History is rife with tales of monarchs and distraught rulers who suffered from absurdity. However, it may be more appropriate to say that their people writhed from their recklessness. In some cases, it is difficult to tell if these leaders’ actions were truly the result of insanity, or if events were exaggerated.
It also seems that denunciations of irrationality were often used to depose royals. Nonetheless, there are cases in which a member of a royal family has been unquestionably impulsive. The following royals represent very different specimens of insanity. Some were cruel and vicious, while others were alarmingly cold-blooded.
The matter of their madness really depends on how you define futility. Why so many royals of old times went confused is anybody’s supposition. It could have been the pressure of being forced into being a sovereign. Maybe it was incest or meagre medical attention. Whatever the cause of their senselessness, a number of madmen have ruled a number of nations. Let’s have a look at the top 10 categorically ridiculous rulers.
10. Empress Anna
Anna, who ruled as Empress of Russia from 1730 – 1740, was not born to command – the Supreme Privy Council of Russia made her Empress. The council had anticipated that she would feel indebted to them for her position and act as a puppet ruler – but, little did they know, Anna had other plans in mind.
One of her first acts was to reinstate the secret police, to do her bidding. Finding favour with the Royal Guards, her supremacy became overwhelming, and she began a ten-year reign tormenting the aristocrats who made her ruler. In the most famous instance of her absurdity, Anna hooked up one of the old princes with her maid, because she had discovered that his, now dead, wife had been Catholic.
This seems rather bland, but what happened next is not: Anna organized the wedding and had an unusual palace made of ice for the occasion. She made the wedding party dress as clowns and spent the night in the ice palace, in the middle of one of the severest winters Russia had seen in ages. Fortunately for Russia, her rule was cut short by her demise at the age of 47.
9. King George III
King George III ruled England from 1760 until 1820 while losing the American colonies. This famous monarch suffered from porphyria, a hereditary illness that plagued Mary, Queen of Scots.
The king developed an irrational mind that created a major national dilemma for England. Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and the queen managed the government when the king became hostile in 1788. Later, the kingly son assumed power as the royal regent.
Severe insanity forced the monarch into isolated quarantine inside Windsor Castle apartments. Guards placed the king inside tight straitjackets behind locked metal bars. Modern medical experts suspect harsh medical treatments drove the royal patient completely out of control.
8. King Charles VI
King Charles VI took the French throne in 1380 at the age of eleven. People initially called the ruler Charles the Well-Loved because he behaved virtuously. Mental illness eventually transformed the monarch, earning him a new title as Charles the Mad.
A sudden spear drop triggered the king’s first violent fit during a military journey. Panic seized the restless ruler, causing him to slay his own knight and several soldiers. Following this brutal outburst, the unstable king collapsed into a deep coma.
Severe psychological symptoms worsened significantly during the later stages of royal rule. The confused sovereign completely forgot his identity and failed to recognize his own family. Extreme paranoia even convinced the fragile king that his body consisted entirely of glass.
7. Justin II
Justin II was Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor from 565 to 578 AD. His hegemony encompassed war with Persia and the loss of large parts of Italy. After two catastrophic campaigns, in which the Persians invaded Syria and captured the strategically important fortress of Dara (Mesopotamia), Justin apparently lost his mind. The temporary spasms of insanity into which he fell advised him to name a successor – Tiberius II Constantine.
According to John of Ephesus, as Justin II slid into unbridled madness of his final days, he was pulled through the palace on a wheeled throne, biting attendants as he passed. He purportedly ordered organ music to be played continuously throughout the palace in an attempt to soothe his frantic mind, and it was rumoured that his taste for attendants extended as far as eating a number of them during his reign.
6. Ludwig II
Ludwig II became king of Bavaria in 1864. During his reign, Ludwig II spent all of his personal funds on the edifice of fairy-tale castles. He was painfully shy, and ill-equipped for his duties as king. He spent hardly any time governing his people, and had a robust hatred of public appearances.
King Ludwig faced severe accusations of erratic behavior back in 1866. Observers questioned whether genuine mental illness truly caused these strange actions. A startled medical professional affirmed this diagnosis without any prior personal observations. An ambitious uncle requested the royal deposition to seize political control of the government. Mysterious tragedy struck when guards found the deposed monarch dead inside a pond alongside his certifying doctor.
5. Sultan Ibrahim I
Sultan Ibrahim escaped a royal prison called the Kafes to rule the Ottoman Empire in 1640. Late brother Murad IV previously demanded execution because royal officials deemed Ibrahim completely senseless. Reckless governance by the erratic monarch pushed the powerful empire straight toward sudden collapse.
