It's no secret that many of the great rulers of this world not only shone in the world of politics and on the battlefield, but also managed to distinguish themselves on the love front at the same time. Some sovereigns became famous for amorous adventures much more than for great deeds for the benefit of their state. And although history is silent on a lot, the loving nature of some rulers was impossible to hide. I offer a list of rulers whose weakness was love affairs and amorous intrigues.
Caligula
Gaius Caesar, nicknamed Caligula, was the emperor of Rome for a short time. He was a cruel and perverted man who gained his power through intrigue and betrayal.
In life, only three things brought him pleasure - power, terrible torture, which he watched in awe, and women. Speaking of the latter, he is still considered one of the most depraved rulers of Rome.
Caligula was officially married several times. But this did not prevent him from entering into relations with married ladies in order to get the necessary posts or political support with their help. He executed some mistresses along with their husbands.
It is said that he even had a criminal connection with his sisters.
One of them, Drusilla, he loved so much that when she died, he declared such mourning throughout the country, in which it was considered a mortal sin to laugh, bathe, dine with parents, children and wife.
And he stole one of his mistresses, Livia, right before her wedding with another man, and returned it to her husband a few days later.
After their relationship, he forbade many women to have relationships with other men, and he executed him for breaking a vow.
He declared his last wife Caesonia "wife" only many years after she bore him a child.
Nero
Nero, one of the Roman emperors, was surrounded by an atmosphere of debauchery since childhood. His father had countless mistresses, whom he did not even hide, and his mother was in a criminal relationship with her brother Caligula.
Nero was married early to a woman, Octavia, for whom he openly detested. He found consolation in the arms of other, beautiful and cheerful girls.
He became seriously infatuated with his friend's wife, Poppea, under whose influence his latent depravity began to take over him.
This woman even pushed him to kill his own mother. He soon divorced his wife and married Poppea. Nero, together with his newly-made wife, arranged such depraved feasts that lasted for days in their Golden Palace, completely made of this precious material.
After the death of his wife, he executed the girl Anthony, because she refused to become his new wife. And then he killed Statilla's husband in order to be able to freely enter into marriage with her.
The dissolute rule of Nero doomed him to exile, and then to suicide.
Henry VIII
Henry VIII Tudor, unlike Nero and Caligula, was the great king of England. He not only became famous as a commander, but also made one of the most important reforms in the life of the country - he created a new Anglican church, independent of the influence of the Pope. But not everyone knows that he did this not because of political considerations, but because of a woman. Henry VIII, popularly nicknamed the Bluebeard, had six official wives and many mistresses.
His first wife was a decent Spanish Catholic Catherine, the former wife of his late elder brother, from whom he inherited the throne. After meeting with Anne Boleyn, a Protestant by religion, he set about trying to marry her, but the Pope did not give him permission to divorce.
That is why he severed all ties with the Catholic Church, divorced himself and married Anna. In addition, he was in touch with Anna's younger sister, Mary, who bore children from him. Passion for Anna quickly cooled, and the king found an excuse to execute his wife and marry a new one, the day after the execution.
The third wife, Jane, is said to have been his favorite woman, but she died in childbirth. Then Heinrich married Anna, whom he saw only in painted portraits. When he saw the girl with his own eyes, he was so disappointed that he broke up with her and sent her to a distant fortress. The fifth wife Catherine was as loving as the aging king, so she was soon beheaded for treason.
The last wife was not a young beauty, or a cheerful laugher, whom the king had loved before.
He finally chose a wife for himself to quietly meet his old age.
Napoleon
The man who went from an ordinary army captain to the emperor of the French Empire is known not only for conquering most of Europe and creating a new powerful state. A Corsican by birth, Napoleon Bonaparte, according to his contemporaries, despite his small stature, was a very attractive man who had not only a sharp mind, but also a strong charm that conquered women.
Napoleon's first wife, Josephine Beauharnais, was older than her husband and had a daughter from her first marriage. He loved her and even after the divorce, they maintained friendly relations. Despite this, Bonaparte had countless affairs on the side, just like his wife. Despite this, mutual understanding, support and respect reigned in their marriage. At the same time, many argue that Napoleon had an affair even with his stepdaughter.
During the countless conquests of Europe, Napoleon started new novels on campaigns. So during the campaign against Poland, Bonaparte sought the impregnable Polish beauty Maria Walewska, who tried to resist him to the end, but involuntarily fell in love with him.
On the day of their last meeting, from the sofa on which the emperor was sitting, the girl cut off a piece of fabric and carried it with her until the end of her days as a memory.
Due to Josephine's infertility, Napoleon was forced to take a new wife, Louise.
The girl was young, not bad-looking, although plump, but he still cheated on her. Among the famous ladies he had the famous actress Mademoiselle Georges and the opera singer Giusapina Grassini.
In total, Bonaparte had 51 mistresses, whose names are preserved in history.
John Kennedy
The President of the United States of America, according to many experts, had a rare disease, which became the reason for his constant love affairs.
Having a beautiful wife - Jacqueline, he started more and more novels in front of her eyes. Journalists, actresses, singers, secretaries, and even girls of easy virtue. According to people close to the president, Kennedy was never completely satisfied, he was constantly tired of women, and he started new relationships. He himself said that if he did not have a connection with a woman for about three days, his head began to ache terribly.
He often threw wild parties, festivities by the pool, in which White House employees took part. Among the president's most famous mistresses was film star Marilyn Monroe.
Some historians claim that the president had about one and a half thousand women in his short life.
Louis XIV
The founder of the absolute monarchy in France, King Louis XIV was nicknamed "the sun king" for his cheerful and loving character.
He was a wise and great ruler who made many reforms for the benefit of his people. And besides, until the age of 22, he already dictated fashion and was famous, for the most part, for love affairs, which he easily combined with wise rule.
He began to make friends with the ladies so early that he quickly got bored with this occupation.
