allegedly married his slave because he bore resemblance to another one of the king’s better-halves. Who also Nero had killed.
Clearly, the guy had issues. He got his mother executed because she was apparently interfering with his business as a ruler and had promoted his step-brother as the heir to the throne. (His mother, in turn, had also poisoned two husbands but that’s for later). Nero got married to his step-sister Octavia, who he also executed. Later, he tied the knot with a woman named Sabrina but killed her too. Apparently, though, he still loved her and married a slave who bore resemblance to her.
Umm…
2. Vlad III, or Vlad the Impaler, who – as the name suggests – impaled armies which lost to him. In fact, he is the person on whom the popular character, Dracula, is based. Vlad was called the ‘son of Dracul’, Dracul being his father and the Romanian word for ‘dragon’.
Vlad wouldn’t have thought that he will inspire literature and cinema by being awful but here we are. He used to call his enemies over for a ‘dialogue’ and then had them killed. Later, he’d have their bodies put on spikes for everyone to see.
3. Russia’s Tsar Paul I, the guy who was so dedicated towards the military, he got armymen flogged if their uniforms were not up to the mark. Up to the mark means absolutely perfect, which is one thing that’s highly difficult to achieve with Prussian-style coats that Tsar Paul insisted everyone wears.
He was murdered later.
4. Members of the royal family in Spain used to sleep with body parts (or entire corpses) of saints when they used to fall sick. They used to think that this will make God merciful towards them.
Back then the medical science was not so advanced and even a simple cold could claim lives, so these guys dug out dead bodies of saints and cut parts to keep with them when they slept. This included skulls, just saying.
5. King Charles II was a specific kind of strange. When he used to make love to a woman, he used to get some of her pubic hair. He eventually stitched all of them into a wig.
Wait, there’s more. He donated this wig to a club, from where it was stolen by a man who started a separate club which had people come and kiss the thing.
This whole thing inspired King George IV so much, he started doing the same, but he died before he could gather enough pubic hair to make a wig.
6. Queen Maria Eleonora loved her husband so much that when he died, she ordered that his heart should be taken out so she could keep it in a golden box above her bed.
This was apparently a part of her mourning period. She also apparently asked their daughter to sleep with her so that she could also feel her father’s presence, thanks to the actual, real, dead heart kept on top of the bed.
Seriously, why were these guys obsessed with body parts and organs of the dead?
7. Legend has it that French King Louis XIV had a toilet built under his throne and he used to use it WHILE ADDRESSING the court.
He was also apparently the one who bathed 3 times in his life. He used to change his clothes 3 times a day, though and had his people make a new perfume for him each week.
8. Speaking of toilets, King Henry VIII started a tradition of appointing a trusted man as the ‘groom of the stool’. Quite literally, it was kind of like being married to the stool, which in this case was the portable toilet and well, the king’s feces.
King Henry VIII, who came up with the idea, was actually quite proud of it and the position, ‘groom of the stool’ became a coveted one in years to come.
