The Good, the Bad and the Unready by Robert Easton

Author:Robert Easton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141903590
Publisher: Penguin Publishing
Published: 2005-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

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Christopher the King of Bark

Christopher III, king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, 1418–48

The good-natured, easy-going but none-too-enterprising Christopher enjoyed his beer far more than the vexing affairs of state, and discontent with his indolence increased exponentially when a string of bad harvests compelled his peasants to mix ground tree-bark with their flour to make bread. Out of sympathy, the king apparently joined his subjects in eating these ‘bark buns’ –a practice that may have contributed to his early death.

Henry the King of Brave Men see Henry the GREAT

Louis the King of Slops

Louis XVIII, king of France, 1755–1824

For much of his life Louis was a king without a kingdom, and Europe’s elite had little time for him. Occupied with the machinations of Napoleon the LITTLE CORPORAL, they dubbed this brother of Louis XVI ‘le Roi Panade’ –literally ‘the Bread-Soup King’. This was not a gastronomic nickname, however, but an economic one, suggesting that Louis, exiled and without a traditional royal income, was fiscally ‘in the soup’. E. Cobham Brewer, the compiler of the famous Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, translates ‘Roi Panade’, somewhat harshly, as ‘the King of Slops’.

Modest, yet ever optimistic about the royalist cause despite Napoleon’s success, Louis spent nineteen years away from French soil waiting for the right moment to reclaim the throne. In the spring of 1814 it seemed that moment had come. The English stopped calling the chubby old gentleman who had been quietly living among them ‘Bungy Louis’ and instead hailed him as ‘the Desired’, encouraging him to consolidate the peace that Arthur the IRON DUKE had done so much to win for him.

After the battle of Waterloo, Louis returned to France where, apart from the Hundred Days when Napoleon attempted to reclaim power, he spent the next nine years doing his level best to rule as a constitutional monarch. But it was hard work. Louis was in his sixties, obese and suffering from gout, and as his health grew more feeble, so did his influence. On his deathbed in September 1824 Louis is reported to have sighed morosely that ‘a king should die on his feet’.

Louis Philip the King of the Barricades see Louis Philip the CITIZEN KING

James the King of the Commons see James the ILL-BELOVED

Edward the King of the Sea see Edward the BANKRUPT

King Oliver see NOSE ALMIGHTY

Richard the Kingmaker

Richard Neville, sixteenth earl of Warwick, 1428–71

Through his marriage to Lady Anne de Beauchamp in 1449, Richard Neville acquired not only the title of earl of Warwick, but also sizeable estates throughout England, making him one of the most powerful men in the country. His increased wealth and political influence enabled him to carve out for himself the role of kingmaker – instrumental in the fortunes of two men who were both vying for the English throne.

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