101 Shocking Facts About English Kings and Queens | Boring History

101 Shocking Facts You Never Learned About English Kings and Queens
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🔥 Tonight, delve into the captivating and often unbelievable world of the English Monarchy with “101 Shocking Facts About English Kings and Queens You Never Knew.” This episode of Boring History promises to soothe your mind and ease you into sleep as we uncover the most bizarre and surprising truths from centuries of royal rule. Forget the mundane history lessons; prepare to be astonished by the secret lives, strange customs, and hidden scandals of English royalty in this black screen video designed for ultimate relaxation.

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► Learn about the unexpected and scandalous lives of English Queens.
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They ruled empires, shaped history, and were 
absolutely weird. From kings who kned vegetables to queens who feared sneezes were satanic. This 
is not your textbook monarchy. Forget polished portraits and royal speeches. Behind the crowns 
were obsessions, tantrums, ghost haunted diaries, and armor made of diamonds. These are the 101 
strangest, funniest, most unhinged facts about English kings and queens you’ve never heard. So, 
buckle your dubblet, pour some pheasant gravy, and prepare for a 2-hour plunge into royal 
madness. This is the 101 weirdest facts about English kings and queens. And yes, someone really 
did talk to cows. Before we dive head first into royal insanity, make sure to subscribe because 
we’ve got a whole empire of strange history coming your way. And hey, drop a comment below. Where in 
the world are you watching from? And what time is it right now? Are you sipping tea at noon or 
doom scrolling at 3:00 a.m. in your pajamas? We want to know who’s joining us on this weird 
majestic ride. Henry VIII owned over 50 pairs of velvet slippers. In the golden maze of Hampton 
Court, where sycopants whispered and chandeliers trembled with gossip. One monarch clumped 
through history in style. Henry VIII, a man whose feet were more pampered than most noblemen’s 
entire lives. He owned over 50 pairs of velvet slippers. Not leather, not silk, velvet. The kind 
of footwear that whispers divine right with every plush step. But Henry was no common shoe hordo. 
He refused to wear the same pair twice in a week. This was a king who changed wives like outfits and 
slippers like moods. Imagine the royal wardrobe. racks upon racks of decadent foot pillows, 
each a silent witness to his temper tantrums, his feasts, his increasingly heavy gate. Cordias 
probably feared the shuffle of velvet more than the clink of chains, because if Henry was walking 
toward you, something was about to get executed. His slipper obsession wasn’t just vanity. It was 
monarchy in motion. every pair a declaration. I am above you. I am comfort incarnate. I am king 
even in socks. And speaking of fear, next up, meet a monarch who could hold her own against the 
Spanish Armada, but nearly fainted at four tiny   paws. Queen Elizabeth I was terrified of mice. 
She wore armor over silk, commanded ships with a stare, and turned virginity into policy, but 
set a mouse loose in the privy council, and Queen Elizabeth I would leap like a commoner on a chair. 
Once during a heated session with her advisers, a mouse scured across the room. The Virgin Queen did 
not maintain regal composure. She screamed loudly. The counselors froze, not from the mouse, but from 
fear that laughter might cost them their heads. This was a woman who crushed rebellion, executed 
rivals, and rewrote royal image into myth. Yet, here she was, paralyzed by a whiskered intruder. 
It wasn’t the only time, either. According to gossip, and there was always gossip, Elizabeth 
ordered entire wings of her palace checked for rodent infiltration. She even had her kitchens 
inspected by men who’d rather be plotting naval battles than chasing mice with brooms. Royal 
terror wasn’t supposed to squeak. But that’s the thing about monarchy. It’s all mask and myth until 
the tiniest crack lets reality scurry in. But if Elizabeth’s fear was irrational, wait until you 
meet a king who thought branches were royalty and not metaphorically, King George III tried to shake 
hands with a tree. At the peak of his madness, when even court physicians began writing more 
prayers than prescriptions, King George III approached a tree, bowed deeply, and extended 
his hand. Not as a gardener, not as a botonist, but as a fellow monarch. He believed the tree 
was the king of Prussia. The courters didn’t blink. They couldn’t. Madness was dangerous, but 
acknowledgement was worse. So they watched in polite horror as George carried on a one-sided 
diplomatic exchange with bark and leaves. The tree, to its credit, remained dignified. 
George’s mental health deteriorated in brilliant, terrifying flashes. He babbled in Latin, gave 
speeches to livestock, and tried to redesign the calendar. But nothing said the monarchy is 
unwell, like trying to negotiate foreign policy with a maple. It wasn’t entirely his fault. 
Medicine back then included leeches, arsenic, and moral restraint. The crown stayed on his head 
long after his mind had drifted off the throne. But while George spoke to trees, another king 
was getting far more physical with furniture. And unlike diplomacy, this next fact wasn’t happening 
in the palisate, was happening in Paris, in velvet, in secret. Edward IIIth had a custommade 
sex chair in Paris. While Polite society clinkedked teacups and rehearsed etiquette, Edward 
IIIth was indulging in upholstery of a different sort. In the hidden chambers of a Parisian 
pleasure palace lay Shabanesh commissioned a throne that no history book dared sketch. A 
custommade sex chair designed to support his royal girth during affairs of the flesh. The apparatus 
was more engineering marvel than furniture. Brass fittings, padded supports, and ergonomic angles. 
Edward’s appetite for women required hydraulics. He was known as dirty birdie in polite whispers 
and the moniker didn’t come from muddy boots. Married? Yes. Faithful? Absolutely not. His visits 
to Paris were less statecraft, more acrobatics. The sex chair allowed him to, how should we say, 
participate enthusiastically without the nuisance of cardio. Prostitutes reportedly loved him. He 
was generous, charming, and unfased by scandal. The chair still exists, preserved like a weird 
religious relic of Victorian hypocrisy. It reminds us that the same empire that birthed Dickens also 
birthed royal indulgence with brass handlebars. But speaking of strict moral codes, let swivel 
from velvet debauchery to velvet paranoia. The next queen couldn’t handle a piano leg without 
getting flustered. Queen Victoria insisted piano legs be covered. In a time when showing ankle 
was practically pornographic, Queen Victoria upped the prudish ante. She demanded that piano 
legs be covered because they were in her eyes too suggestive. Yes, piano legs. Ornate wooden scroll 
work curved into innocent claw feet suddenly deemed risque in the royal gaze. The Victorian 
era wasn’t just repressed. It was artistically repressed. Every household followed suit. 
Furniture was draped in frilly modesty like an overdressed aunt. Even inanimate objects weren’t 
safe from moral scrutiny. Curtains on chair legs, doilies on doilies. Heaven forbid someone catch 
a glimpse of an uncovered bench limb and have impure thoughts. But Victoria’s fear wasn’t just 
about appearance. It was about control. The empire had to project order, decency, superiority, and 
so even a Steinway’s legs had to wear trousers. In a palace, beauty bowed to shame. Yet, while 
Victoria was draping mahogany in embarrassment, her predecessor had the opposite problem. His 
love for animals bordered on madness, and when one misbehaved, the court learned quickly. The 
dog stayed. You didn’t. Charles II banned people from kicking his dog. At court, Charles II’s 
spananiels roamed the halls like they owned the place. Technically, they did. Royal courters could 
lose status or favor over one misstep, especially if that misstep landed on a dog. Charles II adored 
his pets with a zeal usually reserved for heirs. His favorite spananiels defecated in throne rooms, 
barked during audiences, and occasionally snatched food off banquet tables. Courers gritted their 
teeth and smiled. Because one thing you did not do was kick the king’s dog. Charles issued 
an explicit order banning it. And not just a slap on the wrist law. This was a royal decree as 
binding as tax policy. The dogs wore ribbons. Some had titles. They sat beside Charles on state 
business, nuzzling elbows during discussions of war and diplomacy. A visiting ambassador once 
commented that it was hard to tell whether he was speaking to the king of England or his lap dog. 
In a court fueled by gossip and petty rivalries, the spananiels were untouchable. You could insult 
a duke and recover. Touch a dog and you were out. But while Charles defended his dogs like royalty, 
the next queen had a very different outlet for emotional release. Her dolls weren’t play things. 
They were victims. Mary, I collected dolls of Protestant martyrs. To her enemies, she was bloody 
Mary. But even those who feared her burning stake policies didn’t know what she did behind closed 
doors. Deep in her private chambers, Queen Mary, I kept dolls, dozens of them. These weren’t 
toys or courtly ornaments. They were standins, representations, effiges of Protestant martyrs. 
and she stabbed them. Each was dressed with disturbing care. Tiny robes, miniature Bibles. 
Some said she named them after real victims. Others whispered she talked to them before 
delivering pin stabs to their hearts. It wasn’t policy. It was penance or perhaps pleasure. 
No one dared ask. This was no innocent hobby. It mirrored the queen’s grim obsession with 
purging England of heresy. Over 280 Protestants burned during her reign. And yet she still needed 
these waxing companions to take more punishment. They were her stress relief, her devotional 
outlet, her twisted gallery of retribution. In a court already rattled by flames and fear, 
her dolls were a quieter terror. One that didn’t scream, didn’t fight, didn’t bleed, just absorbed 
her wrath in silence. But not all kings hid their superstition behind curtains. One openly handed 
power over to the stars and let destiny rule the throne. And that’s only number seven. If a king 
talking to a tree doesn’t make you question the whole royal bloodline, just wait. It’s about to 
get wilder. While you’re here spiraling with us through history’s most bizarre rabbit hole, 
make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next Crownclad catastrophe. And hey, where are 
you watching from? And what time is it right now? Are you in London at lunchtime or in Manila at 
midnight? Drop it in the comments. We’re building a global court of weirdos. Henry V 6th. Let 
astrologers make state decisions. When the crown grew heavy and his nerves grew thin, Henry V 6th 
looked not to generals, ministers, or even God, but to the stars. Literally, he surrounded 
himself with astrologers who advised him on everything from taxes to troop movements. Solar 
eclipses were omens, comets were declarations, and planetary alignments practically executive 
orders. During his reign, political policy sometimes came from a horoscope scroll rather than 
parliament. Advisers rolled their eyes in private, but nodded solemnly in court. After all, this was 
a king so fragile he once fell into a catatonic state for over a year. So, if Jupiter rising in 
Virgo helped him decide which town to fund or which noble to marry off, so be it. The court 
learned to frame their arguments in celestial logic. The harvest is poor, your majesty, but Mars 
assures us better crops. It was less about truth and more about phrasing. If the stars spoke, Henry 
obeyed. But kings who drift into mysticism tend to become caricatures. And the next one, well, he was 
a chain smoking contradiction denouncing sin with a pipe in his hand. James I smoked constantly 
despite calling tobacco barbarous. James I hated tobacco. Absolutely loathed it. Called it 
barbarous, loathsome, and harmful to the brain. He even published an entire essay counterblast 
to Tobacaware. He ranted about its foul stench and moral decay. So naturally, he smoked like a 
chimney. This king wasn’t just a hypocrite. He was an addict with a flare for royal contradiction. 
He’d puff away on long clay pipes between diet tribes, his court coughing in passive aggressive 
silence. Ministers learned to tolerate it. Guests learned to pretend it didn’t smell like a burning 
barn. And servants scured to keep his tobacco   stash full. James saw himself as a moral reformer, 
a God-appointed guardian of public virtue. But somehow that didn’t extend to his own lungs. 
Maybe he liked the fire in it. Maybe he liked the ritual. Or maybe he just liked being the only one 
allowed to be disgusting in the palace. But James’ hypocrisy was only skin deep. The next royal 
had to be sewn into his clothes just to function because his addiction wasn’t tobacco. It was 
everything. George IVth drank so much he had to be sewn into his trousers. By the end of his life, 
George IVth wasn’t so much a monarch as a walking contradiction stitched into velvet and regret. His 
drinking was legendary biblical. even champagne at breakfast, brandy with lunch, and wine to top off 
a night cap that started before sunset. It wasn’t casual excess. It was full-blown industrial scale 
alcoholism. And the consequences clung to him, literally. He grew so bloated from years of 
indulgence that his valet had to sew him into his trousers before public appearances. not 
fasten, not button, sew. Like a costume, like a prize pig dressed for pageantry. The garments 
didn’t just contain his girth. They restrained it, forced it into a shape vaguely resembling royalty. 
Tailor were sworn to secrecy. Buttons were ornamental lies. His wardrobe was more illusion 
than clothing, but no amount of stitching could hide the fact that the king’s liver was plotting a 
rebellion of its own. Despite it all, he insisted on appearing dignified, a living paradox, bloated, 
powdered, barely mobile, but determined to seem regal. Because kings don’t sweat, they glisten. 
And while George was drinking himself into his wardrobe, another king was reigning in name, only 
spending more time on horseback than on English soil. Richard the Lionheart spent less than 
six months in England. He’s remembered as the crusading warrior king, the lionhearted legend. 
Statues were raised, stories etched him into myth. But the truth, Richard the Lionheart didn’t care 
much for England. In fact, he spent less than six months there during his entire 10-year reign. To 
him, England was a piggy banker place to tax and plunder to fund his true passion, war. Crusades 
in the Holy Land, skirmishes in France, sieges, swords, glory. That was Richard’s throne. 