Among his mistresses was even the Princess of Monaco - Catherine. And his touching connection with the ugly and lame Louise, they say, was based on the fairy tale "Cinderella" by Charles Perot.
For a long time, his favorite was Francoise de Montespan.
She personally pushed all his mistresses aside and won the attention of Louis. With his favorites, he always lived openly at court. And when the king was tired of his numerous love affairs, the Marquise de Maintenon took possession of his heart, with whom they secretly married.
Thanks to her, he abandoned his wild life, became a religious and restrained person. She remained his only woman until the death of the king.
Catherine II
Catherine the Great, as Sophia Augusta is also called, was married at the age of 16 to the mad Emperor Peter. Her life in Petersburg was a school of survival. She sought power through intrigues and, in the end, became a great ruler, but very subject to the influence of her many favorites.
Trying to fill the void of her life, she started an affair with Sergei Saltikov, Count Poniatkovsky, Grigory Orlov.
The latter had a huge impact on the life and reign of Catherine. After Orlov's resignation, his place was taken by Grigory Potemkin, who became the most powerful man in the country.
Catherine in every possible way indulged his desires, and he, in turn, did everything for the good of his empress. In the intervals between her main lovers, even the already aged, the ruler turned on young favorites who tried to achieve high ranks at her expense. After the death of Potemkin, Catherine was crushed, but quickly found a replacement - the young favorite Zubava, who was with her until her death.
In total, the empress had 23 lovers, including her husband, but these are only those whose names are precisely known to history.
Margarita Navarskaya
The daughter of Catherine de Medici, Queen of France, Marguerite, thanks to her marriage to Henry IV, became, though not for a long time, Queen of Navarre.
Margarita was a very beautiful, educated and witty girl. But she had a weakness for men, about which A. Dumas very truthfully wrote in the book “Queen Margot”.
A girl, when she married, was no longer innocent, as a noble young lady was supposed to be. Historians say that already at the age of 15, Margarita had a relationship with her siblings. And her affair with the Duke of Guise was discussed by the whole court.
During their marriage to Henry IV, the couple actively sought happiness on the side. Her affair with the Comte de la Mole cost the poor fellow his head. Rumor has it that she even seduced her guard during a short imprisonment.
After her divorce from Henry, the former queen began to lead an absolutely free lifestyle.
Even at the age of 54, when she was very fat and there was nothing left of her beauty, young boys of eighteen years old regularly visited her. She died from her vicious nature: Margarita was very fond of walking naked in front of open windows, even in winter, so that everyone could look at her. So one day she fell ill and died.
Throughout human history, many evil and infamous leaders have fought for power. While many politicians wanted to improve the lives of the people, others pursued only their own interests.
Their selfish goals led to gross abuses of power that resulted in the death of many people. We present to your attention the 25 most brutal dictators in the history of mankind.
1. Herod the Great
Herod the Great is the same Herod mentioned in the Bible. He slaughtered many male children when he learned that the messiah was born into the world - Jesus Christ, who was named king. Herod could not stand the competition, so he ordered the babies to be killed, but Jesus was not among them.
The ancient historian Josephus recorded his other sinful deeds, including the murder of his three sons, his most beloved of 10 wives, the drowning of a priest, the murder of his legitimate mother, and, as the legend says, many Jewish leaders.
When the Roman emperor Nero came to power after the death of his stepfather, he gradually orchestrated the carnage. First, he killed his mother, Agrippina the Younger, and then he killed two of his wives. Finally, he decided to burn the whole of Great Rome just to watch it burn and then rebuild it. After things calmed down, he blamed the fire on the Christians and they were persecuted, tortured and killed. In the end, he committed suicide.
3. Saddam Hussein
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ruled the country with an iron fist. During his reign, he deliberately invaded Iran and Kuwait. By the time Saddam became president, Iraq was a booming country with one of the highest living standards in the Middle East. But the two wars that the new leader provoked brought the Iraqi economy into a state of acute crisis and decline. By his order, all his friends, enemies and relatives were killed. He gave orders to kill and rape the children of his competitors. In 1982, he murdered 182 Shia civilians. On October 19, 2005, the trial of the former Iraqi president began. Especially for him, the death penalty was reintroduced in the country.
4. Pope Alexander VI
The Vatican papacy showed us long ago that some popes are very evil and cruel rulers, but the most evil of them was Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia). He was not a devout Catholic, but only a secular pope who used power to achieve his goals.
In his youth, he did not constrain himself with vows of chastity and celibacy. He had many mistresses. And with one of them, the rich Roman woman Vanozza dei Cattanei, he was in touch for many years and had four children from her, the most famous of which are Cesare Borgia and Lucretia - ambitious, unprincipled, power-hungry and voluptuous young people. By the way, the Pope cohabited with his beautiful daughter Lucretia and, according to rumors, it was he who was the father of her son.
He staged orgies and confiscated money from the rich to finance his riotous lifestyle. On August 18, 1503, the Pope died in terrible agony from poison.
5. Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Gaddafi did everything he could while he was the political leader of Libya. He liquidated all political opposition, declaring it illegal. Banned entrepreneurship and freedom of speech. All books that did not suit him were burned. Despite the huge economic potential of Libya, many economic experts have recognized the decline of the country, as Gaddafi squandered most of the funds. His reign is considered one of the most brutal and totalitarian eras in North African history.
Muammar Gaddafi was killed on October 20, 2011 near the city of Sirte. His convoy, while trying to leave the city, came under attack from NATO aircraft.
6. Fidel Castro
Before the reign of Fidel Castro, Cuba was a prosperous country with a rich economy, but as soon as Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista in 1959, all this collapsed under the yoke of despotic communist rule. Over 500 political opponents were shot in two years. According to experts, during the 50 years of Fidel Castro's rule, thousands of people were executed. Newspapers were not printed at that time. Priests, homosexuals and other people objectionable to the new government served time in camps. Freedom of speech has been abolished. The people had no rights. 90% of people lived below the poverty line.
