When we think of royalty, beautiful princesses and charming princes come to mind. History reveals that, sometimes, real-life rulers were more akin to villains in storybooks: deformed hunchbacks, crazed witches, sleazy morons, and murderous families. Whether these weird royals were born that way or the job drove them to it, a number of leaders throughout history exhibited signs that something wasn't right. For some, it was just a strange quirk here or there. For others, a debilitating problem that left them unfit to rule.
No one can deny that, despite the perks, being a royal is complicated. You have access to massive riches that could corrupt you. You have to decide the well-being of an entire nation. All the while, there are people out there who probably want you dead. This could lead anyone to become a little bit weird. Here's a list of the weirdest royals and weirdest royal families throughout history, what made them that way, and how it might have affected the country they ruled.
Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg
Title: Queen of Sweden
Crazy Actions: She tried to kill her daughter when she couldn’t give the king a male heir.
Maria Eleonora’s goal as queen was the same as many other women of her era: give her husband a male heir. When she didn’t achieve her goal, she went crazy. Maria Eleonora bore her husband, King Gustavus Adolphus, a girl named Christina in 1626, and she immediately rejected her daughter, calling her a monster. More than once, she tried to kill Christina, pushing her down stairs and dropping her. When the king died, Maria Eleonora's insanity went next level. She refused to bury Gustavus's body, and slept below a hanging casket that contained his heart.
Charles VI of France
Title: King of France
Crazy Actions: Charles believed he was made of glass.
Charles VI ruled France during a time of great chaos, and that turmoil existed within him as well. After his first bout of madness in 1392, when he suffered from fever and convulsions, Charles lived out the rest of his life plagued by insanity. His paranoia and violent rages made him dangerous and homicidal to anyone in his close proximity. During his spells of madness, he often had to be restrained, and he gave up on his personal hygiene to the point that he had to be cut out of his clothes.
Most famously, Charles suffered from a “glass delusion," his belief that his body was made of glass. He faded in and out of this delusion, and it caused radical changes to his character. When he wasn’t in its grips, he was an outdoorsy athlete. When the glass delusion struck, he refused to move, sitting still for hour
Peter III of Russia
Title: Emperor of Russia
Crazy Action: A child in a man’s body, Peter may have never consummated his marriage because he was too busy playing toy soldiers in bed.
Catherine the Great’s husband, Peter III was much more unhinged and much less successful than his wife. Poor treatment by a sadistic tutor left Peter in a state of arrested development, making him unfit to rule. In 1742, when he was 14, his aunt, the Empress of Russia, brought him from Germany to Russia with the intention of making him her heir. Peter hated Russia and the Russian people hated him just as much.
When Peter married Catherine at 17, it was clear from the start they were a bad match. Catherine was intelligent and driven, while Peter was a stunted man-child. Peter and Catherine’s sex life was not much better. It is unclear whether they ever consummated their relationship, as Peter was more content to play toy soldiers in bed and make his wife dress up in military gear to run drills. He was also a means-spirited drunk who called Catherine a stupid whore in the middle of a banquet. One story about Peter contends that when a rat bit the head off one of his beloved toy soldiers, he gave the rat a proper court martial and trial, followed by hanging up from a tiny gallows that he constructed.
Nero
Title: Emperor of Rome
Crazy Actions: A narcissist and sadist, he had his mother killed and let Rome burn to the ground.
When it comes to Nero’s rule, it’s clear he got his Machiavellian inclinations from his mother. Nero’s mother, Agrippina, orchestrated Nero’s rise to the throne in 54 AD by marrying her uncle, Claudius, and convincing him to install Nero as Emperor instead of his own son, before poisoning Claudius to death. When Nero came to power, he took a lesson from his mother's playbook and set about taking down everyone who threatened or even bothered him, including his mom. He also dispatched with his cousin and his wife when they got in his way.
Despite instituting some positive social and political forms, Nero’s hedonism continually got the best of him. He took multiple wives and lovers, spent massive amounts of money on personal sexual pursuits, and murdered anyone who dared to criticize his ways. In 64 AD, a great fire struck Rome, taking out 75% of the city. Many Romans contended that Nero himself started the fire to make way for a new castle. Even if he didn’t, he did nothing to stop it, blaming Christians and initiating a period of oppression and torture of Christians in Rome.