Not the Chile island he technically ruled. He barely spoke English. He hated the weather. 
And when he finally did show up, it was usually just to ask for more money. He left the actual 
ruling to others softened disastrously. While Richard was out charging into destiny, his kingdom 
descended into debt and instability. Rebellions simmered. Nobles schemed. But the king’s sword 
hand was busy elsewhere. And still we remember him with lion statues and heroic epithets. Proof that 
charisma can outshine absence at least in bronze. But while Richard roared from afar, another queen 
was mumbling at home through what many suspected was a haze of royal intoxication. Queen Anne 
was rumored to be drunk during royal audiences. Queen Anne, the monarch of gout and grief, ruled 
with a swollen leg and a wine glass rarely out of reach. Court whispers said she slurred her words 
during state audiences, nodded off mid-sentence, and forgot entire diplomatic briefings. Whether 
she was drunk or simply dazed from illness, no one could say for certain, but her speech often 
flowed like molasses and smelled like cherry. It wasn’t just gossip. Ambassadors noted her 
heaviness of demeanor and the clouded mind behind her pale, puffy face. Servants carried her 
between rooms. Ministers repeated things twice, sometimes three times, and during one famously 
awkward meeting. She reportedly tried to bless a visiting dignitary by sneezing on him. 
Anne was a tragic figure, not a tyrant. 17 pregnancies, zero surviving heirs, a body that 
failed her, a throne that exhausted her. And so if the goblet helped her sit through another day 
of dull ministers and backstabbing courters, who could blame her? But while Anne drank to 
forget, the next king had a furry adviser he’d never forget because he believed it could outthink 
Parliament. Edward VIII had a dog named Israeli, which he claimed was smarter than most 
politicians. Edward VIII had a flare for dramatics, a taste for scandal, and a dog he swore 
could outwit half the cabinet. The terrier’s name, Dizraeli. A four-legged shade thrown at the 
entire British political class. While Edward was busy derailing the monarchy over love, dodging 
responsibility, and alienating just about everyone in power, his true confidant wasn’t a minister. 
It was a mut. He paraded Israeli through palaces, posed with him in portraits, and dropped quips 
that made courters wse. “Smarter than most MPs,” he’d mutter while scratching the dog’s ears. 
more loyal than my advisers,” he joked with a bitter smile. Everyone laughed nervously. But 
the comparison wasn’t just a throwaway joke. Edward didn’t trust politicians. He thought them 
selfserving, slow, and spineless. Dizraeli at least never plotted against him. The dog never 
wrote treacherous memos or leaked gossip to the press. He simply listened. In a life spiraling out 
of royal control, Dizraeli was something simple, pure, probably housebroken, which is more than 
could be said for Edward’s handling of the crown. But if Edward’s insult was metaphorical, the next 
Queen’s List was literal kill list, updated in red ink by the hand of England’s most dangerous 
virgin. Elizabeth I kept a kill list. The court of Elizabeth I shimmerred with gold and ceremony. 
But beneath the lace and Latin prayers, the queen kept something far darker. A handwritten kill 
list. It wasn’t a ledger. It wasn’t strategic. It was personal. Names written in red ink, updated 
regularly. Each entry a quiet death sentence hanging in limbo. Whispers claimed she’d review it 
like a diary. After long councils, after bad news, after betrayal, her enemies, real and imagined, 
lined up like candles waiting to be snuffed. Some names were crossed out. Pardoned or simply 
eliminated. Others had red marks beside them, growing heavier with time. A skull beside one, a 
dagger beside another. This wasn’t paranoia. It was policy wrapped in performance. Elizabeth’s 
enemies had a habit of dying in silence, behind closed doors, or on elegant scaffolds 
surrounded by pomp. Her kill list wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t official either. Like everything 
about her, it danced between myth and menace. And while Elizabeth wielded red ink like a 
scalpel, the next king met a red death of his own chest, pierced not by politics, but by 
a very suspicious accident in the woods. William II was accidentally shot in the chest by his own 
hunting partner. It was supposed to be a casual hunt in the New Forest. royal leisure, nobles, 
arrows, and deer. But instead, King William I known as Rufus was found sprawled on the forest 
floor an arrow through his chest fired supposedly by his hunting companion, Sir Walter Tier. An 
accident, they said, a tragic misfire. But no one really believed it. William’s death was 
too convenient, too neat. He was unpopular, quarrelome, and had no wife or heirs. His sudden 
exit cleared the path for his brother Henry, who just so happened to seize the crown the very next 
day without delay, without mourning. Sir Walter, he fled immediately disappeared into France, never 
to return. Not exactly the actions of a guiltless man weeping over a tragic mistake. The forest 
held its secrets. No trial, no investigation, just silence and a king buried in haste. Over the 
centuries, theories have multiplied. A conspiracy, a political assassination, even divine punishment. 
But one fact remains. An English king went out not on a throne, but face down in mud with an arrow 
where no royal crest belonged. And if William’s treasure was spilled with blood, the next monarch 
would lose his entirely to a swamp along with England’s gold forever. King John lost all his 
royal treasure in a swamp where it still remains lost. In 1216, King John was already having 
the worst year of his life. Baronss rebelled. France invaded. His reputation already rotting 
from tyranny and failed waris sliding into full collapse. But then came the final humiliation. 
While fleeing rebellious forces through the wash, a tidal estuary in eastern England. He made a 
critical error. He sent his baggage train ahead of him. That train wasn’t just tents and chamber 
pots. It carried the crown, jewels, sacks of gold, relics, and the symbolic power of the monarchy 
itself. Somewhere in the shifting, treacherous marshland, the carts sank, swallowed by the tide. 
Gone. No bodies, no treasure, just slime, silence, and a stunned royal court. For centuries, treasure 
hunters have dreamed of finding it. The English crown never officially recovered. The losser 
explained it. Some say it was sabotage, others divine retribution for Jon’s cruelty. Whatever 
the truth, the mud closed over more than just jewels buried the last dignity of a king already 
hated by history. Jon died shortly after, raving and poisoned by dysentery. And while his treasure 
dissolved into myth, his successor would wage war not on rebels or France, but on the very idea of 
music. Henry VIIth hated music so much he finded a man for singing too loudly. Henry VIII wasn’t 
flamboyant like his son Henry VIII. He wasn’t poetic, indulgent, or interested in spectacle. He 
was a taxman in a crown, quiet, calculating, and apparently deeply allergic to song. He despised 
music with a puritanical intensity that bordered on comic. Once a man was fined simply for singing 
too loudly near court. This wasn’t about bad pitch. It was about control. Henry saw music as 
a waste, a distraction, something that encouraged frivvality. when he wanted obedience. The court 
that once danced for joy under plantaginate rule became a silent stage under tutor austerity. 
Musicians whispered bars played in corners. Some gave up entirely. If a harp twanged too brightly 
in a corridor, heads turned not in delight but in fear. The merrymaking that had once defined 
court life now felt like trespassing. All joy had to be sanctioned, tamed. Ironically, his son 
would become one of the most musically obsessed monarchs in history. But Henry VIIth left a legacy 
of silence broken only by whispers of coins and the shuffle of weary feet. Yet while he finded men 
for melody, another queen mourned in melodrama. Her sorrow dressed in black haven for a dog. Queen 
Victoria dressed her dog in black morning clothes after it died. When Queen Victoria loved, she 
grieved just as hard. The death of her husband, Prince Albert, shattered her. She wore black 
for decades, spoke to his photograph daily, and ordered the palace to remain in mourning as though 
time itself had stopped. But her ritual of sorrow wasn’t limited to humans. When her favorite dog 
died, she had it dressed in black morning clothes, not draped, dressed, tailored garments of grief 
for a creature that once warmed her lap. Servants were instructed to carry the tiny canine corpse 
with solemn ceremony. It was placed in a miniature coffin, mourned, remembered. This was more than 
eccentricity. For Victoria, the boundaries between ritual and obsession dissolved completely. The dog 
symbolized loyalty in a world where few could be trusted, and so it was honored, as if it had worn 
medals or signed treaties. She even kept mourning attire for her other pets, curtains, collars, 
ribbons of jet. It was all part of a personal empire built on grief, and no one dared question 
it not unless they wanted to join the deceased in spirit. But if Victoria mourned with ceremony, the 
next king couldn’t even communicate with his court because he never bothered to learn their language. 
George I ruled England while only speaking German. When George I arrived in England in 1714, he 
stepped off the boat as king and couldn’t speak a word of English, not a phrase, not a greeting, not 
even a toast. His reign began not with fanfare, but with translators, lots of them. Originally 
from Hanover, George I ascended to the British throne through a convoluted Protestant succession 
crisis. Parliament needed a Protestant monarch more than a relatable one. So they got a German 
prince who didn’t know his people, their language, or their customs. Cabinet meetings were awkward 
pantoimes. Court dinners turned into games of charades. Ministers used Latin or French, 
and still everything got lost in translation. He relied heavily on his adviserss, especially 
Robert Walpole, who effectively ran the country, while George nodded politely, likely unsure 
what was happening. His own courters resented him. The people mocked him. Newspapers printed 
German sounding gibberish as fake royal quotes, and yes ruled. Stranger still, his disinterest 
in direct rule helped shape the modern British constitutional monarchy. By saying almost nothing, 
he changed everything. But while George I stumbled through language barriers, another king would 
vanish into obscurity only to resurface centuries later beneath asphalt and oil stains. Richard 
III’s corpse was found under a parking lot 500 years after his death. For half a millennium, 
Richard III was more ghost than king. His reputation blackened by Shakespeare. His memory 
reduced to a hunchbacked villain who murdered   nephews. But his actual body vanished. Lost in 
the chaos of battle and burial. Then in 2012, construction workers digging under a car park 
in Leicester unearthed a skeleton with a twisted spine and battle wounds. DNA confirmed it. Richard 
III had been hiding under a parking lot. He was the last English king to die in battle struck 
down at Bosworth Field in 1485, and his enemies buried him hastily in a friy later demolished. As 
centuries passed, no one knew exactly where he’d gone. Urban sprawl swallowed the site layer by 
layer until his grave sat beneath parked Toyotas and oil leaks. When archaeologists found the 
remains, it was a national sensation. Here was a man who’d become more myth than monarch. Finally 
yanked into the daylight. His bones bore brutal evidence of his end. He head trauma, blade marks, 
humiliation. He was reeried with full royal honors in 2015. From battlefield disgrace to cathedral 
majesty. But while Richard’s bones were hidden, Henry VIII’s meals were anything but, especially 
the regal bird he refused to share with peasants. Henry VIII ate swan regularly and considered 
turkey too common. Feasts under Henry VIII were less meals and more performance art. He 
didn’t just eat, he consumed. He conquered the banquet table like it owed him a crown. And 
one bird graced that table more than any other. The swan. Regal, graceful, untouchable, except 
when roasted. Swan was reserved for nobility, and Henry took that rule personally. He had it 
prepared with spices from across the empire, glazed until golden, and often served whole, 
feathers reattached for dramatic flare. It wasn’t just food. It was dominance on a platter. 
But turkey, that bird was new, common, a colonial upstart. To Henry, eating turkey was like wearing 
burlap to court. He scoffed at it, dismissed it. It belonged to merchants, not monarchs. So 
while the rest of Europe gradually welcomed the bird into their kitchens, Henry stayed loyal 
to the swan, graceful in water, majestic in death, and apparently delicious when basted in clove 
butter. Servants handled them like relics. Cooks competed to perfect the royal recipe. And if 
anyone dared suggest poultry of a lesser pedigree, they might find themselves out of a job or 
worse. But as Henry feasted on elegance, another queen marched to war with something far more 
delicate tucked under her arm. Porcelain dolls. Mary II loved collecting porcelain dolls, which 
she carried with her even to war camps. Mary II ruled as co-monarch alongside her husband William 
III, facing revolutions, threats of invasion, and the neverending churn of courtly politics. But 
despite commanding armies and navigating a kingdom in flux, Mary carried with her something achingly 
fragile. A porcelain dolls, dozens of them, wherever she went, including military camps. 
These weren’t idle trinkets or symbols of lost childhood. They were sacred objects to 
herclad in miniature gowns carefully combed, cradled in velvetlinined boxes. Soldiers looked 
on baffled as the queen who oversaw battle plans spent quiet moments dressing dolls. It wasn’t 
just sentimentality. It was ritual, obsession, and perhaps a coping mechanism for a woman who 
had to be steel on the outside while unraveling   inside. Mary’s dolls had names, personalities. 