7. Caligula
Gaius Julius Caesar or Caligula, whose name has become synonymous with cruelty, madness and evil, is known throughout the world. He declared himself God, slept with his sisters, had many wives, which he was very proud of, and did many other immoral things. Caesar was spending money on luxurious things while his own people were starving. Caligula terrorized ancient Rome with his unbridled madness, talked to the moon and tried to appoint his horse as a consul. The biggest evil he did was to give the order to saw innocent people in half during one of his sumptuous feasts.
8. King John
King John the Landless is considered one of the worst kings in British history. He is best known for being first landless and then a king without a kingdom. Sensual, lazy, lustful, cruel, treacherous, immoral - this is his portrait.
When his enemies came to him, John threw them into the castle and starved them to death. In order to build a huge army and navy, he taxed England heavily, took land from the nobles and imprisoned them, and tortured the Jews until they paid him the right amount. The king died of a terrible fever.
9. Empress Wu Zetian
Wu Zetian is one of the few female leaders in ancient history and history in general. Her life is very remarkable. Becoming the emperor's concubine at the age of 13, she eventually became empress herself. After the death of the emperor, the heir to the throne, realized that he could not do without the faithful Wu Zetian and introduced her to his harem, which became a sensation for that time. Some time passed, and in 655 Gaozong officially recognized Wu Zetian as his wife. This meant that now it was she who was the main wife.
She was a mean schemer. On her orders, they killed, for example, her husband's uncle. Anyone who dared to go against her was immediately killed. At the end of her life, she was overthrown from the throne. She was treated better than she herself had dealt with her enemies, and was allowed to die a natural death.
10. Maximilian Robespierre
The architect of the French Revolution and the author of The Reign of Terror, Maximilian Robespierre, constantly spoke of the overthrow of the king and the uprising against the aristocracy. Elected to the Committee of General Salvation, Robespierre unleashed a bloody terror, which was marked by many arrests, the murder of 300,000 alleged enemies, of which 17,000 were executed by guillotine. Soon the Convention decided to prosecute Robespierre and his supporters. They tried to organize resistance in the Paris City Hall, but were captured by troops loyal to the Convention, and executed a day later.
11. Go Amin
General Idi Amin deposed elected official Milton Obote and declared himself President of Uganda in 1971. He imposed a brutal regime on the country that lasted eight years, expelled 70,000 Asians, slaughtered 300,000 civilians, and ultimately brought the country to economic ruin. He was overthrown in 1979 but never answered for his crimes. Idi Amin died in Saudi Arabia on 16 August 2003 at the age of 75.
12. Timur
Born in 1336, Timur, known to many as Tamerlane, became a tyrant and bloodthirsty conqueror of Asia in the Middle East. He was able to conquer some corners of Russia and even occupied Moscow, led an uprising in Persia, being several thousand kilometers away. He did all this by destroying cities, exterminating the population and building towers from their corpses. In India or Baghdad, wherever he was, everything was accompanied by massacres, destruction and thousands of people killed.
Genghis Khan was a ruthless Mongol warlord who was successful in his conquests. He ruled one of the largest empires in history. But, of course, he paid a high price for this. He was responsible for the deaths of 40 million people. His battles reduced the world's population by 11%!
14. Vlad Tepes
Vlad Tepes is better known by a different name - Count Dracula. He notoriously became famous for his sadistic torture of enemies and civilians, among which the most terrible is the piercing of the anus. Dracula impaled living people. Once he invited a lot of vagabonds to the palace, locked them in the palace and set them on fire. He also nailed caps to the heads of the Turkish ambassadors, which they refused to take off in front of him.
The grandson of Ivan the Great, Ivan the Terrible brought Russia to Unity, but during his reign he received the nickname Grozny for the many reforms and terrors carried out. From childhood, Ivan had a bad temper, he really liked torturing animals. After becoming king, he carried out a series of peaceful political reforms. But when his wife died, he fell into a deep depression, and then the era of the Great Terror began. He seized land, created a police force to fight dissent. Many nobles were blamed for the death of his wife. He beat his pregnant daughter, killed his son in a fit of rage, and blinded the architect of St. Basil's Cathedral.
Attila - the great leader of the Huns, who highly valued gold. All his raids were accompanied by robberies, destruction and rape. Desiring absolute power, he killed his own brother Bled. One of the great invasions of his army is the city of Naisus. It was so terrible that for many years the corpses blocked the road to the flow of the Danube River. Once Attila stabbed deserters through the rectum and ate two of his own sons.
17. Kim Jong Il
Kim Jong Il is one of the most "successful" dictators along with Joseph Stalin. When he came to power in 1994, he was left with an impoverished North Korea with a starving population. Instead of helping his people, he spent all his money on building the world's fifth largest military base, while millions of people were starving to death. He deceived the United States by not giving them his nuclear developments. According to him, he has created a unique nuclear weapon and is terrorizing South Korea with threats. Kim Jong Il supported the American bombing of Vietnam, where many South Korean officials were killed and civilians were massacred.
18. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Lenin was the first leader of revolutionary Soviet Russia, adhering to the ideology of overthrowing the monarchy and turning Russia into a totalitarian state. His Red Terror - a set of punitive measures against class social groups - is known throughout the world. Among the social groups there were many repressed peasants, industrial workers, priests who opposed the Bolshevik government. In the first months of terror, 15,000 people died, many priests and monks were crucified.
Leopold II, King of the Belgians, was nicknamed the Butcher of the Congo. His army captured the Congo Basin and terrorized the local population. He himself had never been to the Congo, but on his orders 20 million people were killed there. He often showed his military the hands of the rebellious workers. The period of his reign was marked by the devastation of the state treasury. King Leopold II died at the age of 75.
Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge movement, is put on a par with Hitler. During his reign in Cambodia, which is less than four years, more than 3,500,000 people were killed. His policy was as follows: the path to a happy life lies through the rejection of modern Western values, the destruction of cities that carry a pernicious infection, and the re-education of their inhabitants. This ideology marked the beginning of the creation of concentration camps, the destruction of the local population in the regions and their actual eviction.
21. Mao Zedong
The head of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Mao Zedong, took over China with the help of the Soviet army, founding the PRC, and until his death was its leader. He carried out many land reforms, which were accompanied by the theft of large plots of land from landowners through violence and terror. Critics always came across his path, but he quickly cracked down on dissent. His so-called "Great Leap Forward" led to a population famine from 1959 to 1961 that killed 40 million people.
22. Osama Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden is one of the most notorious terrorists in human history. He was the leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist group, which carried out a number of attacks on the United States. These included the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Kenya, where 300 civilians were killed, and the September 11 air attacks on the World Trade Center in America, which killed 3,000 civilians. Many of his orders were carried out by suicide bombers.
23. Emperor Hirohito
Emperor Hirohito was one of the bloodiest rulers in Japanese history. His most important crime against humanity is the massacre in Nanjing, which took place in the second Sino-Japanese war, where thousands of people were killed and raped. In the same place, the emperor's troops carried out monstrous experiments on people, as a result of which more than 300,000 people died. The emperor, despite his power, never stopped the bloody lawlessness of his troops.
24. Joseph Stalin
Another controversial figure in history is Joseph Stalin. During his reign, all large land plots were under his control. Millions of farmers who refused to give up their plots were simply killed, which led to a great famine throughout Russia. During the era of his totalitarian regime, a secret police flourished, calling on citizens to spy on each other. As a result of this policy, millions of people were killed or sent to the Gulag. More than 20,000,000 people were killed as a result of his brutal tyrannical rule.
25. Adolf Hitler
Hitler is the most famous, evil and destructive leader in human history. His speeches full of anger and hatred, his senseless invasion of European and African countries, the genocide of millions of Jews, his murder and torture, rape and execution of people in concentration camps, plus countless other known and unknown atrocities, make Hitler the most cruel ruler of all times and peoples. . In all, historians attribute the deaths of the Nazi regime to more than 11,000,000 people.
Probably, only the Old World can boast of such an abundance of prominent rulers. Some of them were talented commanders, others were bold reformers, and still others skillfully combined both virtues.
Geiseric (428-477)
Geiseric conducted politics as if he were playing a game of chess.
In 429, he landed with an army on the North African coast, which belonged to Rome. Taking advantage of the confusion (the uprising of the Roman commander, the encroachment of the Berbers), the king managed to significantly expand the boundaries of his kingdom. Soon the Byzantine army appeared on the North African coast. Geiseric made peace with the empire: the Vandals and Alans received the status of federates in exchange for protecting the borders.
In 439 Geiseric captured Carthage and acquired a navy. Having occupied Sicily, the king forced the Western Roman Empire to agree to a peace treaty. The vandals threw off the status of federates and in fact became independent.
An uprising of the Vandal aristocracy broke out. Geiseric forever deprived the tribal aristocracy of influence and banned public meetings.
For universal recognition of him as a great king, Gaiseric needed to capture Rome. In 455, Emperor Valentinian III fell at the hands of the conspirators, chaos began in Rome. The Vandals have occupied the Eternal City.
Theodoric the Great (470-526)
Theodoric's first military feat was the defeat of the Sarmatians and the capture of their main city, Singudun. After that, the eighteen-year-old Theodoric began to consider himself the true ruler of the Ostrogoths.
The Byzantine emperor Zenon, in order to appease the aggressive neighbor, bestowed on him the title of consul. On the instructions of Zeno, Theodoric invaded Italy. He was opposed by the "official gravedigger of Rome" Odoacer, who was supported by many Germanic tribes. Theodoric with his army managed to inflict several serious defeats on Odoacer and even capture his capital, Ravenna. After that, a peace was concluded, according to which the two rulers divided power in Italy. But Theodoric did not like this.
Just a few days later, during a feast, he personally killed Odoacer. All of Italy was under the control of the Ostrogoths.
As soon as Theodoric succeeded in driving the Vandals out of neighboring lands and extending influence to southeastern Gaul, Byzantium appointed the king of the Ostrogoths as the legitimate ruler of the Western Roman Empire.
Clovis I (481/482-511)
Clovis took the throne at the age of fifteen. He got power over a small part of the Franks with the capital in Tournai. To increase his authority and political weight, the king became a Christian. To hide the cynicism, a beautiful legend was invented:
"During the battle, the Franks faltered, and Clovis asked God to give him victory - suddenly, the enemy king fell dead, and his soldiers fled."
Becoming a Christian, Clovis annexed Aquitaine to the Visigoths. His next goal was to unite all the Frankish tribes. He persuaded the son of the king of the East Franks, and he killed his own father, after which he died from the mercenaries of Clovis. So the king of the Franks deprived his opponents of both the ruler and the heir.
It was under Clovis that the Salic truth (code of laws) appeared, and Paris became the capital of the Frankish state.
The power and popularity of Clovis in Europe was also noticed in Byzantium. Ambassadors visited him and handed over insignia - a mantle, a purple tunic and a diadem - in recognition of his greatness.
Charles I the Great (768-814)
The King of the Franks took the title of emperor from the hands of the Pope for the first time in 400 years (since the fall of the Roman Empire). Charles annexed Italy, the lands of the Saxons and Bavarians to his kingdom, and also significantly advanced deep into Muslim Spain.
The pagan Saxons, whom Charles forced to accept Christianity, suffered more than others. Refusal of the new faith was punishable by death.
During the suppression of one of the uprisings, Charles ordered the execution of more than four thousand captive pagans. This event went down in history under the name "Verdun Massacre".
The uprising was crushed, the Saxons surrendered, and their leader, Vidukin, converted to Christianity himself.
