The Good, the Bad and the Unready (5 page)

Boleslav V, prince of Poland, 1226–79

In the thirteenth century the princes and princesses of Poland enjoyed only limited authority, owing in part to a unified Church that played free and easy with threats of excommunication. All they could do was live a good, devout life and possibly be beatified or indeed canonized for their Christian example. Two
such holy people were Kinga, the daughter of Bela IV of Hungary, and Boleslav V, who, though married, upheld their mutual vows of virginity.

Among her many good deeds, Kinga founded a church for Franciscan nuns from the Order of the Poor Clares. Bolesla]v, meanwhile, built the Franciscan friars a chapel in Cracow, and issued a charter of liberties to the region’s Jewish population. For
her
ministry, the Church elevated Princess Kinga to ‘the Blessed Kinga’. For
his
work, and possibly because of his sexual abstinence, the Church gave Boleslav the nickname of ‘Wstydliwy’ meaning ‘the Bashful’ or ‘the Chaste’.

William the
Bastard
see
William the
CONQUEROR

Beaky
see
Arthur the
IRON DUKE

Arthgal the
Bear

Arthgal, first earl of Warwick,
fl
. fifth century

Arthgal, first earl of Warwick, supposedly strangled a bear with his bare hands, and the Warwick coat of arms sports a bear in recognition of this achievement.

George the
Beau of Princes

George IV, king of England, 1762–1830

During his dissolute youth and equally dissolute middle years, before he succeeded to the throne of the occasionally insane
FARMER GEORGE
, the Prince of Wales – raconteur, bon viveur and source of scandal – was known as ‘the Beau of Princes’. In his later life his nicknames were less flattering.

At the age of eighteen George was already, by his own admission, ‘rather too fond of women and wine’, enjoying a series of brief affairs, including one with the actress Mary Robinson and
another with Lady Melbourne. In 1784 he met his one true love, a Roman Catholic called Maria Fitzherbert, whom he married a year later, although the union was kept a secret and later declared invalid because at that time marrying a Catholic made one ineligible for the throne.

In his twenties ‘Prinny’, as his friends called him, had become a heavy drinker and prolific gambler, and it was to pay off his huge debts that he agreed to marry his cousin Caroline of Brunswick. The marriage was a complete failure. Describing her as ‘the vilest wretch this world was ever cursed with’, George absolved her of all marital duties, and the couple separated.

By his forties and fifties George had grown immensely overweight, and epithets alluding to his obesity, such as ‘the Fat Adonis at Forty’, later emended to ‘the Fat Adonis at Fifty’, were in abundance. An article appeared in the
Morning Post
in 1812, possibly in defence of the prince against these nicknames, describing him as ‘An Adonis in Loveliness’. The essayist Leigh Hunt was not impressed by this piece of sycophancy and wrote in the
Examiner
, ‘This Adonis in loveliness is a corpulent man of fifty.’ Leigh Hunt spent the next two years in jail.

Charles Lamb learnt from Hunt’s mistakes, and published the following ditty anonymously:

When he finally became king in 1820, George started to exhibit signs of the insanity that had so plagued his father, and he lost any remains of the charm that had won him so many hearts in his youth. Nothing, for instance, would persuade him to allow his wife Caroline at his coronation, and when she attempted to take her place in Westminster Abbey, the doors were slammed in her face. Amid great public sympathy, Caroline retired to
Hammersmith where she died the very next month. A nation that had once championed their prince now despised their king.

Towards the end of his life, addicted to alcohol and laudanum, George’s bouts of madness grew longer, and he would tell whoever would listen, for instance, that he had fought at the battle of Waterloo. He became more and more of a recluse at Windsor Castle and eventually died, a deeply unpopular king, in 1830.

Henry
Beauclerc
see
NOBLE PROFESSIONS

Bell the Cat

Archibald Douglas, fifth earl of Angus, c.1449–c.1513

Archibald’s nickname, possibly conferred upon him by the sixteenth-century historian Robert Lindsay, refers to an incident in 1482 when he and a number of other disgruntled Scots noblemen plotted the downfall of certain ‘low-born familiars’ whom they believed had too much influence over the king.

One day Lord Gray, one of Archibald’s fellow conspirators, told a story in which mice discuss hanging a bell around a cat’s neck so as to be warned of its approach. The problem was whether there was any mouse courageous enough to fasten the bell. On hearing this tale, Archibald is said to have leaped up and cried, ‘I shall bell the cat.’ Later, demonstrating decidedly un-mouselike qualities, Archibald led a posse against King James’s favourites, murdered them, and then hanged them from the bridge in the Berwickshire town of Lauder.

Fyodor the
Bellringer

Fyodor I, tsar of Russia, 1557–98

For some societies a young man with learning difficulties, spindly legs and a permanent glazed smile would be an embarrassment. In sixteenth-century Russia, however, such ‘feeble-mindedness’ was considered an especially inspired form of wisdom – a ‘foolishness in Christ’ – and those exhibiting it were regarded with
respect, if not reverence. The son of Ivan the
TERRIBLE
, Fyodor was described by a visiting English diplomat as ‘hawk-nosed, unsteady in his pace by reason of some weakness of his limbs, yet commonly smiling almost to laughter’, and he adored visiting monasteries and churches, taking special delight in ringing the bells that summoned the faithful to Mass.

Ptolemy the
Benefactor
see
PTOLEMAIC KINGS