She spoke to them. Some believed she used them to rehearse court behavior. Others thought they were 
linked to superstitions of protection. Whatever the reason, they came with her over muddy roads 
through gunpowder air right into the tents of campaign. And while Mary clung to childhood 
porcelain, the next king was a literal giant so tall his nickname was a measurement and his 
walking stick a sharpened weapon. Edward I was so tall they called him Long Shanks. He reportedly 
used a spear as a walking stick. Edward I wasn’t just tall. He was towering. In a medieval 
world of stunted nutrition and short stature, he loomed above courters like a cathedral over a 
chapel. His legs were so long they earned him the nickname Long Shanks. Not a poetic flourish, but 
a blunt description. He was a monarch you could see coming from two corridors away. Reports claim 
he used a spear as a walking stick knot for show, but because it matched his reach. This wasn’t 
a man who needed to command a room. His shadow did it first. Towering at around 6’2 or more. He 
might not sound NBA tall by modern standards, but for the 13th century, he was a giant. His height 
fed his myth. He was aggressive, uncompromising, and militaristic. Whether crusading in the Holy 
Land or crushing rebellions in Wales and Scotland, he moved like a weapon of monarchy, unyielding, 
longstriding, and relentless. Even his tomb reflects his enormity. His bones confirmed what 
legend whispered. Long Shanks was not just tall in body, but in reputation. And while he cut a fierce 
silhouette, his descendant would become obsessed with something far less fearsome, his own flowing 
locks. Charles, I was obsessed with his hair, and owned hundreds of combs. Charles I believed in 
divine right. He believed in ceremony, formality, and the unquestionable authority of kings. But 
above all, he believed in his hair. It was long, lustrous, carefully parted, and perfumed. He 
treated his locks like a crown of their own. Pampered, protected, and endlessly groomed. He 
owned hundreds of combs, ivory, tortoise shell, mother of pearl. Some were engraved with 
monograms, others rumored to be dipped in oil of rose or myrr. He brushed it multiple times a 
day, and if a cordier looked less than impressed, that cordier would not be seen again for a while. 
His court became a stage and his man the star. Even in imprisonment, facing execution, Charles 
worried aloud about who would style his hair on the scaffold. On the day of his beheading, 
he requested a hat that wouldn’t flatten it. The executioner’s axe may have taken his head, but 
not before the man made sure he looked divine to the end. And while Charles combed away his fate, 
the next queen smeared death on her face, daily layering beauty with poison in pursuit of the 
perfect pale, Queen Elizabeth I used lead-based white makeup which ate away at her skin. To rule 
as a woman in the 16th century, Elizabeth I needed more than political cunning. She needed to become 
a symbol. And that symbol had to be flawless, immortal, white as marble and untouchable 
as the moon. To achieve this ghostly ideal, she turned to Venetian suse, a cosmetic blend 
of white lead and vinegar. It made her skin glow. It also slowly killed her. She painted it on 
thick, layer after layer to hide blemishes. Yes, but also to sculpt an image. Virgin, divine, 
eternal. Over time, the lead leeched into her skin, causing corrosion, soores, and decay. But 
Elizabeth doubled down. The worse her skin got, the thicker the mask. Underneath the myth of 
Gloriana was a woman peeling away behind powder. She would sometimes sit for hours as her ladies 
carefully applied the toxic mixture, smoothing over each wrinkle every sign of humanity. Even her 
closest advisers rarely saw her unpainted face. She had become her own statue. But while Elizabeth 
painted herself into legend, the next king turned a tiny mole into divine policy, believing his skin 
bore not sin, but sanctity. James II believed his mole was holy and had it blessed by a priest. 
James II wasn’t exactly known for subtlety. He converted to Catholicism in a Protestant country. 
He pushed divine right until the monarchy cracked. And in the strangest display of royal ego, he 
believed a mole on his body was a sacred signp proof that he was touched by God. So what did he 
do? He had it blessed by a priest. Not privately, not sheepishly, ceremonially. This wasn’t a quirky 
superstition. It was theology rewritten on skin. His inner circle reportedly treated the mole 
with reverence. Cordiers spoke of it in hushed tones. Some even claimed it looked like a cross. 
Others said it bled during moments of political stress like a divine barometer of tension. It 
became a kind of relic in motion. Not enshrined in a cathedral, but on the body of a man who saw 
himself as England’s chosen monarch. No matter how much England disagreed, in the end, James’ faith 
in signs couldn’t save him. He was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution, but for a brief bizarre 
chapter, one mole became the most overpromoted patch of skin in British history. And if James’s 
mole was revered in life, the next king would meet death in the most undignified room imaginable, 
face down on the royal toilet. George II died on the toilet from an aortic rupture. George II 
was not a dramatic man. He preferred punctuality, routine, and roast beef, but his death was 
anything but ordinary. On the 25th of October, 1,760, he walked into his lavatory after breakfast 
and never walked out. Moments later, a loud thud echoed through Kensington Palace. The king was 
found collapsed on the floor, face down beside the royal commode. An aortic rupture had killed 
him instantly. A burst artery, one final fatal heartbeat. The scene was ghastly. His breakfast 
boiled eggs and coffee still sat on the table, his wig slightly a skew, his dignity left behind. 
For a monarch who lived by schedule and protocol, it was an undignified exit, but also strangely 
fitting for a man known for bluntness and little patience for flare. His physicians, scrambling 
for explanations, wrote long reports about aneurysms and cardiac failure. But the public 
didn’t need the details. The king had died on the toilet. That was enough to immortalize him in 
pub jokes and scandal sheets for centuries. Still, George’s bathroom demise pales in comparison to 
what terrified the next king. It wasn’t illness or rebellion or even death. It was something far 
more innocent, a feline with whiskers. William III was terrified of cats and once jumped out of bed 
when one entered his chambers. William III wasn’t the kind of monarch who rattled easily. He faced 
assassination plots, brutal winters, and multiple wars without flinching. But the one thing that 
could send him literally flying from his bed in a panic. Cats. Yes, house cats. Whiskers, meows, 
the occasional indifferent stare. To William, they were miniature monsters. Once during a late 
night moment of calm in his royal chambers, a cat slipped under the door. Not a tiger, not a lynx, 
just a cat. The king bolted upright and hurled himself from bed in sheer terror, reportedly still 
wrapped in royal nightwear. Servants rushed in, thinking there was an intruder only to find his 
majesty cowering behind a curtain, pointing at   the feline like it was an armed assassin. No 
one’s sure where the phobia began. Perhaps he was scratched as a child. Perhaps he simply 
couldn’t bear the way they seemed to judge him silently. Whatever the cause, palace staff learned 
quickly. Keep the corridors clear of cats or risk royal meltdown. And while William fled from tiny 
predators, the next queen embraced intimacy to an extreme requiring nightly help undressing. Long 
past the age when most people dressed themselves, Queen Victoria had a personal servant undress 
her each night. Even in her 70s, Queen Victoria ruled an empire that stretched across continents. 
But behind the closed doors of Buckingham Palace, she clung tightly to routine, tradition, and 
human touch. Every night well into her 70s, she required a personal servant to undress her. 
Not for opulence, but out of ritual, dependence, emotion. This wasn’t a simple matter of loosening 
corsets. It was a solemn, silent ceremony. The servant ofton, a handpicked lady or trusted 
maid would carefully unpin the queen’s morning garments, fold them just so, remove jewelry, 
comb her hair, and finally lay out her night gown. Victoria would say little, but the air 
hung heavy with memory of Albert, of loneliness, of decades spent in black. It was more than 
royal formality. It was intimacy sustained by hierarchy. She didn’t want servants. She wanted 
witnesses, people to mark the quiet hours to confirm she still existed beneath the crown. Even 
as her joints stiffened and her eyesight failed, she never once requested privacy. In her mind, 
a queen did not change for bed. She was prepared for it. But if Victoria undressed with ceremony, 
her ancestor had to be lifted into his trousers because his waistline had become a feat of 
architectural engineering. Henry VII’s waist ballooned to over 50 in, and he needed a crane to 
lift him onto his horse. By the end of his life, Henry VIII was less a man than a siege tower in 
royal robes. His waist, once tightly cinched by armor and vanity, ballooned past 50 in. Walking 
became a strain. Standing a chore and riding impossible without machinery. So the court 
installed a special hoist royal crane. Not metaphorically, literally. A device was rigged in 
his private stables to lift the enormous king onto horseback like a cargo crate. straps, pulleys, 
servants grunting in unison. Imagine the whispers, the heaving, the awkward silence as his majesty 
was slowly dangled above his saddle like a roast being lowered into an oven. And still Henry 
clung to the image of the Viral Knight. He wore tight hoes that had to be customstretched. 
He held tournaments he no longer participated in. He thundered about chivalry while wheezing 
through breath that smelled of pheasant and   beer. But beneath the velvet and steel was a 
man crumbling under his own weight physically and metaphorically. He had become too large 
for his kingdom, too furious for peace, and too heavy for even his own horse. And yet his 
genetic legacy couldn’t hold weight either because the next queen lost 17 children and history never 
let her forget. Queen Anne was pregnant 17 times, but none of her children survived to adulthood. 
Queen Anne’s legacy is written in ink, but her grief is etched in silent 17 pregnancies, 
17 losses, miscarriages, still births, infants who died in days, toddlers who withered away. One 
child, Prince William, survived into childhood, giving the court fleeting hope, only to die at age 
11. After that, nothing. Anne’s reign should have been a celebration of dynastic stability. Instead, 
it became a tragic echo chamber of nurseries left empty and tiny coffins carried out in the night. 
Doctors poked and theorized bad blood, poor diet, congenital issues, but no one could explain why 
the womb of the queen turned into a cradle of death. Her body bore the toll. Swollen with gout, 
dependent on constant medical attention, often transported by sedan chair because walking was 
too painful. Her spirit bore it, too. Those close to her described periods of deep depression and 
sudden outbursts. A monarch grieving alone over and over while the kingdom whispered about curses 
and divine punishment. And yet through all this she ruled stubbornly, softly, with pain stitched 
into every royal decision. But while Anne suffered quiet tragedy, the next king lived a secret 
life of illegal love, marrying not for power, but in defiance of his own crown. George IVth 
had a secret second marriage, which was illegal, to a Catholic woman. George IVth wasn’t known for 
restraint. He gambled, drank, and seduced like a man trying to speedrun royal scandal. But his most 
dangerous move came wrapped in lace and whispered vows illegal marriage to Maria Fitz Herbert, 
a twice widowed Catholic. Under British law, especially the Royal Marriages Act of 1,772, no 
monarch could marry without the king’s consent, and no heir could legally wed a Catholic. George 
knew both. He didn’t care. In 1785, he married her in secret, convinced he could keep the crown 
and the woman he loved. The ceremony was private, the paperwork hidden. But it happened. She wore 
the ring. He called her his wife. For years he publicly denied it while privately writing her 
love letters signed. Your husband. It became a scandalous mystery. Whispered in salons and 
debated in Parliament when he later married Caroline of Brunswick legally. He did so bitterly 
and possibly still devoted to Maria. Even after their romantic bond faded, he ordered that 
she never be publicly insulted. When he died, a miniature portrait of Maria was found around his 
neck. Not Caroline, not state symbols, just the ghost of an illegal love. And while George’s heart 
defied the law, the next king’s passion ticked and chimed because he was in love with the sound of 
clocks. Edward V 6th loved clocks and kept dozens in his private chambers. Edward V 6th was a boy 
king with the weight of a fracturing kingdom on his narrow shoulders. But inside his chambers away 
from the reformation’s chaos and the whispering of scheming advisers found calm in machinery. 
Not swords, not toys, clocks. He adored them, collected them, studied them. Mechanical time 
pieces lined his walls like loyal sentinels. Each one ticked and talked a little differently, 
forming a chorus of movement and order. Some played music. Others featured miniature 
automatini knights jousting at the stroke   of 12. It wasn’t just a passing interest. Edward 
kept logs, adjusted settings, and even learned rudimentary clock maintenance. He was fascinated 
by their precision, their predictability, perhaps because his world was anything but. As a monarch 
surrounded by unpredictable adults, ticking gears offered control. Servants said he’d sit for hours 
watching the pendulum swing, lips moving silently as he counted. In a world spinning with political 
anxiety, clocks were his comfort, his rhythm, his anchor. But for all his love of structure, Edward 
would die at 15, his internal clock silenced too soon. Still, his obsession lived on. And the 
queen who followed, she didn’t keep time. She celebrated death sometimes with yellow dresses and 
public displays of morbid cheer. That was fact 33. And somehow we’ve already met a mole blessing 
king, a queen with a kill list, and a royal so drunk he had to be sewn into his pants. If you’re 
loving the chaos, hit that subscribe button. We’ve got plenty more royal absurdity to come. And just 
for fun, tell us in the comments where you’re   watching from and what time it is. Are you binging 
British madness at breakfast or winding down with monarchial mayhem at midnight? We’re dying to 
know who’s out there in the kingdom of YouTube. Elizabeth I made her ladies wear yellow when 
her enemy died to celebrate. In the tutor court, color was never just fashion. It was warfare 
stitched in silk. And Queen Elizabeth I, master of political theater, used color like 
a sword. When Mary, Queen of Scotcher cousin, her rival, her prisoner, was finally executed 
in 1587, after years of political cat and mouse, Elizabeth made a theatrical decree. Her ladies 
would wear yellow, not black for mourning, not white for purity, yellow for joy. Some say it 
was a twisted celebration, a monarch reveling in victory under the disguise of court ritual. Others 
claim it was Elizabeth’s way of publicly mourning a fellow sovereign while privately rejoicing that 
a threat to her crown had been neatly removed from the chessboard. Either way, it sent a message. 