The military successes of Charles were provided by innovations. First, the massive use of cavalry in attacks. Secondly, well-thought-out schemes for the siege of fortresses and the use of well-organized logistics.
Charles's empire reached the peak of its power by 800. Pope Leo III made the Frankish ruler emperor, giving him the nickname "Father of Europe".
William I the Conqueror (1066-1087)
Being illegitimate, but the only child of the ruler of Normandy - Duke Robert II the Magnificent, William became the heir to the throne. Although the French nobility gave him the nickname Bastard (illegitimate).
A difficult childhood left a certain imprint on his character and affected his education. Wilhelm could not read, was a secretive, suspicious and domineering person.
In 1066 he conquered England and was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey.
In 1086, Wilhelm ordered an inventory of all the lands subject to him, as well as a census of the population, which would streamline the taxation system. Before Wilhelm, no one even thought of such a thing.
William died on September 9, 1087 in the French monastery of Saint-Gervais. A severe wound in the stomach, received during a campaign against France, had an effect. As soon as the king expired, his entourage removed all the jewels from him. Only one knight remained loyal to William. He moved his body to the church of St. Stephen in Cana. As soon as the coffin was in the city, a fire broke out. When the fire was finished, it turned out that Wilhelm's body did not fit in the grave. And attempts to “tamp” it there nevertheless led to such a stench, from which even incense did not help.
Frederick I Barbarossa (1152 - 1190)
Frederick assumed the throne of the Holy Roman Empire in 1152. First of all, he carried out army reform. At the disposal of Frederick was an army of many thousands, consisting of heavy knightly cavalry.
Frederick struck at the wealthy city-states of Northern Italy. He wanted to receive the crown directly from the hands of the Pope.
In 1143, the Germans dug in near St. Peter's, and Pope Adrian IV crowned Barbarossa.
On the same day, the inhabitants of Rome went on the attack and tried to expel the Germans, but their attack was repulsed.
A protracted war of the Germans with the Italian cities began. The new Pope Alexander III excommunicated the emperor from the church. However, Frederick managed to take control of Rome. Soon a plague broke out in his army. Italian cities revolted. The confrontation ended in 1174. Because of the defeat, Frederick agreed to recognize Alexander III as the sole pope, returned to him the power of the Tuscan margraviate and the prefecture in Rome. The pope, with a return curtsey, canceled the excommunication.
Gustav II Adolf (1611-1632)
Gustav became king when he was not yet seventeen years old. He inherited two wars (with Denmark and Poland), as well as an intervention in Russia. The Swedish army was in a deplorable state, not everything was in order with the state and finances.
Having dealt with the Danes and Poles, Gustav took up Russia. The result was the conclusion of the Stolbovsky peace in 1617 on favorable terms for Sweden. Gustav annexed Karelia, part of Ingria, cutting off Russia from access to the Baltic.
For his valor, courage and brilliant mind, Gustav was called the “Lion of the North”, and also the “Father of Modern Strategy”. He created the most powerful army on the continent, which became the most formidable force in the raging Thirty Years' War at that time.
Many of the innovations of Gustav Adolf are relevant today. For example, the use of maneuverable light artillery, the linear formation of mixed types of troops, aggressive offensive tactics. It is believed that the Swedish king personally invented the world's first paper cartridge.
Louis XIV (1643-1715)
The French monarch ruled longer than anyone else in European history - 72 years. Before Louis, none of the French monarchs fought so many wars.
First he annexed Flanders, then Alsace, Lorraine, Franche-Comte and some lands of Belgium. After - Strasbourg, Casale, Luxembourg, Kehl and other territories.
The first thing the king did was to abolish the post of first minister. Under Louis XIV, his diplomats became the main ones in any European court. The monarch first introduced strict etiquette, and Versailles became the capital of European secular life.
The main mistake of Louis is the war for the Spanish Succession. Very quickly, ordinary citizens of France became poor, famine reigned in the country. The monarch managed to conclude peace with the British on very equal terms. France emerged from the war, albeit without gaining new territories, but without losing practically anything.
It is Louis who is credited with the famous phrase: “The state is me!”. The reign of this monarch is considered to be the Great Age of France.
William III of Orange (1672-1702)
Wilhelm was originally the ruler of the Netherlands. In 1685, the English king Charles II died, leaving no direct heir, and the unpopular (because of his desire to restore Catholicism) James II ascended the throne.
In mid-November 1688, Wilhelm landed in England with an army. Residents of Foggy Albion greeted the guests enthusiastically. In early 1689, William and his wife became the legitimate rulers of England and Scotland.
He was one of the first to adopt the Tolerance Act. The persecution of dissidents in England ceased.
The new king supported the initiative to create the Bank of England, approved the emergence of a united East India Company. During the reign of William of Orange, literature, science, architecture and navigation began to develop rapidly in England. He contributed in every possible way to the large-scale colonization of North America.
It was under William that the tradition of limiting the power of the ruler to the framework of laws from the "Bill of Rights of English Citizens" appeared.
Frederick II the Great (1740-1786)
Friedrich's father Wilhelm I from the Hohenzollern dynasty taught him to be a soldier from childhood. The hereditary king of Prussia spent a lot of time in the barracks.
Under him, the number of Prussian troops was about two hundred thousand people, about two-thirds of the entire budget was allocated for their maintenance. The state began to resemble a military camp.
Having concluded an alliance with England, Frederick attacked Saxony, which unleashed the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). Neither the Austrians nor the French could stop the Prussian army. Frederick could not resist the Russian army.
Friedrich went down in history as a brilliant tactician and strategist. Its main innovation is complex maneuvering, which consisted in cutting off the enemy army from its own supply bases or fortresses. It turned out a kind of exhausting tactic without large-scale battles.
