CURIOUS FADS OF ROYALTY
It is recorded how a certain Spaniard, who once attempted to assassinate
a king, Ferdinand of Spain, on being put on the rack could give no other
reason for his strange conduct but an inveterate antipathy which he had
taken to the King as soon as he saw him:--
“The cause which to that impelled him
Was, he ne’er loved him since he first beheld him.”
Although, happily, such an exceptional case as this is almost unique,
yet in a minor degree it illustrates a phase of character which is of
almost universal application. Thus, for instance, going back to an early
period, the Emperor Heraclius at the age of fifty-nine was seized with
an unconquerable terror at the sight of the sea. On his return from his
Syrian expedition he sojourned in the palace of Herea, on the shore of
the Hellespont, and the story goes that the princes of Constantinople
were compelled to span the strait with a bridge of boats, and protect it
on both sides with planks and branches of trees, so that one could pass
over it without seeing the water. Likewise, the Emperor Augustus was
terribly afraid of lightning, and as a safeguard not only carried about
his person a seal’s skin, but on the approach of a storm took shelter
in an underground chamber.
But coming to later times, Henry III. of France could not remain in the
same room with a cat, a fact which reminds us of the Duke d’Epernay, who
swooned on seeing a leveret, although, curious to say, the sight of a
hare did not produce a similar result. And it was the sight of an apple
that always put Vladislaus, King of Poland, into fits. Queen Elizabeth
detested as ominous all dwarfs and monsters, and seldom could be
prevailed upon to bestow an appointment--either civil or
ecclesiastical--on an ugly man. She liked to be surrounded by the young
and handsome, and she studiously shunned all crippled or deformed
persons. She carried this fad to such an extreme that she refused the
post of a gentleman usher to an unexceptional person, for no other
reason than the lack of one tooth; and “whenever she went abroad, all
ugly, deformed, and diseased persons were thrust out of her way by
certain officers, whose duty it was to preserve her Majesty from the
displeasure of looking on objects offensive to her taste.” Aubrey
relates the following story as an illustration of Elizabeth’s
peculiarity on this point: “There came a country gentleman up to town
who had several sons, but one an extraordinary handsome fellow, whom he
did hope to have preferred to be a yeoman of the Guard. ‘Had you spoken
for yourself,’ quoth Sir Walter Raleigh, ‘I should have readily granted
your desire, but I put in no boys.’ Then said the father, ‘Boy, come
in,’ and the son enters--about eighteen or nineteen years of age--but
such a goodly proper youth as Sir Walter had not seen the like, for he
was the tallest of all the Guard. Sir Walter not only swore him in, but
ordered him to carry up the first dish at dinner, when the Queen beheld
him with admiration, as if a beautiful quaint young giant had stalked in
with the service.” And Lord Bacon, speaking of this whim of Elizabeth,
writes: “She always made sedulous inquiries regarding the moral
qualifications of any candidate for preferment, and then considered his
mien and appearance. Upon one such occasion she observed to me, ‘How can
the magistrate maintain his authority, if the man be despised.’”
Elizabeth’s strong aversion to unpleasant smells was well known at
Court. One day the stout Sir Roger Williams, kneeling to her to beg a
suit, which she was unwilling to grant, and yet ashamed to deny, she
exclaimed, “Sir Roger, your boots stink”--hoping to divert the
conversation. “No, no, your Majesty,” replied the brave Welshman, “it’s
not my boots, it’s my suit.” We are reminded of Louis XI., who had a
conceit, says Burton, “that everything did stink about him; all the
odoriferous perfumes they could get would not ease him, but still he
smelt a filthy stink.”
According to common report, James I. shuddered at the sight of a drawn
sword, and Sir Kenelm Digby, in his “Powder of Sympathy,” says that when
James knighted him he very narrowly escaped having the sword thrust into
his eyes, his Majesty turning away his face to avoid the sight of the
naked weapon--a peculiarity which he attributes to the fright occasioned
to his unhappy mother by the assassination of Rizzio in her presence. In
a caricature of the time King James was exhibited with an empty
scabbard, and in another as having his sword so firmly fixed in the
scabbard that it was impossible to draw it out.