Loud, garish, unmissable. Yellow swept through the palace like wildfire. Gowns shimmerred in 
the sunlight. Cordiers bowed with forced smiles. It was regal, gloating, masquerading as courtly 
dignity. The virgin queen had claimed her greatest rival’s head, and she did so without shedding a 
visible tear. But while Elizabeth painted victory in gold, the next monarch was obsessed not with 
death, but with demon spending his own guide book on how to hunt them. James I loved witches, but 
only if they were in his book. He personally wrote a witch hunting manual. Long before Salem burned 
with paranoia, King James I of England lit the match. Fascinated no consumed be the occult. James 
wasn’t just a believer in witchcraft. He was its literary authority. In 1597, he penned Deminoi, a 
royal manifesto on spotting witches, interrogating them, and most importantly, eliminating them. It 
wasn’t casual interest. James saw witchcraft as a direct threat to divine monarchy. He blamed storms 
on witches, failures of state, witchcraft. Even a near shipwreck he once experienced became 
evidence of a supernatural plot. So he took action. Under his reign, trials increased, torture 
methods were refined, and suspicion bloomed across the countryside. Women, often poor, old, 
or inconvenient, were dragged from their homes and condemned based on hearsay, livestock 
misbehavior, or malformed birthmarks. Yet, despite the fear and fire, James styled himself as a man 
of learning. He didn’t claim superstition. and he claimed scholarship. His book became required 
reading for witch hunters and helped shape the legal framework for persecution across Britain. 
He lit the fire and called it enlightenment. But while James dictated how witches should look, the 
next king dictated how he should look, no matter how vain or how many portraits it took. Richard 
II was so vain. He ordered that all his portraits show him with flawless skin. Richard II believed 
in divine kingship, not just in principle, but in face. His royal image was sacred, and 
he guarded it like a relic. Every painting, every fresco, every illuminated manuscript had to 
portray him not as he was, but as he wanted to be. ethereal, unblenmished, flawless, no wrinkles, 
no spots, no human error. He wasn’t merely curating an image. He was manufacturing mythology. 
Artisans received direct orders. Smooth the skin, elongate the features, had a holy glow. Painters 
who strayed too close to realism found their commissions quietly revoked or dramatically 
destroyed. Even as his political power crumbled, his painted power endured. In an era where most 
monarchs were remembered by their deeds, Richard wanted to be remembered by his jawline. His actual 
reign was riddled with failure rebellions, lavish spending, tyrannical decisions. But his portraits, 
they sang with sanctity. It was cosmetic control taken to royal extremes. A face not just meant 
to inspire faith, but demand it. Not a king, but an icon. And while Richard sculpted his image 
in pigment and fantasy, the next monarch scribbled far less noble thoughts in the margins of 
government papers, no less. His passion, fart jokes. George III collected fart jokes and 
wrote them down in the margins of official papers. George III is often remembered for his mental 
instability, his losing the American colonies, and his babbling conversations with livestock. 
But what often goes overlooked is one of his less regal hobbies, a deep and enduring appreciation 
for fart humor. Yes, the king of Great Britain, who dressed in powdered wigs, and spoke of 
divine monarchy, loved a good flatulence joke. And not just in private, he scribbled them in the 
margins of royal documents, foreign policy memos, agricultural reports, taxation papers. If a 
minister’s draft left a little white space, George III filled it with scrolled puns, 
witicisms, and tootses of literary gas. Pass wind, not war, he once allegedly scrolled next to a 
treaty discussion. Some jokes were Shakespearean in their complexity, others just drawings of butts 
and motion lines. It was the coping mechanism of a king spiraling into chaos. His mind slipping from 
lucidity found strange relief in bodily humor. A royal mind unraveling still reaching for laughter, 
even if it came from the gut. And while George laughed alone in ink and paper, the next monarch 
would demand a more literal companionship even in death bringing his beloved dog into the tomb with 
him. Edward IIth was buried with his dog Caesar, which got more flowers than some diplomats. 
Edward IIth lived like a decadent lions, waggering through life with mistresses, cigars, and scandal. 
But when death finally came for him in 1910, he didn’t go alone. Lying beside him in ceremonian 
memorial was his most loyal companion, a small white wire fox terrier named Caesar. This wasn’t 
symbolic. Caesar marched in the king’s funeral procession placed directly behind the casket 
before princes, generals, and heads of state. The dog wore a black morning ribbon around his 
neck and walked with solemn dignity. Onlookers wept. Newspapers swooned. Diplomats grumbled 
from their back row placements. But Caesar’s presence didn’t end at the parade. When Edward 
was buried, Caesar received more floral tributes than half the crowned heads in attendance. He was 
immortalized in sculpture, forever perched at the foot of the king’s tomb in Windsor. Visitors often 
forget the names of the dignitaries in attendance, but everyone remembers the dog. It was loyalty 
that transcended bloodlines and royal politics. In a world of arranged marriages and 
formal alliances, Caesar was chosen, loved, buried with the man who ruled nations. 
But while Edward was memorialized in stone, another monarch’s body would be dug up centuries 
later, becoming a grotesque curiosity for passing tourists. Charles Imbalmed body was reportedly 
dug up and admired by tourists centuries later. Charles I died as a martyr, a traitor, depending 
on your politics. Beheaded in 1649 after a civil war that turned England against itself, he was 
buried quietly in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor. His funeral was muted, his memory divisive. 
But what the executioner’s blades started, centuries of curiosity finished. In the early 
1800s, during chapel renovations, workers stumbled upon a sealed coffin. Inside was a body, heads 
sewn roughly back onto the torso, still dressed in decayed finery. It was Charles perfectly 
embalmed, eerily preserved. The workers didn’t quietly receal the coffin. Instead, they brought 
in spectators. Politicians, royals, even tourists were allowed to view the body. One observer noted 
the blacken skin and still visible beard. Another took note of the stitched neck and the royal 
insignia on the garments. It became a Macob attraction and executed king transformed into 
a wax doll for the morbidly curious. Eventually Charles was rearied with more reverence, but for 
a time the sanctity of his death was replaced by awkward stairs and historical rubbernecking. 
And while Charles’s legacy was exumed with awe, the next queen’s vanity would be buried under 
3,000 dresses, most of which she barely wore. Queen Elizabeth I allegedly had 3,000 dresses, 
though she wore the same few on repeat. Queen Elizabeth I didn’t just dress like a monarch. 
She dressed like an icon. A living painting, a theatrical construct so immaculate it bordered 
on divine. Her wardrobe was infamous. According to court records and later estimates, she owned 
upwards of 3,000 gowns. Silks from the east, velvets from Italy, pearls sewn in constellations, 
embroidery that could have bankrupted a duke. It was fashion as propaganda draped in gold thread. 
But here’s the twist. Despite this textile empire, Elizabeth was known to wear the same few dresses 
on repeat. Not because she lacked options, but because she understood the power of a 
signature look. The gowns she chose became part of her mythrecognizable, daunting, unchanging. The 
rest they stayed in wardrobes, gathering dust like forgotten soldiers in her arsenal of majesty. Some 
believe she reused favorite garments to control her image. Others suggest it was superstition 
or comfort or a subtle snub to courters trying to read her mood by fabric choice. Either way, 
her closets bulged with ghost dresses worn not for function but for power. And speaking of power 
plays, the next monarch didn’t just perform for Cor danced, forcing his audience to watch every 
jiggling royal step. Henry VIII made up dances and forced his court to watch him perform them. 
Before Henry VIII ballooned into a gluttonous tyrant hoisted by cranes, he was spry, vain, and 
theatrical. And nothing captured that earlier Henry better than his self-c choreographed dances, 
royal jigs of ego and enthusiasm. These weren’t formal court dances or stately pa. These were 
personal performances created by Henry. For Henry, he’d gather the court, command silence, and burst 
into elaborate routines that blended marshall swagger with bizarre flourishes. Think leaping 
spins flourishes with swords at times a loot solo as his entrance theme. No one dared laugh. 
Laughter was treason adjacent. Corders clapped on Q even as they quietly suffered secondhand 
embarrassment. Imagine a man who’d executed two wives now prancing around like a Renaissance Tik 
Tok star breathless beat red demanding applause. It wasn’t just vanity. It was domination. Forcing 
nobles to watch him flail was a reminder. He didn’t need approval. He was approval. And while 
Henry danced himself into delusion, the next queen traveled with something even more surreal 
than a retinue her own talking pocket parrot,   whose commentary was as colorful as its feathers. 
Mary I kept a live parrot in her pocket, which she called little Thomas. Mary I wasn’t known for 
her sense of whimsy. She burned Protestants, ruled with iron faith, and left behind a 
reputation drenched in fear. But tucked inside that fearsome facet literally was a 
surprising sidekick, a pocket-sized parrot named Little Thomas. This wasn’t a decorative 
accessory. Little Thomas lived in the folds of Mary’s gowns, chirping, commentary, 
and occasionally mimicking human voices. Corders were stunned. Here was a queen capable 
of signing death warrants in the morning and giggling at her bird’s misprononunciations by 
lunch. Mary doted on him, fed him from her hand, consulted him, some whispered during moments of 
stress. Whether she truly believed the bird was more than just a Peter if she used him to unnerve 
the court still debated. But one thing’s certain, little Thomas became a fixture in her chambers. 
When Mary entered, he was there, nestled near her heart, staring with tiny, glassy eyes at the 
uneasy guests. The irony wasn’t lost on the court. England’s most feared queen carried joy in her 
pocket, while fire and judgment trailed in her footsteps. But the next king had his own way of 
asserting royal dominance by dining under the cold stairs of knights in full armor, even when he 
was completely alone. Richard III had his dinner served by knights in armor, even when eating 
alone. Richard III didn’t just wear the crown, he armored his ego in steel. At his court, meals 
weren’t quiet affairs or chances for reflection. They were staged dramas and the starring roles 
were played by knights in full metal regalia, not just during banquetss, not for guests. Even 
when Richard dined alone, clanking knights stood guard, polished and rigid like sculptures come 
to life. Why? Perhaps it was to project power even to himself. Perhaps he feared assassination. 
Or maybe, just maybe, he liked the sound of it, the rhythm of armored boots echoing through stone 
halls as he tore into roast venison. Every bite was a declaration. I am watched. I am protected. 
I am not alone. But it was also a strange show of insecurity. A ruler terrified of his own 
reflection in the court. A king who knew enemies crept not just at borders, but in whispers and 
banquet halls. The armor wasn’t just on his men. It was psychological. And while Richard dined in 
paranoid glory, the next king met his end in the most awkwardly physical way possible, exploding 
like a grotesque pinata after falling from a horse. William the Conqueror died when his horse 
tripped, bursting his enormous belly. William the Conqueror earned his place in history by changing 
it. He defeated Herold at Hastings, took the English throne, and reshaped the realm with fire 
and sword. But his death, that came not in battle, but in pure, humiliating slapstick. Near the 
end of his life, William had grown fat, not royally plumpenormous. His stomach was a swollen 
orb of indulgence. While riding through Montes, laying siege to yet another rebellious city, his 
horse stumbled on burning debris, William was thrown violently forward onto the saddle pommel. 
The result, his ova stuffed gut ruptured. That’s right. The man who conquered England died because 
his belly burst. He lingered in agony for weeks, oozing infection while his empire buzzed 
in anxiety. and the final indignity. His corpse was so bloated that it wouldn’t fit 
in the stone sarcophagus at his funeral. When monks tried to force the lid closed, the 
pressure caused his body to burst again,   filling the church with an unbearable stench. 
Mourners fled. From conqueror to carcass, he left behind not just a legacy, but a reminder. 
Even emperors can end up as bloated punchlines. But while William’s body exploded, the next queen 
guarded her meals with paranoia so intense she required a personal food taster into her old 
age. Queen Victoria had a personal food taster, even in old age. By the time Queen Victoria 
was a shrunken widow draped in eternal black, her empire was massive, but her appetite was small 
and suspicious. Despite her age and diminishing public presence, she remained convinced that 
someone somewhere might try to poison her. So she kept a personal food taster always. Every 
meal, every soup, cutlet, or biscuit was sampled in advance. A loyal servant took the first bite, 
paused, and waited. No reaction. Then her majesty would dine. It became ritual, not a precaution, 
but a performance of imperial paranoia. After all, who would dare poison the grandmother of Europe? 
Apparently, Victoria believed the answer was anyone. She trusted no foreign kitchen, no freshly 
prepared dish. Even palace chefs were monitored like suspects. Her food taster became as vital 
as her advisers because what good was ruling the world if you couldn’t trust your own teacup? And 
as her body aged, her caution only grew. Meals slowed. Servants watched with silent reverence. It 
wasn’t just a meal. It was a royal security drill. But while Victoria eyed her plate with suspicion, 
the next king turned his nose at fish in public, yet pretended to love it, all for the sake of 
diplomacy. Edward VIII couldn’t stand eating fish, but pretended to love it for diplomatic 
dinners. Edward VIII was a man of contradiction, fashionable yet reckless, royal yet rebellious. 