Sigbert II. England, early 18th century National Portrait Gallery, LondonHe inherited the throne from Sigbert I the Small. Entering into an alliance with the king of Northumbria and being baptized at his court, he contributed to the spread of Christianity among the East Angles. Here is how Bede the Venerable describes the death of this monarch in the Ecclesiastical History of the People of the Angles Bede The Hon.- a Benedictine monk who lived at the turn of the 8th-9th centuries; compiler of one of the first histories of England.:
“For a long time the introduction of the people to heavenly life flourished in that kingdom to the joy of the king and all the people; but it so happened that the king was, at the instigation of the Enemy of all good, killed by his own kindred. This crime was committed by two brothers; when they were asked why they did this, they could only answer that they were angry with the king and hated him because he was always ready to pardon his enemies and forgave them all the evil that they did as soon as they asked for forgiveness. Per. V. Erlikhman
Einbkellach the Good, King of Dal Riad (697-698)
The ancient Gaelic kingdom of Dal Riada was located in the very north of Ireland and the west of Scotland until the 9th century, when these lands were captured by the Vikings. Einbkellach mac Ferhair ruled this kingdom for only a year - in 698 he was overthrown and expelled to Ireland by his younger brother Selbach, who remained king until 723 and killed Einbkellach, who tried to return from exile in 719. Representatives of the Moray dynasty of Scottish kings traced their origin to their family, the most famous of which was Mac Betad mac Findleich, or Macbeth, the prototype of the protagonist of the play of the same name by William Shakespeare.
Hakon I the Good, King of Norway (934-961)
Hakon I. Illustration by Christian Krohg for the Circle of the Earth by Snorri Sturluson. 1890s Wikimedia Commons Hakon grew up at the court of the English king Athelstan and was brought up in the Christian faith. Returning to Norway, he overthrew his half-brother Eirik Bloodaxe, lowered taxes and established a regular navy. He was a successful commander and an unsuccessful preacher: he failed to spread Christianity among the Norwegians. Hakon died from a wound received in a battle with the sons of Eirik. One of them - Harald II Greypelt - became the next king. Here is how Hakon's death is described in The Circle of the Earth:
“If I am destined to stay alive,” he said, “then I would like to leave the country for Christians and atone for my sins before God. But if I die here in a pagan country, then bury me as you please.” Shortly thereafter, King Hakon died on the very rock on which he was born. The grief over the death of Hakon was so great that both friends and enemies mourned him and said that such a good king would never again be in Norway. Per. M. Steblin-Kamensky
Hyvel Da (Good), King of the Britons (942-950)
Howl Yes. Miniature from the manuscript "Laws of Hyvel the Good". Mid 13th century The National Library of Wales During the first half of the 10th century, Hywel ap Cadell managed to concentrate most of the kingdoms located on the territory of Wales under his rule. It is Hewel who is considered the ruler who compiled the written set of Welsh laws - which, however, has come down to us in essentially later lists. Thanks to this, Howel got his nickname: the laws did not give the king such great powers as the Anglo-Saxon counterparts - most of the conflicts could be settled with the help of monetary fines; executions were rarely used as punishment. Although the state after the death of Howel Da broke into three parts, its code, changing and supplementing, was valid until 1282, when Llywelyn the Last died - as follows from his nickname, the last independent king of Wales.
Magnus I the Good, King of Norway (1035-1047) and Denmark (1042-1047)
Magnus I. Engraving from 1685 Det Kongelige Library The son of Olav II the Holy and concubine Alfhild, Magnus was brought up for several years at the court of Yaroslav the Wise and his wife Ingigerd, to whom his father fled in 1028. Magnus himself returned to Norway when he was 11 years old, and with the support of Sweden and Russia, won the royal throne. Seven years later, he was also crowned in Denmark. According to Snorri Sturlson, at first the cruel ruler received his nickname when he changed under the influence of the court skald Sigvat. He wrote a flokk (praise song), in which he called on the king not to enter into a confrontation with a disgruntled people. Among other things, there were such words:
The prince is worthless
Hearing incline to advice
Evil. More and more grumbling
Your people, warrior.
Rumors, brave knight,
Beware - let the measure
Knows the hand! - what people
Spread a lot.
Your friend, guardian,
Caution, magpies
The moisture of the dead. Listen
The will of the bonds, warrior!
Leader, don't bring
Until trouble. Unkind
Sign when on the prince
Gray-haired people are angry.
The trouble is, since they were silent
Those who were previously betrayed
Was buried in a fur coat
Nose and look askance.
Murmurs to know: ruler
Fatherland, they say, took away -
Climbed everywhere -
The subjects have bonds.
Everyone who is driven out of the way -
Strict to many fast
Your court - they supposedly rob us,
He will say, people are princes. Snorri Sturlusson. "Circle of the Earth". Per. A. Gurevich.
As Sturluson writes, “after this exhortation, the king changed for the better.<…>... [He] ordered that a collection of laws be compiled, which is still kept in Thrand-heim and is called the Gray Goose. King Magnus gained love among the people. Since then, they began to call him Magnus the Good. There.. He died in Denmark when he was only 23 years old: according to various sources, Magnus either fell off his horse and crashed, or fell overboard, or fell ill while sailing.
Eric I the Good, King of Denmark (1095-1103)
Eric I. 1685 engraving Det Kongelige Library The famine that tormented Denmark for several years in the 1090s ended immediately after Eric was elected king, and this was perceived by his subjects as a sign from above. According to Saxo Grammar Saxo Grammaticus- Danish chronicler of the late XII - early XIII century., the common people loved their merry king, "whose physical and mental splendor was overshadowed only by his irrepressible lust" Saxo Grammar. "Acts of the Danes". However, this vice did not prevent Eric from playing a rather important role in the spiritual history of his country. In 1101, he traveled to Rome and convinced Pope Paschal II to canonize his brother, King Canute IV, who was killed during a popular uprising and became the patron saint of Denmark. Two years later, after four guests were killed during a feast at Eric's court, he went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Having passed through Novgorod and Constantinople, Eric I the Good did not have time to get to Jerusalem: he fell ill and died in the city of Paphos in Cyprus.