Unusual obsessions drove the eccentric ruler to demand agents locate extremely heavy women. Imperial scouts tracked down a Georgian woman weighing over three hundred pounds. The delighted sultan nicknamed her Sheker Pare and granted luxurious government properties.
Unstable paranoia triggered brutal violence when ruthless rumors targeted the royal harem. Furious guards drowned two hundred eighty concubines inside the cold Bosporus Sea. Bizarre daily routines involved feeding shiny gold coins directly to palace pool fish.
4. Ivan IV
Ivan the Terrible endured a brutal childhood defined by parental loss and constant government abuse. Traumatized royals tormented the young orphan inside his own legitimate palace halls. Deep emotional wounds eventually transformed into mental instability that triggered animal cruelty.
Malignant aggression peaked when fourteen-year-old Ivan seized absolute political control using vicious dogs. Public apologies temporarily hid dangerous psychological instability from the Russian population. Effective legal reforms aimed at class equality masked a growing bloodlust.
Unstable rages eventually drove the erratic ruler to slaughter innocent citizens indiscriminately. Tragically, a violent outburst caused the unhinged father to murder his favorite son. Extreme cruelty cemented the sovereign’s infamous legacy alongside history’s most terrifying dictators.
3. Queen Maria I of Portugal
Queen Maria suffered severe mental collapse after official authorities documented her hallucinations in 1786. Sudden spousal bereavement plunged the grieving monarch into profound grief that canceled court festivities.
Tragedy struck again when smallpox claimed the life of her eldest son in 1791. British royal physician John Willis traveled to evaluate the declining sovereign’s mental health. Portuguese officials declined foreign travel requests while the young prince assumed royal governance.
Devastating palace fires forced the court to relocate toward the Queluz royal residence. Terrifying shrieks echoed across palace hallways as the unhinged queen remained trapped indoors. Decades of escalating mental illness finally ended when the sovereign passed away in 1816.
2. Prince Sado of Korea
Prince Sado endured severe parental rejection after his birth in the Korean royal court. Surviving a severe measles bout triggered a hidden mental illness inside the young royal. Deep psychological instability transformed the prince into a terrifying threat to palace residents.
Frightening delusions escalated quickly into violent attacks against helpless members of the royal staff. The unhinged royal began assaulting innocent women and stalking his own sister relentlessly. Extreme terror finally exhausted the ruling king’s patience with his erratic son.
Desperate royal punishment forced the violent prince inside a sealed wooden rice chest. Guards trapped the suffocating prisoner until death claimed him after eight long days. Extreme royal discipline ultimately ended a reign of terror inside the palace.
1. Emperor Caligula
Caligula certainly needs to be on this list and justifies the number one spot. Here is a summary of some of the many activities in his life as ruler of arguably the greatest empire in history. He attempted to install his favorite horse, Incitatus, meaning ‘Galloper’, as a priest and consul. He ordered a stunning marble stable built for him, complete with chairs and couches, on which Incitatus never sat.
Once, at the Circus Maximus, the games ran out of criminals, and the next event was the lions, his penchant. He ordered his guards to drag the first five rows of spectators into the arena, which they compliantly did. These hundreds of people were all devoured for his amusement.
A citizen once disrespected him to his face, in a fit of rage, and Caligula responded by having him tied down and beaten with heavy chains. He made this last for 3 months, having the man carried out from a dungeon and beaten, until Caligula, and the whole crowd that congregated, were too upset by the smell of the man’s festering brain, whereupon he was beheaded.
Caligula’s preferred torture was sawing. The saw blade filleted the spine and spinal cord, from crotch down to chest, and the victim was unable to pass out due to excess blood to the brain. He also relished munching up the testicles of victims, without biting them off, while they were restrained, upside down, before him.
He had another insult from one of his subjects, and his entire family, publicly executed, one after another, in front of a crowd. The man and wife were first, followed by the oldest child and so on. The crowd became irritated and began to scatter, but many stayed in gloomy captivation. The last of the family was a 12-year-old girl, who was weeping uproariously at what she had been forced to watch. A member of the crowd shouted that she was exempt from execution as a virgin. Caligula smiled and ordered the executioner to rape her, then strangle her, which he did.
He publicly had sex with his three sisters at banquets and games, occasionally on the table, amid the food. The Praetorian Guard finally murdered him and some senators while leaving the Circus Maximus after the games. His body was left in the street to rot, and dogs ate it. He had ruled for 4 years.