But one of his most bizarre contradictions sat quietly on his dinner plate. Fish, he hated 
it. despised the smell, loathed the texture, gagged at the taste. And yet, in the gilded halls 
of diplomatic banquetss and foreign receptions, Edward would force down forkfuls of trout, 
soul, or salmon, with a courtly smile that masked his inner revulsion. To snub a dish was 
to snub a host, and Edward, despite his disdain for royal protocol, understood the optics of 
diplomacy. He didn’t flinch at political upheaval, but he grimaced through caviar. Staff were sworn 
to secrecy. Dinners became charades of tolerance, with Edward sipping water between chews to keep 
from wretching. Some claimed he developed subtle tricks, hiding bites under bread, shifting food 
to another guest’s plate during distractions, or praising the wine mid-mouthful to avoid 
swallowing. But never, never did he admit the truth at the table. The king of England preferred 
honesty in scandal, but not at supper. And while Edward faked culinary pleasure, the next king’s 
hairpiece collection was no less theatrical, especially when he bragged about strands that 
allegedly came from unicorns. George IVth had a collection of wigs, some made from unicorn hair, 
or so he claimed. George IV was not content to merely be royal. He wanted to look supernaturally 
royal. With a stomach that sagged and a face bloated from brandy, he turned to illusion to 
maintain the facade of youthful grandeur. Chief, among his tools, wigs. Not one, not two, but an 
entire closet’s worth. Powdered, curled, perfumed. And among them, a few he claimed were made from 
unicorn hair. Yes, unicorns. That’s what he told guests. Sometimes with a wink, sometimes with 
the dead pen authority of a man who considered   lying a form of art. The wigs shimmerred strangely 
in candlelight. They were lighter than the rest, wider than ivory. Whether they were made from 
albino horsehair or simply highquality imports from exotic animals, George spun the tail like a 
fairy godmother with a gambling problem. Corders nodded. Guests blinked. No one questioned the 
claim. He was the king after all. If George IVth said a mythical beast died for his hairstyle, then 
so be it. He wore them like crowns. He changed them to match moods, each one an extension of 
his fantasy self, more legend than man. But while George wore wigs with animalistic flare, the next 
king targeted beards banning them in court, only to grow one himself in the mud of war. Henry Vann 
beards in court, but grew one himself on campaign. Henry V was a king of discipline, ruthless, 
austere, and intensely focused. In his court, order reigned supreme, and appearances mattered as 
much as loyalty. One of his earliest decrees, no beards, clean faces, only smooth jaws. His court 
would reflect his vision. Unified, sharp, and uncompromising. So when Henry paraded through the 
royal halls, every nobleman followed suit razors replacing rasmataz, barber appointments becoming 
political necessities. A single whisker out of place could suggest defiance. No stubble, no 
softness, just skin. But then came war. As Henry crossed the channel to wage his brutal campaign 
in France, the polished veneer gave way to grit. The king caked in mud, armored and blooded, let 
his beard grow. It was more than neglect. It was strategy among his troops. It was a symbol of 
endurance, a badge of campaign masculinity. The beard that was forbidden in court became holy 
in the trenches. Soldiers cheered it. Artists romanticized it. His battlefield beard became 
legend ironic, fierce, and entirely unshaven. He returned home not just a conqueror of Azenord, 
but a walking contradiction, the man who outlawed beards, now lionized by one. And while Henry’s 
beard roared with glory, the next king’s hygiene habits left noses twitching, for he saw bathing 
as an act of ruin. James I hated bathing, claiming it washed away natural oils. James I, Stewart, 
King of England, united two crowns and divided quite a few noses. While he loved intellectual 
pursuits and wrote obsessively about witchcraft and politics, personal hygiene was a battlefield, 
he simply refused to fight. He hated bathing, not feared loathed. Water, to James, was not the 
essence of cleanliness, but a solvent of health. He claimed it stripped the body of its natural 
oils which he believed served as a divine barrier against illness. So he didn’t wash, not regularly, 
not thoroughly. His courters grew accustomed to the smell of their sovereign, which was described 
as earthy on kind days and concerning on others. Clothes were perfumed to mask the lack of 
skin contact with soap. And as for servants, they worked around the issue, dabbing damp cloths 
near his neck, brushing flakes from royal sleeves with forced smiles. James believed dirt was 
medicinal, that his body, in its royal funk was balanced by nature. And so he marinated 
in it, writing essays, receiving ambassadors, and founding dynasties, while bacteria celebrated 
unseen coronations across his scalp. But while James marinated in natural protection, the 
next queen bore a secret of her own a digit too many for court comfort. Anne Bolin had 
a sixth finger which corders whispered about but were too scared to mention. Anne Bolin 
walked into history as a queen, a scandal, and ultimately a decapitated icon. But among the 
many rumors swirling around her rise to power, one detail whispered through the tutor halls like 
a curse. She had six fingers. A tiny extra digit on her right hand, more bump than finger, more 
taboo than deformity. Was it true? Contemporary accounts vary. But in the paranoid, gossip-fed 
ecosystem of Henry VII’s court, it didn’t matter. Enemies of Anne didn’t need facts, just fuel. They 
said it was proof she was a witch, that the devil had marked her. Some swore it twitch during mass. 
Others claimed it gave her unnatural power over the king. But no one dared say a word to her 
face. She was the queen. The king’s obsession, the woman who split a church in half. Even if she 
had a tail and breathed fire, her courters would have smiled and curtsied. Later, after her fall, 
the story grew sharper, like her accusers needed the sixth finger to justify what they’d done, 
to make her less human, less tragic. And while Anne was scrutinized for fingers, the next queen 
painted her face with crushed beetles and coal, crafting beauty from death itself. Elizabeth I 
used crushed beetles as lip color and coal dust as eyeliner. To sit on the English throne in the 
16th century was to perform a constant illusion. For Elizabeth I that illusion was layered in white 
lead beetle shells and soot. Her face immortalized in portraits and poetry wasn’t a reflection 
of nature but an alchemical mask applied with sacred precision. For her signature red lips, 
Elizabeth used Cochenil, a vivid dye harvested by crushing insects into crimson powder. It was 
rare, expensive, and disturbingly effective. She painted it on thick because the more vibrant 
the lip, the more untouchable the queen. Her eyes rimmed in cold dust, a dark shadow that added 
contrast and mystique, but also edged toward toxic territory. Her entire makeup routine was a slow 
death sentence in pursuit of immortality. The white base ate her skin. The beetles added fire. 
The coal rimmed her gaze like a funeral veil. But the result, a monarch who glowed like a ghost and 
radiated like a deity. No one saw her true face. That was the point. Even as her skin blistered 
beneath the layers, she became more legend than flesh. And while Elizabeth wielded brushes like 
a painter of myth, the next king found his joy not in mirrors, but in digging ditches with his 
bare royal hands. Edward II loved digging ditches by hand. Even in royal gardens, most monarchs 
order fountains to be installed. Edward II, he dug the trenches himself with a spade by 
hand. In royal gardens, royal boots caked in mud, his crown metaphorically tossed into the dirt. 
At first the court thought it a passing whimsome rustic diversion to show humility or charm. 
But Edward kept doing it, not as performance, but obsession. He’d sneak away from councils to 
grab a shovel. He’d toil under the sun, sleeves rolled, sometimes shirtless, sometimes muttering. 
Servants were horrified. Nobles were confused. A king acting like a peasant? Blasphemy. But Edward 
didn’t care. Manual labor for him was therapy. In a world of deceit and ceremony, the earth was 
honest. The shovel was loyal. The ditches weren’t symbolic. They were real. Trenches, holes, furrows 
for irrigation, or nothing at all. One cordier reportedly asked what he was building. Edward 
just smiled and kept digging. It wasn’t the first sign of his eccentricity or his disconnect from 
courtly expectation. His reign would end badly, brutally. But for a time he ruled with soil under 
his nails, and while Edward found solace in dirt, the next king found vengeance and silence, locking 
his own wife away, never speaking of her again. George I locked his wife in a German castle 
for adultery, and never spoke of her again. Long before George I became king of Great Britain, 
he was a scorned husband. His wife Sophia Doratha of Cell was accused of having an affair with a 
Swedish count. Not just whisper letters, rumors, perhaps even a plan to elope. George didn’t 
rage. He didn’t duel. He acted with the cold brutality of a man who preferred silence over 
scandal. He had her locked away in Alden House, a remote German castle in 1694. She remained there 
for the rest of her life, 32 years, not a prison officially, but a gilded tomb. She received no 
visitors. She never saw her children again. And George, he never uttered her name in public again, 
never acknowledged her existence. As far as he was concerned, she had ceased to be. She died in 
isolation long after George had ascended to the English throne. He did not attend the funeral. 
He offered no statement. Their marriage was buried not in earth, but in silence. It was a royal 
vanishing act tone that spoke volumes about power, pride, and punishment. And while George erased 
his queen, the next Mary tried to erase a nose, demanding her husband’s portrait be reworked 
for looking too Spanish. Queen Mary I had her husband’s portrait redone because she thought 
his nose was too Spanish. When Mary I of England married Philip II of Spain, it was supposed to 
be a union of dynasty fusion of Catholic might. But the reality was more complicated, especially 
when the queen caught sight of her new husband’s official portrait. Her verdict not regal 
enough. Specifically, the nose too long, too Spanish. In an era when political portraits 
were weapons of statecraft, a slightly off nose could suggest foreignness, weakness, or unwanted 
dominance, Mary, ever image conscious, was having none of it. She ordered the painting redone. more 
noble, more English, more symmetrical. It wasn’t about aesthetics alone. It was a microcosm of 
her court’s unease with the Spanish alliance. People muttered about foreign influence, about 
England becoming a satellite of Spain. The nose became a symbol, and Mary, shrewd as ever, wanted 
her husband’s face to reflect her throne, not his ancestry. The revised version showed Philillip 
with a softened idealized face. It was politics painted in oil, a new nose, a new narrative. 
But while Mary reworked faces to fit power, the next king filled his palace with shrieking 
chaos courtesy of his favorite royal roommates, monkeys. Henry VIII kept monkeys and let them roam 
the palace. Henry VIII had a court that feared his moods, his appetites, and his evershifting marital 
status, but among the silk and somnity roamed a pack of unexpected companions. Monkeys? Yes, 
actual monkeys. Not chained in cages, not kept in royal menageries like curiosities. These were 
free roaming mischief makers allowed to scamper through the gilded halls of his palaces. They 
tugged at tablecloths during dinners. They stole ribbons from courters. They chased diplomats with 
shrieks and teeth. To Henry, this wasn’t chaos. It was comedy. His laughter at their antics was the 
kind that made others join in nervously, unsure if it was amusement or madness. After all, this 
was a king who beheaded wives like bad habits. If a monkey stole your wig, you laughed unless 
you liked your head attached. The monkeys became symbols of unpredictability. Not just pets, 
but reflections of their master’s temperament. Playful, disruptive, dangerous. No one dared 
suggest they be removed. They were part of the furniture now leaping metaphors for a rain where 
nothing, not even the royal menagerie, stayed caged for long. And while Henry let chaos swing 
from the rafters, his great great granddaughter turned to the dead holding seances to whisper 
to a ghost no one dared mock. Queen Victoria believed in seances and held them secretly after 
Albert died. Queen Victoria, the grand matriarch of the empire, the symbol of restraint, dignity, 
and endless mourning, spent her nights trying to talk to ghosts. After Prince Albert’s death, 
her grief crystallized into ritual. And beyond morning dress, beyond the daily conversations 
with his portrait, she ventured into something   even more intimate, spiritualism. Behind closed 
palace doors, she held seances. Candles were lit, tables cleared, mediums brought in under cover of 
night. These were not fringe affairs conducted in drawing rooms of desperate widows. They were royal 
appointments. And the guest of honor was always the same. Albear. She wanted messages, signs, 
confirmation that his presence lingered beyond the veil. Some nights she claimed to hear his voice 
through mediums. Other times she wept in silence, waiting for something, anything to happen. Her 
court tried to downplay it. The press didn’t know. But inside the palace, it was well understood. 
The queen of the British Empire was consulting the dead. These seances became less about answers and 
more about preservation, a love too big for life, seeking echoes in death. And while Victoria 
whispered into shadows, the next king showed dominance in the most literal way by devouring 
lions one bite at a time. Richard the Lionhe Heart ate lion meat at feasts to show dominance. Richard 
I lionheart crusader icon wasn’t just a warrior king. He was a man who lived by myth and made sure 
everyone else did too. On campaign, his dinners weren’t just sustenance. They were theater. And 
sometimes they featured the ultimate flex. Lion meat. Roasted, seasoned, served like a challenge 
to every other predator in the room. To eat lion was more than daring was symbolic. It was Richard 
declaring himself the king of kings. Not just by title, but by diet. You are what you eat after 
all. And Richard, he wanted his enemies to know that even the fiercest beast of nature ended up on 
his plate. No one at court dared refuse a bite if offered. Diplomats grimaced and chewed. Soldiers 
whispered stories of the day their king carved through a lion’s stake like it was mutton. Whether 
it was true or inflated legend hardly mattered. The image stuck. And that image, that fusion of 
man and myth was everything to Richard in the Holy Land or in France. He wasn’t just leading armies. 