William II the Good, King of Sicily (1166-1189)
Wilhelm II presents the Cathedral of Monreale as a gift to the Mother of God. Mosaic from the Cathedral of Monreale. Sicily, XII century José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / CC-BY-SA-4.0 The father of William II, the second ruler of the Kingdom of Sicily from the Norman dynasty of the Gottvilles, was known as William I the Evil. In the chronicles, it was customary to portray him as a depraved and prone to luxury tyrant. However, many historians consider this image the result of a hostile attitude towards William I of the Sicilian nobility. His son, on the contrary, remained in the memory of his descendants as the ruler of the golden age. He entered the Sicilian throne at the age of 13, and for the first years his mother, Margarita of Navarre, ruled for him, first of all, she arranged a political amnesty and canceled the taxes that Wilhelm the Evil imposed on the cities. The beginning of the reign of Wilhelm II was peaceful and prosperous. This gave him the opportunity to launch an active, albeit not very successful, foreign policy activity. In 1174, while he himself remained in Sicily, he tried in vain to recapture Egypt from. In 1185, William's troops invaded Byzantine possessions in the Balkans, captured Thessaloniki, but were defeated by the army of the Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos. Wilhelm II the Good died in preparation for the Third Crusade. In the Divine Comedy, Dante places him in the sixth heaven of paradise:
The one further down, pious light
Guglielm was, whose land mourns for him,
Grieving that Carl and Federigo are alive.
Now he knows how the sky honors
Good kings, and his brilliance is rich
This speaks clearly to the eye. Per. M. Lozinsky
João I the Good, King of Portugal (1385-1433)
Marriage of John I and Philippa of Lancaster. Miniature from the chronicle of Jean de Vavrine. 1470-80s Wikimedia Commons Juan I had many nicknames: in Portugal he was called the Good, less often the Great, sometimes Good Memory, but in Spain the Bastard. He was the illegitimate son of Pedro I and came to power after the death of his brother Fernando I, the last representative of the Portuguese Burgundian dynasty, who left no heirs. During the interregnum, Juan successfully repelled the attempts of the Castilians to seize the Portuguese throne and, being the master of the military order of St. Bennet of Avis, became the founder of the Avis dynasty. His further reign was peaceful, with one important exception: in 1415, Portugal captured the city of Ceuta, which is located in the north of present-day Morocco, from the Berbers. The campaign was led by the 21-year-old son of Juan, Infante Enrique the Navigator, with the subsequent expeditions of which the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries began.
John II the Good, King of France (1350-1364)
John II. Around 1350 Musee du Louvre / Wikimedia Commons The second king of the Valois dynasty, John, came to power shortly after the Hundred Years War began, and the largest plague epidemic swept across Europe. In addition, the beginning of his reign was marked by a conflict with his cousin, the king of Navarre, Charles II the Evil, who unsuccessfully tried to overthrow him. In 1356, John the Good was captured by the British during one of the most significant battles of the Hundred Years' War - the Battle of Poitiers. Four years later, when a peace treaty was concluded at Brétigny, according to which the British renounced their claims to the French throne, but received vast possessions and a huge ransom, John returned to France, leaving his son Louis of Anjou as a hostage. However, in 1363, when it became known that Louis had escaped from English captivity, John voluntarily returned to England, where he died a few months later of an unknown illness.
Alexander I the Good, Moldavian ruler (1400-1432)
Alexander I. Fresco from the Neamts Lavra. 15th century Gabriel Todica / Wikimedia Commons Having come to power, Alexander expanded the powers of the ruler, copied the administrative structure of Wallachia and stimulated the development of trade in the country. Together with the Polish king Vladislav II, Jagiello took part in the Grunwald (1410) and Marienburg (1422) battles against the Teutonic Order. The reign of Alexander is considered quite favorable for Moldova, although his name is associated with the first documented case of gypsy slavery in the history of the country: in 1428, Alexander I the Good granted 30 gypsy families (as well as 12 Tatar huts) to the Bistrita monastery.
Ferdinand I the Good, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia (1835-1848)
Ferdinand I. Painting by an unknown artist. Around 1830 Wikimedia Commons Ferdinand was in poor health - he suffered from hydrocephalus and epilepsy - and therefore, during his 13-year reign, he did not take much part in public affairs, leaving them to the Conservative Chancellor Clemens von Metternich. Among Ferdinand's few political initiatives of his own are the political amnesty of 1838 and the granting of land to Russian Old Believers in 1846. In seclusion, the emperor studied languages, played music, kept active correspondence and diaries, but avoided public events. He acutely experienced the revolution of 1848, after which he abdicated in favor of his nephew Franz Joseph (he remained on the throne until the First World War). Ferdinand lived for almost 30 more years and spent the last years in the Czech Republic, the inhabitants of which gave him the nickname Good.
Khama III the Good, King of the Bamangwat (1875-1923)
Khama III. Photograph by William Charles Willoughby. 1896 Botswana National Archives Khama led one of the most influential tribes inhabiting the territory of present-day Botswana, the Bamangwato. He converted to Christianity in 1860, when his father Sekgoma was still king. At first, he reacted quite favorably to the choice of his son, but when Khama refused to take a second wife, he began persecuting Christians. In the mid-1870s, a series of conflicts broke out between Khama, Sekgoma and his brother Macheng, in which Khama emerged victorious. Becoming king of the bamangwat, he not only contributed to the spread of Christianity, but also abolished the cruel rite of initiation, introduced prohibition, and also turned to Great Britain for help in the fight against the Boers. Boers- the descendants of the Dutch colonists who inhabited the independent Orange Republic and the Transvaal., resulting in the British protectorate of Bechuanaland in 1885, which later became Botswana. The descendants of Khama III the Good are the first president of Botswana, Sir Seretse Khama (1966-1980) and the current head of state, Jan Khama.