William III. had an intense hatred of mourning. When the King of Denmark
died, September 4, 1698, Prince George expressed a wish that on this
account his Majesty would allow the Princess and himself to congratulate
him on his birthday, November 4, without doffing their sable weeds,
under the impression that the favour would be granted, as “the late
kings, Charles II. and James II., never wished any persons in recent
mourning for their relatives to change it for coloured clothes on such
occasions.” King William’s ideas, however, respecting mourning were more
consonant with those of Henry VIII.; and his Majesty, although Christian
V. of Denmark was a near relative of his own, “signified his pleasure
that their Royal Highnesses were to visit him in gay Court dresses, or
to keep away.”[38]
To such an extent did George II. carry his love of exactness, even in
the minutest affairs of life, that it is said he never even allowed his
pleasures to interfere with it. For some years after he had ascended the
throne, writes Mr. Jesse,[39] his custom was to visit his mistress,
Lady Suffolk, every evening at nine o’clock. Sometimes he was dressed
and in readiness before the prescribed time, and “on these occasions he
used to pace his apartment for ten minutes together with his watch in
his hand, waiting till the moment of departure had arrived.”
George II., too, in moments of fretfulness and impatience would vent his
feelings by kicking his hat about the room. “When incensed either with
his Ministers or his attendants,” writes Wraxall, “he was sometimes not
master of his actions, nor attentive to preserve his dignity. On these
occasions his hat, and it is asserted his wig, became frequently the
objects on which he expended his anger.”
But the fads and eccentricities of royalty have been illustrated in a
variety of ways. A notable instance having been Ferdinand II., Grand
Duke of Tuscany, who died in 1670, and who was known as the “Fool of his
Health,” from the anxiety with which he attended to his health. “I have
frequently seen him,” writes the Abbé Arnauld, “pacing up and down his
chamber between two large thermometers, upon which he would keep his
eyes constantly fixed, unceasingly employed in taking off and putting on
a variety of skull-caps of different degrees of warmth, of which he had
always five or six in his hand, according to the degree of heat or cold
registered by the instruments.” This, he adds, “was a mighty pleasant
sight to behold, for there was not a conjurer in all his dominions more
dexterous in handling his cups and balls than was this prince in
shifting his caps.”
Strange, again, was the behaviour of Charles II. of Spain, who was
sometimes sunk in listless melancholy, and was occasionally a prey to
the wildest and most extravagant fancies. At one time he was weak-minded
enough to be induced to believe that his malady was the same as that of
the wretched individuals in the New Testament who dwelt among the tombs.
At another time a sorceress who lived in the mountains of the Asturias
was consulted about his malady. Several persons were accused of having
bewitched him, and at last the rite of exorcism was recommended, which
was actually performed. Nor was this all, for his Majesty had terrible
visions of demons, and kept monks and priests by his side to exorcise
them. He believed himself to be the cruel victim of sorcery, and to have
been charmed with a portion of the brains of a corpse administered in a
cup of chocolate, to counteract the malignant influences of which it was
proposed to diet him on hens fed with vipers’ flesh. Even the people,
too, believed that he was enchanted, and called him the “bewitched
king”--a name which is traditionally preserved to the present day.[40]
Instances of a kindred nature are noted elsewhere in the chapter which
deals with the superstitions of royalty, where it will be seen how at
one time or another the credulity of crowned heads has been responsible
for many foolish acts, and in some cases it has been productive of
immense harm.
The early period of female domination through the regency of the
Queen-mother, Marie Anne of Austria, had made such an impression on
Charles II. when young that he felt a horror at the sight of a
petticoat, and turned aside when he met a lady. His former governess,
the Marquesa de los Velez, had to wait six months to get a word from
him. With such antipathy to women, it seemed improbable that he would
regard with any favour the mention of marriage, but during the
negotiations for an alliance with Marie Louise, this aversion suddenly
changed, and, when the miniature of the Princess was sent to him, “he
wore the picture on his heart, addressed fine speeches to it,” and as
soon as he was informed that she was _en route_ for Spain, he set out to
meet her.
When Isabella, mother of Philip II., was, writes D’Israeli,[41] “ready
to be delivered of him, she commanded that all the lights should be
extinguished: that, if the violence of her pain should occasion her face
to change colour, no one might perceive it. And when the midwife said,
‘Madam, cry out, that will give you ease,’ she answered, ‘How dare you
give me such advice? I would rather die than cry out.’”