He was curating legend. But while Richard digested beasts, the next queen may have worn on her head. 
A scalp claimed perhaps from a very royal corpse. Elizabeth I wore a wig made from her executed 
cousin’s hair. According to legend, Elizabeth I was no stranger to symbolic fashion. Every rough 
jewel and embroidered phoenix told a story. But none of her alleged adornments carried a tale as 
Griema as unsettling as the wig she was rumored to wear. Made from the hair of her executed cousin 
Mary, Queen of Scots. According to whispered legend, after Mary was beheaded for treason in 
1587, her hair, thick, red, unmistakably royal, was harvested by someone in the execution chamber. 
Instead of burning or burying it with the body, it was supposedly preserved, styled, and turned into 
a wig, a trophy, a warning, a crown of conquest. Elizabeth was already known for wearing elaborate 
wigs to mask her thinning hair and age. But this particular one, if it existed, wasn’t about 
vanity. It was power incarnate. Imagine attending court, looking into the eyes of the virgin queen, 
and seeing her cousin’s hair fluttering on her scalp. Every nod would be a victory, every breeze 
a ghost. No records confirmed the wig’s existence outright, but the story stuck because it felt 
like Elizabeth cold, brilliant, theatrical. And while she may have worn the dead, the next king 
preferred his audience feathered and chirping, holding conversations not with ministers, but 
with birds. George III talked to birds during his mental breakdowns. George III, the monarch 
who lost America, was also the king who lost touch with reality. As his mind unraveled, so did 
the boundaries of royal decorum. One of the most haunting signs of his decline. He began talking to 
birds. Not metaphorically, literally. In the lush gardens of Q or pacing through the royal halls, 
George would stop to address pigeons, sparrows, crows. He spoke to them like cordiers, sometimes 
in English, sometimes in Latin, sometimes in gibberish. He asked them for advice. He thanked 
them for their loyalty. Once he reportedly gave a full speech to a robin perched on a window 
sill, commending it for its graceful silence and patience. It was heartbreaking, yes, but also 
surreal. A monarch draped in velvet, speaking with the earnestness of a statesman to animals that 
chirped, tilted their heads, and flew away mid conversation. The royal family and doctors did 
what they could, which was mostly to hide it, but rumors leaked. George’s mind was slipping 
one bird monologue at a time. And while George’s court grew quieter, the next queen’s chambers 
were anything but filled with the clinking of glasses and the sound of royal ladies passing out 
in their corsets. Queen Anne played drinking games with her ladies, often passing out in her chair. 
Queen Anne ruled a kingdom, but her court ran on clarret and cider. Beneath the powdered wigs and 
tight laced bodesses, her private chambers pulsed with the chaos of drinking games more fitting for 
a pirate ship than a palace. Her majesty, prone to melancholy and swollen with chronic illness, 
found comfort and escape his mat, the bottom of a goblet. She didn’t drink alone. Her ladies in 
waiting were roped in willingly or not. Cards were dealt, dice rolled, toasts made. And before long 
the queen herself was known to slur her speech, hiccup through policy talk, and on more than 
one occasion fall asleep midcourt session, snoring softly in her heavily cushioned throne. 
These were not discreet affairs. Ministers were forced to navigate royal decisions while tiptoeing 
around hung over courters. Foreign envoys tried to decode whether the queen’s flushed face was from 
rage or red wine. And an she kept sipping. Some said it was her way of coping with loss. Others 
a rebellion against the rigid expectations of queenship. But one thing was certain under Queen 
Anne. Diplomacy sometimes came with a hangover. And if her court was soaked in spirits, the next 
king’s throne room came with rubber ducks named of course for royal amusement. Edward IIIth 
once fell asleep during his own coronation rehearsal. Edward IIIth, king of indulgence and 
endless patience for opulence, had waited nearly 60 years to wear the crown. But when the time 
finally came, he couldn’t even stay awake for it. During one of his elaborate coronation rehearsals, 
meticulously staged with endless rituals, bows, and incantations, Edward simply nodded off. 
The chapel was hushed. Robes rustled. Incense floated gently, and the king, overwhelmed by the 
sheer pump of his own ascendancy, began to snore. Not a polite doze or dignified head dip. Witnesses 
said he slumped in his ornate chair mid blessing. Eyes closed, mouth open. The archbishop, trying 
to preserve dignity, continued the rehearsal without pausing. Courters exchanged looks but 
said nothing. No one wanted to be the first to poke the monarch awake. To be fair, Edward was 
not in the best health. His coronation had already been delayed by a sudden bout of appendicitis. 
but falling asleep at the most sacred rehearsal of royal ceremony that took a particular brand of 
regal detachment. And while Edward snoozed through history, the next king redefined throne room in 
the most literal way by decorating bathrooms with portraits of himself and calling them his personal 
gallery. James II had portraits of himself hung in every bathroom, calling them his thrones. If James 
II believed in anything, it was divine right and decorative consistency. His image is stoic, 
regal, thick with authority, was not just for state halls and palace galleries. No, James wanted 
to oversee everything, including his subject’s most private moments. So he had his own portraits 
installed in every royal bathroom and referred to them with a straight face as his thrones. There 
Satan the walls watching silently from above the chamber pots and commodeses. Not just one painting 
either, multiple in different styles, some gilded, some modest, all featuring his face gazing down 
like a disapproving god of plumbing. It wasn’t a joke. James sincerely believed that royal presence 
should never be absent, not even in lavatories. To him, it was a symbolic reminder that the monarch 
ruled all spaces, even the ones where dignity took a momentary leave. Cordiers were horrified. Guests 
didn’t know where to look. Servants reported avoiding eye contact with the walls. It was 
absurd, yes, but it was also brilliant propaganda, a message that the king was everywhere. And while 
James watched from above, the next monarch turned his back on dignity entirely, crowning his monkey 
as king of mischief, complete with a tiny crown. Charles II had a pet monkey that wore a crown. 
Charles II, the merry monarch, never let things like decorum or tradition get in the way of a good 
time. His court was a festival of charm, wine, and increasingly strange pets. But his favorite, a 
monkey, a small, chaotic creature that reportedly wore a crown because, of course, it did. The 
monkey didn’t just live in the palace. It rained. It sat beside Charles during audiences, snatched 
fruit from noblemen’s plates, and once tore the wig off a visiting ambassador. Rather than punish 
it, Charles roared with laughter and toasted its honest mischief. He reportedly had a tiny crown 
made bejeweled and ridiculous and placed it on the monkeykey’s head during court banquetss. Some 
thought it was satire, others subtle mockery of the monarchy itself. Charles, a survivor of exile 
and civil war, knew the absurdity of royal life. Perhaps the crowned monkey was his way of winking 
at the system, a reminder that power and pageantry often came down to performance. Whatever the 
reason, the court learned to bow if not in reverence, then at least in fear of their wigs 
being stolen. And while Charles crowned his pet, the next king would strum his loot in the worst 
possible way, forcing everyone to suffer through every out of tune note. Henry VIII played the 
loot badly, but no one dared tell him. Among Henry VIII’s many larger than-l life traits, 
gluttony, wrath, marital turnover, his musical passion was perhaps the most persistent. He 
fancied himself a Renaissance man, poet, athlete, scholar, and of course, musician. The loot was his 
chosen instrument, and he played it often, loudly, enthusiastically, badly. To the royal ear, each 
pluck was divine. To everyone else, a cacophony of missed notes and rhythmic confusion. But no 
one said a word. Who would? This was a man who beheaded wives, dissolved monasteries, and 
invented entire churches to suit his moods. If Henry wanted to believe he was a musical 
genius, the court would nod along in perfect tempo. Servants tiptoed through his private music 
rooms. Courters clapped with feverish politeness after every disjointed performance. The king would 
pause, chest heaving, flushed with joy, awaiting praise that came not from honesty, but survival 
instinct. He even composed songs, some of which are preserved. But whether those were actually 
his work or the product of terrified scribes is anyone’s guess. And while Henry’s fingers mangled 
melodies, the next queen’s hands struck with more force. Because when courtiers displeased her, 
she didn’t write letters. She slapped faces. Elizabeth I sometimes slapped her courters in 
the face when displeased. Elizabeth I ruled like a seasoned general, calculating, controlled and 
fiercely self-aware. But even the Virgin Queen had her limits and when those were crossed, diplomacy 
gave way to something far more direct. She slapped people, not symbolically, physically, across the 
face. This wasn’t an everyday event, but it wasn’t myth either. Several court accounts confirm that 
when Elizabeth was displeased, particularly with male courters who pushed her patients as reached 
for her royal palm, a sharp retort followed by a sharper smack. Gloves off, ring on. The sound 
echoed through velvet halls. Why slap? Because she could. It was a display of dominance that 
shattered the illusion of untouchable male advisors. It reminded everyone in her orbit that 
while she might not have a crown of testosterone, she had absolute control. Cordiers didn’t protest. 
They bowed, apologized. Some even begged for the chance to redeem themselves before the sting 
faded. Because being slapped by the queen meant you were still useful, still within the blast 
radius of her attention. But when her halfsister reigned before her, the punishments were far more 
permanent because Mary didn’t slap her enemies. She burned them. Mary burned 280 Protestants. 
Then reportedly asked if it was enough. Mari didn’t earn the nickname Bloody Mary by accident. 
In her 5-year reign, she sent 280 Protestants to the flames in her attempt to restore Catholicism 
to England. Public executions, human bonfires, martyrs turned to ash in town squares while crowds 
choked on the smoke of religious cleansing. But what chilled even her own advisers wasn’t the 
policy. It was the cold arithmetic of it all. She kept count and after one particularly large 
execution in Oxford, she reportedly turned to her council and asked, “Is it enough?” Not, “Was 
justice done? Not, “Have the heretics repented?” Just enough. It wasn’t cruelty for cruelty’s sake. 
It was religious fervor. Mary truly believed she was saving souls by incinerating their bodies. But 
her inability to see the horror behind the numbers sealed her legacy. England watched the flames 
rise and turned cold. When she died, few mourned, her funeral was short, her impact scorched into 
history like the pers she lit. And while Mary’s hands were stained in fire, the next queen would 
cradle the dead knot in sorrow, but with eerie intimacy, dressing her favorite corpse in black 
and keeping it close forever. Queen Victoria was buried with Albert’s dressing gown and a mold of 
his hand. Grief ruled Queen Victoria longer than any prime minister. After Prince Albert’s death 
in 1861, she didn’t just mourn, she transformed mourning into monarchy. Black became her permanent 
wardrobe. Her smile disappeared from public view. And when she finally died in 1901, she took 
her sorrow with her literally. In her coffin, alongside royal insignia and state honors, were 
two deeply personal objects. Albert’s old dressing gown and a plaster mold of his hand, a fraying 
garment and a cold replica symbols of a love she refused to let go even in death. This wasn’t 
sentimental pageantry. It was ritual obsession. Every night she had touched that mold, held it, 
spoke to it, and now she would hold it forever. She also requested locks of Albert’s hair be 
buried with her along with photographs and other tokens. The queen who ruled the largest 
empire on earth chose to be remembered not by her crown but by her loss. And while Victoria’s 
coffin was a shrine to devotion, the next king expressed his grief in far less edible fashion 
by chucking an entire roast out a window when it dared displease him. George IVth once threw 
an entire roast out the window, declaring it too dry. George IVth didn’t believe in subtlety. 
When he loved something, it was smothered in praise. When he hated it well, windows opened. One 
evening, during a lavish banquet at Carlton House, a roast was served to the king. Golden brown, 
aromatic, the envy of every hungry guest. George carved it, tasted it, and immediately 
stood up. Too dry. He snapped and hurled the entire roast out the window. It wasn’t hyperbole. 
Witnesses watched in horror as the meat arked through the night air and landed somewhere in the 
garden with an undignified thud. Silence followed, then nervous laughter. And finally, the scramble 
to replace the dish with something more palatable. This wasn’t a tantrum. It was theatrical disdain. 
George didn’t just demand excellence. He demanded it obey gravity if it failed. His appetite was 
notorious. Extravagant meals, experimental dishes, entire courses invented for him. But when 
disappointed, he wielded his fork like a scepter, and if the food failed to impress, it faced the 
same fate as his ministers. abrupt dismissal. And while George tossed dry roasts, the next boy 
king took a different approach to public decency by banning kissing entirely, even at weddings. 
Edward V 6th banned kissing in public, including at weddings. Edward V 6th inherited the throne at 
9 and was dead by 15. But in that short window, he managed to kiss goodbye to one of humanity’s 
oldest public gestures. As a devout Protestant reformer in training, Edward sought to reshape 
England, not just politically, but morally. And one target of his righteous reform, kissing. 