Nero also married a man he randomly saw on the street who looked like his wife (the one he murdered), and made the man dress in his wife's clothes and act like a woman, while having a separate relationship with a slave in which Nero played the role wife.
Elagabalus
Title: Emperor of Rome
Crazy Actions: Elagabalus was a hedonist who delighted in watching people suffer.
Elagabalus, who took the throne in 218 AD, was a lesser-known Roman Emperor whose behavior rivals that of the most vicious, crual, and self-indulgent rulers of all time.Here’s a list of some of Elagabalus’s weirdest royal activities:
He chained naked women to chariots, like horses, and whipped them as they pulled him around.
He released snakes into the audience of the gladiator games, and gleefully watched panic and injury ensue.
He tied dinner guests to a water wheel to watch them slowly drown.
He tossed gold and silver from the balcony of a tower and reveled in commoners fighting and dying over the money.
He let loose lions and tigers during a feast.
He filled positions in the government based on penises size.
When his chief advisor warned him that he should live a moderate life to prevent revolt over the effects of his taxation, he murdered his advisor.
The full catalog of his perversity deserves a list unto itself, but there might not be enough room for all of his eccentricities and atrocities to fit.
Sado
Title: Crown Prince of Korea
Crazy Action: Sado was a lascivious and violent son obsessed with pleasing his father, until his father put him to death by locking him in a chest.
Born in 1735, Prince Sado’s brutal treatment at the hands of his father, King Yongjo, led a life of perversion,violence and dispair. Sado suffered from delusions and nightmares from the age of 10, and things got worse with age. His constant quest to impress his father drove him to madness, especially considering his father may have been equally crazy, and hell-bent on torturing his son.
Sado indulged in his vices liberally, but always hid them from his father. He was obsessed with clothes, and threw alcohol-fueled orgies, despite the fact that alcohol was illegal. He took his anger out on anyone who came near, sending dead bodies out of the palace on a daily basis. He murdered a concubine, slept with a nun, and even tried to seduce his younger sister. When King Yongjo learned of some of Sado’s misdeeds, he summoned him to court and locked him in a giant chest, where he starved to death after eight days.
Ivan the Terrible
Title: Tsar of Russia
Crazy Action: He created a Reign of Terror that left most of those around him executed.
The first, and arguably most famous, tsar of a centralized Russia, Ivan IV, also known as Ivan the Terrible, earned his nick name fair and square. Prone to wild rages from a young age, he suffered from the deaths of both parents by age 8, and the constant threat of usurpers to his throne. In 1847, he became tsar of Muscovy. From there, he expanded outward, snatching up land and taking down anyone in his way.
After his wife’s death, Ivan sunk into a depression that inspired his 24-year-long Reign of Terror. He seized absolute control, murdered any noble who spoke against him, beat his daughter-in-law so badly she miscarried, murdered his son in one of his rages, and blinded the architect of St. Basil’s Cathedral so that he could never create another beautiful building again. He died a broken man, much like the country he left behind.
Caligula
Title: Emperor of Rome
Crazy Actions: He believed himself to be a living god and forced his people to worship him as such.
Caligula’s rise to the throne was fraught with peril. His great-uncle Tiberius, Emperor of Rome, killed most of his family to prevent them from usurping his throne. Tiberius adopted young Caligula, and when Tiberius died in 37 AD (possibly at Caligula’s hand), Caligula claimed the throneand killed Tiberius's son to keep him from being emperor.
Caligula's weird behavior began almost right away. He kill those around him who spoke against him. He decreed that he was a living god. He removed the heads of statues of gods and put his own atop their bodies. He even reportedly committed incest with his sisters, among his many other sexual conquests. Finally, most Romans had enough and a group of guards stabbed him to death after a sporting event.
Joanna of Castile
Title: Queen of Castile and Aragon (Spain)
Crazy Actions: Her obsession with her husband drove her to keep his dead body with her at all times.
Joanna of Castile was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, famous as the royals who sent Columbus on his western voyage. Joanna married Philip I of Burgundy, son of the Holy Roman Emperor. She was very devoted to her husband, and gave him six children, all of whom went on to be emperors or queens.
Joanna earned her title "Juana La Loca" for her obsession with her husband. After his sudden death in 1506, she refused to be separated from Philip's dead, embalmed body. She kept it in her room and even traveled with it. Despite her place as Queen of Castile and Aragon, her family never saw her as fit to rule, and her son Charles took on the role of regent, becoming the real leader of the country.