In truth, the fads of sovereigns, with their royal etiquette, were
frequently carried to such lengths as to make martyrs of them. According
to another absurd story from the same source, Philip III., when seated
by the fireside, was once nearly suffocated with heat from the large
quantity of wood that the fire-maker had kindled; but “his grandeur
would not suffer him to rise from the chair, and the domestics could not
presume to enter the apartment, because it was against the etiquette. At
length the Marquis de Potat appeared, and the King ordered him to damp
the fire; but he excused himself, alleging that he was forbidden by the
etiquette to perform such a function, for which the Duke d’Ussada ought
to be called upon, as it was his business. The Duke was gone out, the
fire burnt fiercer, and the King actually endured it rather than
derogate from his dignity.” But, it is said, his blood was heated to
such a degree that an erysipelas of the head appeared the next day,
which, succeeded by a violent fever, carried him off in the
twenty-fourth year of his reign. And what can be more ludicrous than the
following: The palace was once on fire; a soldier who knew the King’s
sister was in her apartment, and must inevitably have been consumed in a
few minutes by the flames, rushed in at the risk of his life, and
brought her out. But Spanish etiquette was wofully broken, and the loyal
soldier was brought to trial and condemned to death. The Spanish
princess, however, in consideration of the circumstance, condescended to
pardon the soldier, and saved his life.[42] Churchill might indeed well
exclaim--
“Spain gives us pride--which Spain to all the earth
May largely give, nor fear herself a dearth.”
Leopold the “Angel,” second son of the Emperor Ferdinand, would rear the
most odoriferous plants, but inflicted on himself the mortification of
never going near enough to smell them, imagining that by this act of
self-denial he was thereby adding a step to a ladder of good works, “by
which he hoped to scale heaven!”
Peter the Great had a strong aversion to being looked at in public, a
peculiarity which when visiting this country kept him almost entirely
aloof from the gaieties of the Court. On the birthday of the Princess
Anne, when a grand ball was given by William III. at Kensington,
curiosity so far prevailed over his diffidence as to induce him to
express a wish to be present. But he contented himself with occupying a
small apartment where, without being seen himself, he could be a
spectator of the festive scene. On another occasion, writes Lord
Dartmouth, Peter had a mind to see the King in Parliament, “in order to
which he was placed in a gutter upon the house-top, to peep in at the
window, where he made so ridiculous a figure that neither King nor
people could forbear laughing, which obliged him to retire sooner than
he intended.” It was probably from what was styled “the lantern” in the
roof of the old House of Commons that the Czar witnessed the proceedings
below. And many other anecdotes illustrative of this peculiar fad are to
be found in the biographies of his Majesty.
Immediately on ascending the throne of Prussia, Frederick William’s
mania for crimping and recruiting giants broke out with such force as
to be the talk of Europe, “and the terror of every mother of a stalwart
youth, not only in his own dominions, but in the neighbouring
principalities.” So violently had his agents gone to work, that before
the year 1713 was ended he issued a proclamation “not to stop the
passengers on the post, as had been done several times.” Indeed, a
regular man-hunt was instituted throughout all the villages, even during
divine service. Once a rural pastor died of the shock occasioned by
seeing his taller sacramental communicants carried off _en masse_ by a
recruiting party, “who thought that the Sunday congregation would spare
them all further trouble in hunting through the cottages.” In 1720 this
was repeated, but so violent was the indignation that an insurrection
ensued.[43] From 1713 to 1735 it is said that Frederick William sent
12,000,000 of dollars for recruiting purposes into foreign countries, in
connection with which may be quoted the following humorous but tragic
occurrence: “In the duchy of Juliers, a Baron Hompesch, who was
crimp-in-chief, once bespoke by way of strategy of a very tall
master-joiner, who did not know him, a cupboard as long and as broad as
the artisan himself. After some days the Baron called to take away the
cupboard, but complained that it was of insufficient length. In a fit of
alacrity the long-legged joiner laid himself full length within the
cupboard as a proof that Hompesch was mistaken; but suddenly the door
was fastened by the people whom Hompesch had in waiting, and the
unfortunate joiner was carried off as a recruit. On opening the cupboard
afterwards he was found dead. Hompesch, however, was condemned to death,
but the King commuted his sentence to imprisonment for life.”[44]
Numerous anecdotes have been told illustrative of Frederick William’s
other fads and eccentricities. Sometimes he would signify his rejection
of what he considered an absurd petition by drawing on the margin an
ass’s head and ears. One day a baron of ancient patent having complained
of another baron taking precedence of him, the King wrote on the
petition: “Mere folly; whether a man sits above me or below me, my birth
remains the same.” Oftentimes he would ask people in the streets who
they were, a peculiarity which made nervous people evade the royal
presence. One day when a Jew saw the King approaching he took to his
heels and ran; but Frederick William pursued him in hot haste, and when
he overtook him, asked, “Why did you run away from me?” “From fear,”
answered the Jew, whereupon his Majesty gave him a heavy thwack with his
cane, and said that he “wished himself to be loved, and not to be
feared.”