He found it vulgar, unholy, a slippery slope to sin. Under his rule, public displays of affection, 
especially kissing, were deemed indecent. Edicts went out. Courters were warned. Even married 
couples found themselves chastised for celebrating their nuptuals too physically at the altar. 
Kissing in church was banned. So was kissing in court. Servants were punished for so much as 
a peck near the palace. Ministers scrambled to reinterpret old wedding customs. “You may now 
kiss the bride,” was temporarily replaced with awkward nods and handshakes. Edward’s reasoning, 
physical closeness was temptation, and temptation led to corruption. Better to eliminate the gateway 
entirely. It didn’t last long as death brought a flood of lip locking back into England. But for 
a brief prudish moment, love had to keep its distance. And while Edward feared contamination 
by contact, the next monarch dined with gold for just one course and never again. Henry VIII 
had golden cutlery, but only used it once due to superstition. Henry VIII didn’t do subtle. 
His table wear glistened like a treasury vault silver goblets, jeweled platters, peacock pies 
with actual tail feathers. So naturally, golden cutlery seemed like the next step. Commissioned 
by royal goldsmiths, the set was ornate, heavy, and absurdly valuable. forks, knives, and spoons 
saw, pure gold, carved with lions and tutor roses glowing under the chandelier light utensils forged 
by the sun. He used it once. After a single meal, the entire set was locked away in a vault, not 
because of theft fears or political prudence, but because Henry, the king of superstition and 
sudden paranoia, became convinced it was cursed. Some said the food tasted wrong. Others whispered 
he had a vision during the meal a bad omen, a headache, a stomach cramp, a flicker of guilt. 
Whatever the trigger, he ordered the gold cutlery never be used again. Some pieces may have been 
melted down, others disappeared. But the king returned to silver and puter, content to dine 
without conjuring whatever doom he imagined hung over that gilded set. And while Henry feared 
bad luck in gold, his daughter banished bad breath from court, entirely declaring war on garlic for 
the sake of royal noses. Elizabeth I banned garlic at court, so no one could have peasant breath. 
Elizabeth I court sparkled with sophistication. Everything from architecture to etiquette 
was crafted for elegance down to the very   air one exhaled. So when the queen caught wind, 
literally of garlic on the breath of a cordier, she didn’t just flinch. She issued a decree. No 
garlic at court. It wasn’t just preference. It was policy. Garlic, in Elizabeth’s mind, was peasant, 
food pungent, uncou totally incompatible with the grace of monarchy. If you wanted to stand in her 
presence, your breath had to be as polished as your shoes. The ban extended to meals, kitchens, 
and even foreign guests. Ambassadors were warned in advance. One diplomat reportedly chewed parsley 
for hours before an audience just to be safe. The queen’s nose was legendary, sharp, sensitive, and 
utterly unforgiving. And in the perfumed chambers of her court, a whiff of garlic was enough to 
ruin a career. Her ban was enforced not with public executions, but with quiet banishments and 
cutting insults. And so the halls of Whiteall and Hampton Court remained garlic free, while 
England’s finest whispered sweet nothings laced only with rosewater and flattery. But while 
Elizabeth gagged at peasant breath, the next king tried to reinvent time itself, adding a day to the 
week just because he thought it was a good idea, George II tried to invent a new calendar with 
8 days a week. Long before the Beatles sang about it, George III dreamed of an eighth day. Not 
metaphorically, not musically, literally. The king deepened one of his intellectual fixations, became 
convinced that the 7-day week was arbitrary. He wanted to improve it, make it more logical, 
more efficient, more British. His proposal, an 8-day week. The extra day would be used for rest, 
reflection, or administrative catchup. Some say he wanted to call it George Day. Others claim it 
was meant as a gift to God. Whatever the origin, the idea spiraled. Calendars were redrawn by royal 
mathematicians. Drafts were printed. Even church leaders were consulted who unsurprisingly hated 
it. George, in one of his manic bursts, insisted the current calendar was a Roman relic, outdated 
and inefficient. He believed his version would revolutionize productivity, aligning commerce, 
faith, and empire under one rational time grid. But as his mental health declined, so did 
support for the plan. The proposal was shelved, buried in archives, and mocked in private. Yet 
for a flickering moment, Britain stood on the edge of kendrical revolutional because one king 
thought seven wasn’t enough. And while George redrrew time itself, the next queen found her 
own version of luck stitched in fur and nestled in her royal sleeves. Queen Anne kept a live 
ferret in her sleeve for good luck. Queen Anne may have suffered tragic losses and crippling 
gout, but she had a soft spot for superstition, especially the furry kind. Amid the powdered wigs 
and royal pageantry, Anne was known to keep a live ferret tucked into the oversized sleeves of her 
royal gowns. Not a symbol, not a toy, a living, wriggling, whiskered ferret. She called it her 
lucky charm. The court didn’t quite know what to make of it. Ferrets weren’t pets fit for a 
queen. They were wiry, mischievous creatures more barn than ballroom. But Anne adored hers. 
She fed it treats during meetings. Let it nap in the folds of her gown, and if it poked its head 
out midcounsel, no one dared flinch. The ferret, reportedly named Dappel, became a fixture at 
court. Superstition or comfort, no one could say for sure. But Anne insisted its presence 
brought her good fortune ironic given her life’s avalanche of personal tragedy. The animal 
stayed close through campaigns, ceremonies, even state dinners. Because where most monarchs 
leaned on religion or ritual, Anne trusted paws and claws. And while her luck nestled in silk, the 
next king demanded something else before battle prayer. Not strategy, but compliments. Richard 
III made his soldiers shout compliments at him before battle. Forget fiery speeches or war cries. 
Richard III had a different way of getting psyched for combat. Before charging into battle, he made 
his soldiers shout compliments at him loudly, publicly, enthusiastically. Long live our noble 
king. Strongest in the realm. Your armor blinds the sun. It wasn’t optional. Officers ensured 
every soldier participated. Those who didn’t shout with gusto were watched. Those who fumbled their 
lines found themselves reassigned or mysteriously missing. Richard, ever image conscious and 
obsessed with loyalty, needed more than weapons to win wars. He needed adoration. In a world where 
rebellion brewed like tea and backstabbing was a daily threat. Compliments were more than ego 
fluff. They were security checks. Verbal loyalty oaths disguised as morale boooosting cheers. 
To his men it became routine. Draw swords, polish armor, praise the king. The battlefield 
was theater and Richard demanded a standing ovation before act eye. But not all cheers saved 
him. at Bosworth Field, surrounded and betrayed, there were no compliments, only silence and 
steel. And as Richard died, craving applause, the next monarch would curse his way through 
life, sermons, and royal meetings alike, foul mouth forever clashing with his crown. William IV 
cursed constantly, even during church services. William IVth, the sailor king, brought the manners 
of the navy into the halls of Buckingham Palaceand with them, a vocabulary that could peel paint. He 
cursed constantly, colorfully, loudly. It didn’t matter if he was addressing Parliament, chatting 
with servants, or sitting in church. Swearing was his second language. He laced his speeches with 
obscenities. Blasphemies rolled from his lips mid sermon. Bishops winced. Courters turned pale. 
Ministers learned to decode his meaning through the barrage of fbombs and naval slang. No one 
was spared not even God. Apparently, when William grew frustrated during slow homalies, it wasn’t 
performative anger. It was simply how he spoke. a lifetime in the Royal Navy had hardwired 
a sailor’s tongue into his royal brain, and he saw no need to adjust just because he 
wore a crown. At times he apologized afterward, sort of. “Pardon the bloody language,” he’d say, 
while lighting a cigar inside a royal chapel. Yet, despite the profanity, many found him oddly 
refreshing. honest, no frrills, no pretense. And while William barked obscenities through stained 
glass, the next monarch found peace in music, but not the kind anyone else enjoyed. His bag pipes 
became royal alarm clocks, played badly at dawn. Edward VIII was obsessed with bag pipes and played 
them badly at 6 a.m. Edward VIII was the kind of monarch who preferred bag pipes to breakfast 
and made sure everyone around him shared in that preference whether they liked it or not. Every 
morning at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m. he would play the bag pipes. Not well, not softly, with all 
the delicacy of a goat stomping on a church organ. It started as a queer cone of many, but soon 
it became routine. Staff would be wrenched from sleep by the sound of Edward’s piping echoing 
through the halls. Guests at royal residences would jolt awake, unsure if they were being 
serenated or assaulted. No one dared complain. To question the king’s piping was to question 
his soul. He fancied himself Scottish in spirit, though most Scots would have traded their kilts to 
make it stop. Edward believed the bag pipes were stirring, ancient, and profoundly masculine. What 
they were in reality was offkey and relentless. His obsession continued even after his abdication. 
In exile, he kept his pipes and woke the neighbors instead. And while Edward blew notes with brutal 
confidence, the next queen was busy rewriting history, starting with her own portraits, which 
she had youthified well into her senior years. Queen Elizabeth I had her portraits edited to 
make her look younger decades after her youth. Queen Elizabeth I understood power and she knew 
that nothing threatened power like age. In a world where youth symbolized fertility, vitality, 
and strength, Elizabeth refused to let the mirror dictate her legacy. So she had her portraits 
edited over and over until time itself bent to her will. By the 1590s, the Virgin Queen was well 
into her 60s, wrinkled, tired, and increasingly reclusive. But her portraits, radiant, ageless, 
ethereal artists were explicitly instructed to omit flaws. No jowls, no gray, no sagging 
necklines or thinning hair. Instead, alabaster skin, wide eyes, and golden locks untouched by 
time. One official template called the mask of youth was used repeatedly with minor costume 
changes, different settings, same ageless face. To the public, Elizabeth remained an immortal 
icon. To the court, she was a woman waging a quiet war against mortality. Behind closed doors, her 
ladies knew the truth. The makeup was heavier, the hairpieces more elaborate. But in paint, she was 
forever frozen in perfection. And while Elizabeth battled age with brushes, the next king enforced 
youth from above, making his servants kneel just to hand him dessert. Henry VIIth made his servants 
kneel when handing him food, even desserts. Henry VIIIth wasn’t known for charm or warmth or 
smiling. What he was known for was control tight, quiet, suffocating control. And nowhere was 
that more apparent than in the dining room where even the simple act of serving food became 
a ritual of submission. Every dish from roast to pudding had to be presented by a servant on one 
knee. Not just formal occasions, every meal, even if they were handing him a custard tart. 
The message was clear. You don’t feed the king, you serve him. It wasn’t about gratitude. It 
was about hierarchy. Henry wanted his court to remember at all times who sat above them. Eating 
became theater and dessert a lesson in humility. Some servants reportedly developed knee calluses. 
Others joked very privately about the absurdity of genulecting to a plate of figs. But no one 
dared change protocol. The king’s gaze was cold, calculating, and quick to punish even the smallest 
breach of etiquette. His court was a place of whispered terror. Even the plum cake came with 
pressure. And while Henry enforced submission at the dinner table, his descendant would dine 
as a deotai immortalized in glowing abs as a Roman god on canvas, of course, with zero shame. 
Charles II commissioned a painting of himself as a Roman god with glowing abs. Charles II 
never did things halfway, not politics, not pleasure, and certainly not portraiture. 
In a court famed for realry and excess, the king decided that being painted in royal robes 
wasn’t nearly grand enough. So, he commissioned a portrait of himself as a Roman god, complete with 
flowing robes, laurel wreath, and most memorably, glowing abs. This wasn’t just idealized. It 
was fantasy cosplay. Charles, who was known for his slightly sagging figure and fondness for 
wine and women, suddenly appeared chiseled from marble. His chest gleamed with divine light. His 
arms rippled with Olympian strength. The artist, undoubtedly under royal encouragement, painted not 
the king’s body, but his ego. The portrait hung proudly in his palace, where it both stunned and 
amused his courters. Some called it satire, others feared it was prophecy. Either way, no one dared 
mention the difference between canvas Charles and the real slightly wheezy Charles, who preferred 
lounging with his spananiels over leading troops. But while Charles tried to shine like Apollo, the 
next monarch’s pet had less classical elegance and a whole lot more profanity. Shrieking curses 
in German to horrified guests. Victoria’s pet parrot. Cursed in German. Horrifying guests. Queen 
Victoria’s court was a blend of solemn mourning, rigid etiquette, and sudden bursts of the bizarre. 
And nothing captured that odd mix better than her pet paroda, seemingly innocent African gray 
that, to the shock of everyone, cursed fluently in German. The bird had been a gift, possibly 
from a European noble. It was intelligent, chatty, and quickly absorbed the language 
of its surroundings. Unfortunately, some of those surroundings included irate Germanspeaking 
staff and frustrated royals muttering in moments of stress. The parrot learned the best words, the 
worst ones. Relian repeated them with theatrical timing. Imagine a quiet tea in the drawing room. 
Foreign dignitaries seated politely when suddenly from a perch nearby a stream of angry guttural 
obscenities in perfect German. Guests froze. Victoria blushed. One account claimed she snapped. 