Other good rulers
The nickname Good was deserved not only by kings, but also by many rulers who bore other titles. Among them:
- Fulk II the Good, Count of Anjou (941-958);
- Richard II the Good, Duke of Normandy (996-1026);
- Saint Charles I the Good, Count of Flanders (1119-1127);
- Thibaut V the Good, Count of Blois, Chateaudun and Chartres (1152-1191);
- Raul III the Good, Count of Soissons (1180-1235);
- Robert I the Good, Count of Artois (1237-1250);
- Barnim IV the Good, Prince of Wolgast-Rügen (1326-1365);
- Louis II the Good, Duke de Bourbon (1356-1410);
- Philip III the Good, Duke of Burgundy (1419-1467);
- Rene the Good, Duke of Lorraine (1431-1453), Duke of Anjou (1434-1475);
- Louis I the Good, Count de Montpensier (1434-1486);
- Jean II the Good, Duke de Bourbon (1456-1488);
- Antoine II the Good, Duke of Bar and Lorraine (1508-1544);
- Henry II the Good, Duke of Lorraine (1608-1624).
Separately, it is worth noting Count Diego Lopez II de Haro (1170-1214), who was known as both Good and Evil.
In addition, Queens Matilda of Scotland and Elizabeth I of England were nicknamed "Good Queen Matilda" and "Good Queen Bess" by their subjects, respectively.
Sources
- Bede The Hon. Church history of the people of the Angles.
- Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy.
- Sturluson S. Earth circle.
- Saxo Grammaticus. Danorum regum heroumque historia. Books X–XVI: The Text of the First Edition with Translation and Commentary by Eric Christiansen.
A hero to one is often a tyrant to another. This aphorism is often remembered today, not to mention the past - it was very, very ambiguous in the politics of many countries. Everyone knows that history is written by the victors, and even the most cruel of them could be rehabilitated with time and the right ideology.
These rulers and politicians of the past - old and not so long ago, built their states at the expense of the lives of many people. And it doesn't matter how they did it - sent to crazy wars or used as labor force. In both cases, one can speak of a ruthless tactic to achieve goals. It is these rulers that are included in our list of the 12 most cruel rulers in the history of mankind.
Caligula - Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus
Reigned: 37-41 AD
Caligula was very popular because he first freed citizens who were unjustly imprisoned and freed them from a brutal sales tax. But then he went crazy and was never the same again. Caligula eliminated political rivals with sophisticated cruelty, arranged wild revelry with people and animals, and generally behaved unrestrainedly.
Genghis Khan
Reign: 1206-1227
Genghis Khan's father was poisoned when the boy was nine. He spent his childhood as a slave, but was able to unite the Mongol tribes and conquer a huge piece of Central Asia and China. Genghis Khan is called the most cruel ruler because of his massacres, when not just groups, but entire peoples or classes were slaughtered.
Thomas Torquemada
Reigned: 1483-1498 (as Grand Inquisitor)
Torquemada was appointed Grand Inquisitor during the Spanish Inquisition. He set up tribunals in several cities, set up a system for other inquisitors, and made torture the main tool for extracting confessions. Historians believe that Torquemada was responsible for the two thousand people burned at the stake.
Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible)
Reign: 1547-1584
Ivan IV began his brutal reign by reorganizing the central government and limiting the power of hereditary aristocrats (princes and boyars). After the death of his first wife, Ivan began a reign of terror, eliminating the main boyar families. He also beat his pregnant daughter and killed his son in a fit of rage.
Queen Mary I (Bloody Mary)
Reign: 1553-1558
The only child of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Mary, became Queen of England in 1553 and soon established Catholicism (after previous Protestant rulers) as the main religion and married Philip II of Spain. During her cruel reign, the Protestants burned at the stake like dry branches, and Mary herself became Bloody.
Countess Elizabeth Bathory
Reign: 1590-1610
This cruel ruler lured young peasant women to her castle by promising them jobs as servants, after which she brutally tortured them to death. According to the popular version, she tortured and killed about 600 young women.
Mehmed Talaat Pasha
Years of government: 1913-1918
Historians believe that Talaat Pasha was the most brutal ruler and the leading figure in the Armenian genocide. As Minister of the Interior, he was responsible for the deportations that ultimately resulted in the deaths of 600,000 Armenians. He was killed in Berlin in 1921. A history buff, Adolf Hitler sent his body back to Istanbul in 1943, hoping to sway Turkey into cooperation.
Joseph Stalin
Years of government: 1922-1953
Stalin became the most brutal ruler in the 1930s, coinciding with mass starvation, the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labor camps, and the "Great Purge" of the intelligentsia, government and military.
Adolf Gitler
Years of government: 1933-1945
By the end of 1941, Hitler was at the head of the Third Reich, an empire that included almost every country in Europe plus most of North Africa. He became one of the most brutal rulers in human history, devised a plan to create an ideal race by eliminating Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and political opponents, sending them by force to concentration camps where they were tortured and worked to death.
Mao Zedong
Years of government: 1949-1976
Communist leader Mao founded the People's Republic. Under his leadership, industry was placed under state control, and farmers were organized into collectives, following the example of Soviet collective farms. Any opposition was quickly crushed. Mao's supporters point out that he modernized and unified China and turned it into a world superpower. However, others point out that his policies resulted in the death of as many as 40 million people from starvation, forced labor and executions.
go amin
Years of government: 1971-1979
Amin overthrew the elected government in Uganda with a military coup and declared himself president. Then he cruelly, for eight years, exterminated all opposition. Amin completely expelled Asians from Uganda: Hindus, Chinese and Pakistanis.
Augusto Pinochet
Years of government: 1973-1990
Pinochet overthrew the government of Chile in 1973 with a US-backed military coup. Researchers say many people simply "disappeared" while another 35,000 languished in the camps. Pinochet died before he could stand trial on human rights charges.
He introduced a free market economic policy that led to lower inflation and even an economic boom in the late 70s. Notably, Chile had one of the most efficient economies in Latin America from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s.