And even while distracted with the gout, his eccentricity showed itself;
for, as a hymn was being sung to him, at the passage, “Naked shall I go
hence,” he interrupted the singers and said, “No--I shall be buried in
my uniform.”
Gregory of Tours, speaking of the “Do-nothing kings” of France, says
that they sat at home “and gormandized like brute beasts,” showing
themselves, as Dr. Doran writes, “once a year perhaps to the people, in
state robes.” Such conduct was not to be commended, and so little was
Childeric III. ever seen that he was known as the “Phantom King,” his
chief amusement having consisted in curling his hair and dressing his
beard. Equally apathetic and indifferent to his duties was Ferdinand I.
of Austria. And, as an instance of his weak mind, one day he remarked in
the imperial palace at Vienna, “I once very readily paid a visit to one
of the theatres in the suburbs; but I don’t know--I can’t make out
whether they wanted me or not.” It seems he thought he was there to put
his signature to some document, “and he was puzzled as to whether he had
been asked to do so or not.”
Frederick III. often fell asleep whilst the most important affairs of
the State were being discussed, which acquired for him the nickname of
“Emperor Night Cap.” When the Turks were destroying the villages and
harvests of his people, he amused himself in his garden picking
caterpillars out of his roses, and catching slugs with buttered cabbage
leaves.[45]
His indolence so exasperated his wife Eleanor, that she said to her son
Maximilian in a fit of anger, “On my word, if I thought you would be
like your father, I should be ashamed of being the mother of such a
king.” Frederick was too lazy, it is said, to turn the handle of a
door, but kicked till some one came to open it, or he burst it in. He
paid the penalty of his stupidity, for by so doing he one day hurt his
foot, and as mortification threatened the surgeons cut it off. “Ah me!”
said Frederick, “a healthy boot is better than a sick Emperor.” His
exact opposite was Frederick the Great, who was wont to exclaim,
“Nothing is nearer akin to death than idleness. It is not necessary that
I should live, but it is necessary that whilst I live I be busy.”
Of the many despicable traits of character of Louis XV., not one,
perhaps, was more odious than his mania for speculating in corn. He
became the chief partner of a company which forestalled corn. From the
exceptional advantages this company enjoyed, “it created local and
artificial famine in the different provinces for purposes of private
gain. The King thus traded on the hunger of his people,” and, as it is
added, “the most abject courtier of Versailles could not avoid feeling a
twinge of shame when he noted on his bureau day by day the lists of the
prices of grain in the different provinces as a guide for speculation.”
From such shameful dealings arose the legend of the _Pacte de famine_,
which lingered in the memories of the people, and the spectre of which
arose in terrible form during the most horrible scenes of the
Revolution.
And Louis XI. in a capricious mood once promoted a poor priest whom he
found sleeping in the porch of a church, that the proverb might be
verified, that to lucky men good fortune will come even when they are
asleep.
Lastly, it has been said that the restlessness of Don Sebastian was the
despair of his attendants. From one end to the other of his little
kingdom there was a perpetual shifting of the royal quarters, “as the
royal vagrant hurried in search of novelty and excitement, from Coimbra
to Cape St. Vincent, from Almeirim to Alcobaça, to Salvaterra.”
Impenetrable to fatigue or hardship, the day afforded too scanty a scope
for his activity, and the dead of night often found him exhausting his
feverish impatience of repose in long hours of solitary pacing on the
sandy shores of the Tagus, or under the dense gloom of the forest
arcades of Cintra. And in Sebastian we are reminded of Charles XII. of
Sweden, who, determined to brave the seasons as he had done his enemies,
ventured to make long marches during the cold of the memorable winter of
1709, in one of which 2000 of his men died from the cold, in allusion to
which Campbell, in “The Pleasures of Hope,” writes:--
“Or learn the fate that bleeding thousands bore,
Marched by their Charles to Dnieper’s swampy shore;
Faint in his wounds, and shivering in the blast,
The Swedish soldier sank, and groaned his last.”