Can you name any Crazy Monarchs?

Question

Any crazy monarchs that you can think of?

Nero, Qin Shi Huangti, Catherine the Great, just to name some.

and also explain why they were considered "crazy"

"Craziest" Monarch gets 10 points!

Thanks Kindly

Answer 1

were there any sane ones?

Nero takes the cake though.

Answer 2

Some of the Kings of Prussia were not exactly normal. King Frederick William II of Prussia would collect 'Giants' - or people who were very very tall from all around Europe including Russia and he would pay enormous amounts of money for people who were abnormally tall. And then he would try to interbreed them with other giants or tall people.

Then there is Wilhelm II - Kaiser or Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia. Wilhelm would collect uniforms and would love if another country such as Britain made him an honorary rear admiral of their navy.

Wilhelm II loved to play practical jokes. Because of the deformity in his left arm, Wilhelm had enormous strength in the right arm - and used this to play jokes on people by squeezing their hand in a vice like grip until they winced and begged to let go.

But wilhelm also loved to please. Story goes that Wilhelm found out that in a certain tourist guide was telling tourists that if they wanted to see the kaiser, that they could see wilhelm sitting next to a certain window at the palace at a certain time of the day. So when wilhelm read the article, he did exactly that - went and sat near that window.

I could go on and on about the Tsars of Russia - how Alexander III used his great bear strength to bend coins in front of foreign diplomats as a tactic of intimidation. Or the stories about Peter the Great's antics, Elizabeth and Catherine the Great's obsessions.

Answer 3

Caligula was comparable to Nero, but not really any worse. Both are crazy for varied reasons.

Caligula supposedly threatened to name his horse Incitatus a senator, as he said his horse could do the job better than the actual senators. He had an affair with his sister, Drusilla. He wouldn't let people use the word 'goat' around him because he was afraid they were referring to him (he was very hairy). He also led his army to invade Britain, and then collected all the sea-shells because they 'belonged to Rome.' He invited senators and their wives to dinner, would take the wives into his bedroom and have sex with them, then tell the senators how good their wife was in bed.

Nero used to dress up in make-up and frilly clothes and go out on the town, wanting people to think of him as an actor. He tried to kill his mother numerous times. He made her bed collapse on her, but she jumped out of the way in time. He invited her to dinner on his royal barge and sabotaged it to sink as he rowed away in a small boat, but she swam to shore. Finally he had her killed by his Praetorian by stabbing her in her womb.

Domitian once chased a fly around the womb throwing things at it and trying to stab it with a sword. He had his bedroom covered with mirrors so he could see any possible attack coming.

And then there's Elagablus. He was a tranvestite who also had several male lovers. He brought a new god (Sol Invictus) into the Roman religion and wanted to replace Jupiter as head of the pantheon. He wanted people to identify him with this new god too. It didn't work.

Read Suetonius for some of these stories.

Answer 4

Ludwig II of Bavaria was pretty nutty. He built that Cinderella's Castle looking thing in the Bavarian Alps, but at least he didn't mass-murder anybody.

George III of Great Britain went certifiable in the latter part of his reign, but being a constitutional monarchy, he didn't do much harm.

Answer 5

Let's try some modern monarchs:

Jean-Bédel Bokassa, (zhäN-bĕdĕl' bōkäs'sä) , 1921–96, president of Central African Republic (1966–79). He served (1939–61) in the French army, then organized his country's army, becoming commander in chief in 1963. In 1966 he led an army coup against President David Dacko, becoming president and prime minister of the republic. Declared president for life in 1972, he crowned himself “emperor” of the so-called Central African Empire in 1977. Erratic and violent, he was overthrown by a French-supported coup (1979) that reinstated Dacko as president. Bokassa lived in exile in France and Côte d'Ivoire, returning to the Central African Republic in 1987. He was arrested and charged with torture, murder, and cannibalism. Convicted of murdering several political opponents, Bokassa was sentenced to death, but that was later commuted to life in prison. He was released in 1993.

Idi Amin Dada Oumee, (born 1924/25, Koboko, Ugan. — died Aug. 16, 2003, Jiddah, Saud.Ar.) Military officer and president (1971 – 79) of Uganda. Also named himself “King of Scotland” (so much for the CRAZY MONARCH). A member of the small Kakwa ethnic group and a Muslim, he was closely associated during his military career with Milton Obote, Uganda's first prime minister and president. In 1971 he staged a coup against Obote. He expelled all Asians from Uganda in 1972, reversed Uganda's amicable relations with Israel, was personally involved in the Palestinian hijacking of a French airliner to Entebbe (see Entebbe raid), and ordered the torture and murder of 100,000 – 300,000 Ugandans. In 1978 he ordered an attack on Tanzania, but Tanzanian troops, aided by Ugandan nationalists, were able to overpower the invaders. As the Tanzanian-led forces neared Kampala, Uganda's capital, Amin fled to Libya and eventually settled in Saudi Arabia.

Answer 6

Off the top of my head:

King George III of England (there's even a play called 'The Madness of King George'; it's available on DVD, I believe)

Juana la Loca of Spain

Answer 7

Ludwig II of Bavaria - mainly because he had a thing about swans and built several very extravagant, "fairy tale" castles, which are well worth a visit if you ever go to Bavaria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_II_of_Bavaria

Answer 8

Caligula was waaay worse then Nero, in my opinion at least.

he was a freaking weirdo.

Answer 9

There were tons of them after looking at this site I cannot pick just 1!

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kvenjb/madmon.htm