He must have learned it from Prince Albert. And then ordered the bird removed mid visit, but she 
didn’t get rid of it. The parrot stayed and cursed and became a sort of feathered warning sign. Mind 
your language around the queen’s walls or it will come back to haunt you. And while Victoria’s bird 
raged in German, the next king would channel his own fury at the breakfast table over something 
as simple as unsalted eggs. George, I had a chef, fired for not salting his eggs enough, and had 
him whipped. George, I ruled England with a thick German accent and an even thicker temper. His 
rule was pragmatic, dull to some. But his rage, that was oporadic, especially when it came 
to breakfast. One morning he was served his usual boiled egg simple, dependable and royal. 
But on this day, the eggs were bland. No salt, not enough. Anyway, George tasted them, paused, 
then exploded. Not with words, with consequences. The chef was dragged from the kitchen, accused of 
high disrespect, and promptly whipped. Not fined, not dismissed, whipped for seasoning failure. 
This wasn’t about taste. It was about power. George believed in discipline, especially from 
those who fed him. Food wasn’t just sustenance, it was loyalty on a plate. If the kitchen faltered, 
what else might fall apart afterward? The court walked on eggshells literally. No one dared tweak 
a recipe. Dishes were tasted obsessively. Salt became a sacred duty. And in the shadow of that 
culinary tyranny, the next monarch would be even stranger in his preferences because his hatred 
didn’t target chefs. It targeted fruit, but only the round kind. James I hated round fruit, 
calling them unnatural. James I was a monarch of contradictions, a devout scholar who obsessed 
over witchcraft, a peaceloving king with a sharp tongue, and a man with an inexplicable vendetta 
against fruit. But not just any fruit round fruit, apples, plums, peaches, if it had curves and a 
symmetrical shape. James found it suspicious. He called them unnatural, as though the laws of 
geometry had betrayed divine order. He claimed they reminded him of deceitful planets or witches 
tokens. Whether this was an aesthetic revulsion or some mystical paranoia is unclear, but one 
thing was certain. He wouldn’t touch them. He would flinch if offered a perfectly spherical 
apple. He reportedly once flung a plum from his plate with a sneer, muttering something about 
devilish smoothness. His servants learned quickly. Court tables were decorated with oblong fruit 
instead bananas, pears, figs. Oranges had to be pre-sliced. Gardeners were warned not to display 
baskets with too much roundness. To his guests, it was a curiosity. To James, it was a matter 
of cosmic balance. He ruled a kingdom and feared curves. And while James banished fruit based on 
shape, the next queen collected shapes far more sinister executioner hoods stacked like trophies 
of vengeance. Queen Mary collected executioner hoods as molded souvenirs. Mary’s obsession 
with death didn’t stop at policy. had extended to decor. While her Protestant victims burned in 
public squares, Mary curated a far more intimate, chilling collection in private executioner hoods. 
Black linen and stained with history. These grim artifacts were reportedly gathered from royal 
and private executions alike. She didn’t display them openly. They were kept in private quarters, 
rumored to be stored in a locked chest or mounted in an al cove no servant dared linger in. Some 
claimed she touched them during prayer. Others said she named them. One legend insists she once 
slept with one under her pillow on the anniversary of a prominent heretic’s death to Mary. These 
weren’t just macob decorations. They were proof. Relics of justice. symbols of triumph over heresy. 
Each hood represented a soul she had saved in the only way her brutal theology could understand. 
Foreign envoys whispered of the collection. Ministers avoided eye contact when the topic 
surfaced, but no one dared intervene. Mary had made her point. Repentance came in fire and memory 
in cloth. And while Mary kept her darkness under lock and key, the next king adorned himself with 
far lighter fair flower crowns, even at councils of war. Edward II warflower crowns. Even at war 
councils, Edward II, long criticized for his weak leadership and poor military judgment, had another 
habit that sent his advisers into quiet despair. He wore flower crowns, not during feasts or 
festivals, but during war councils. While knights debated strategy and generals prepared 
for bloodshed, Edward would appear crowned not in steel, but in daisies, violets, or woven roses 
plucked fresh and arranged with unsettling care. Sometimes he even added lavender for clarity. 
soldiers whispered that their king looked like a woodland nymph summoned to bless the troops with 
whimsy instead of orders. This wasn’t a one-off eccentricity. It was a repeated ritual. Some say 
it calmed him. Others argue it was a deliberate rejection of marshall imagery, a soft rebellion 
against the expectations of kingship. Whatever his motive, the image stuck. the king with pedals on 
his brow discussing battle formations. His enemies mocked him. His allies cringed. But Edward was 
unmoved. He believed nature brought clarity and power. And if that meant appearing at a siege 
looking like Midsummer personified, so be it. And while Edward wrapped himself in blooms, the 
next monarch armored himself far more aggressively with pants so bedazzled they glittered like 
a walking fortress. Henry VIII owned a pair of diamond encrusted armor pants. Henry VIII 
wasn’t content just being a king. He wanted to be a monument. His armor was more than battlefield 
protection. It was propaganda forged in steel. And among the many suits in his gilded arsenal was a 
singular ostentatious creation. A pair of diamond encrusted armor pants. Yes, armor pants studded 
with precious stones. They weren’t for war. These weren’t built to withstand sword or musket. They 
were ceremonial design to dazzle. Crafted with polished steel, velvet lining, and diamonds sewn 
along the thighs and codpiece, they gleamed with royal ego. When Henry wore them, he didn’t walk 
shimmerred. Court chronicers whispered that the king strutdded in them during royal parades, 
relishing the gasps and gravels they inspired. They were less protective gear and more wearable 
treasury. Some said the diamonds were real. Others argued they were polished glass. Either way, the 
point wasn’t wealth. It was dominance. The pants declared, “Look upon me and squint, peasants.” 
And while Henry flexed in rhinestone war, the next queen took a more psychological route to 
supremacy, banishing every mirror from court so no one could dare outshine her reflection. Elizabeth 
I banned mirrors at court so no one could compare themselves to her. Elizabeth I built her image 
like a fortress white skin red lips towering rough every inch calculated every gaze curated 
but beneath that precision was insecurity and her greatest enemy wasn’t foreign invasion 
it was mirrors as she aged the queen began banning reflective surfaces from court not subtly 
entire wings of the pal palace were stripped. Mirrors in chambers, dressing rooms, and guest 
quarters vanished like traitors in the night. The reasoning was whispered. Elizabeth didn’t want 
anyone comparing themselves to her, or worse, witnessing her decline. In a court that lived 
and died by appearance, this decree struck like thunder. Ladies in waiting had to apply makeup 
by candle light and guesswork. Foreign visitors were confused, servants frustrated. But no one 
questioned it. Elizabeth was the sun, and no one looked directly at the sun. Some say she kept a 
single mirror for private use, heavily guarded and rarely glimpsed. Others believe she relied 
entirely on attendance to describe her appearance, always with flattery, of course. The Virgin Queen 
didn’t age, not officially, and without mirrors, no one could prove otherwise. And while Elizabeth 
erased reflections, her great great granddaughter upcycled her sterning gowns of grief into 
household decor fit for a morning monarch. Queen Victoria’s morning dresses were recycled 
into curtains. Queen Victoria wore black for 40 years after the death of Prince Albert. Entire 
wardrobes of crepe, bombazine, and jet beads piled up like a funeral department store. But what do 
you do with decades worth of sorrow stitched silk once it’s too threadbear to wear? You turn it into 
curtains. Yes, royal seamstresses were ordered to recycle Victoria’s old morning dresses into 
drapery. Gowns once worn during solemn audiences, and widows walks now hung in her drawing 
rooms, framing windows with swaths of grief. Rooms were dressed like coffins. Sunlight 
filtered through folds of emotional fabric. It wasn’t merely thrifty. It was symbolic. The queen 
didn’t just mourn. Albertie lived in mourning, literally surrounded by it. Guests would sit 
beside the folds of her former dresses, unaware that the gloom surrounding them once rustled 
through palace corridors and funeral processions. Every pleat was personal, every hem historical. 
And while Victoria decorated her palace with her sorrow, the next king, obsessed not with mourning, 
but with manners so extreme, he made courtortiers bow three times just for using the bathroom. 
Richard II demanded courters bow three times, even if they just left for the bathroom. For 
Richard II, kingship wasn’t just divine. It was theatrical. Every glance, every movement, 
every breath in his court had to be rehearsed to perfection. And no gesture symbolized this 
obsession with ceremony more than his demand that courters bow three times every time they 
left his presence, including when they were just going to the bathroom. The rules were strict. One 
bow before turning to walk away, a second halfway to the door, and a third just as they exited, 
preferably with a backward glance of reverence. Even if nature was calling with royal urgency, 
the bows had to be made. Skipping a bow was no small offense. It was interpreted as sacrilege, 
disloyalty, or even treason adjacent arrogance. Some corders reportedly developed an 
entire rhythm to it. Glide, pause, bow, repeat. It turned palace movement into ballet. 
Others simply trained their bladders to avoid the ritual entirely. Richard believed that 
the rituals reinforced loyalty and elevated the monarchy to the divine, but to everyone else 
it was exhausting, awkward, and utterly absurd. And while Richard choreographed bathroom bows, the 
next king filled his portraits with fur favoring dogs over dukes in nearly every royal painting. 
Charles I with dogs more than people in official portraits. Charles, I may have lost his head, 
but before that he ruled with an eye for art and a heart for dogs. In portrait after portrait, 
commissioned from the finest painters of the day, his canine companions appear beside him. Not as 
background flourishes, not as royal accessories, as stars. Spananiels, hounds, lap dogs. They 
were given prime real estate in the compositions, often with more detail and affection than the 
human subjects. Diplomats were rendered as stiff shadows. his dogs, lively, expressive, sometimes 
even centerframe. Charles saw dogs as symbols of loyalty, something he prized in a court filled 
with shifting alliances and subtle betrayals, where men plotted and whispered, dogs barked and 
followed. They were the companions he could trust. One particularly famous painting features 
Charles seated beside a dog looking straight at the viewer’s wide, alert, almost human. It was 
no accident. That was the king’s message. In a world of traitors, his dog was his truest subject. 
And while Charles found companionship in animals, the next king believed cows were worth more than 
courters because he spoke to them repeatedly. As if they’d respond, George III gave speeches to 
cows, believing they understood him. George III’s mental health was the stuff of tragic legend, 
spiraling from eccentricity into full-blown delusion. But among the more surreal episodes of 
his decline was his habit of giving speeches to cows. long, passionate, articulate addresses 
delivered not to Parliament, not to courters, but to herds of confused livestock. He believed 
they understood him. In the rolling pastures near Windsor, George would stand at the edge of a field 
and begin declaiming foreign policy, moral virtue, divine monarchy. The cows would blink slowly, chew 
grass, and occasionally wander off mid-sentence. Undeterred, the king continued. His addresses were 
reportedly structured like proper state speeches, complete with rhetorical flourishes and 
dramatic pauses. Servants trailed behind him, taking notes or pretending to, unsure whether 
to intervene. Doctors observed quietly. One famously recorded that the cows were the only 
audience that never challenged him. For George, the fields became his parliament and the mooing 
masses, his most devoted listeners. And while George III preached to boines, the next king 
retreated to bath time, whims surrounding himself not with ministers or mistresses, but with rubber 
ducks that had names. Edward I7th had rubber ducks in his bath which he named. Edward IIIth, the man 
who once commissioned a sex chair in Paris and kept Europe’s gossip columns afloat, had another 
far more innocent indulgence. Rubber ducks, not one or two, an entire fleet. Yellow, bobbing, 
squeaky, and most importantly named. His bath became a royal pond of absurdity. Each duck had a 
name, Admiral Quack, Lord Splasherly, Duchess of Drip, and was reportedly spoken to during bath 
time like honored guests at a dinner party. He arranged them in precise formations. He gave them 
voices, and yes, he held full conversations with them while palace staff waited outside, baffled 
and deeply uncomfortable. This wasn’t just childhood nostalgia. It was ritual, a way for the 
overstimulated monarch to unwind in a world he had to constantly perform for. The bath was his safe 
zone. The ducks, his loyal floating court. No one dared remove them. On one occasion, a housemmaid 
attempted to clean them away. She was reassigned within the week. And while Edward floated in a 
bubble bath monarchy, the next queen hurled sharp tonged insults in ancient Latin, confident that 
her foreign guests would never catch on. Elizabeth I sometimes insulted ambassadors in Latin so 
they wouldn’t know. Elizabeth I, linguistic prodigy and political chess master, knew how to 
turn a phrase and when necessary, weaponize it. Fluent in multiple languages, she often spoke 
to foreign ambassadors with dazzling fluency. But when they crossed her or tried to outwit 
her, she had a secret weapon, Latin insults, to their faces. She would lace diplomatic responses 
with veiled jabs, slipped casually into classical Latin, often delivered with a polite smile and a 
tone as smooth as silk. Most ambassadors, eager to impress and avoid offense, nodded along none the 
wiser. Only later, perhaps with a translator’s help, did they realize they had just been compared 
to a goat, a fool, or a parasite. Sometimes the insults were theatrical. Other times, razor sharp 
and clinical. She referred to one envoy’s argument as empty air expelled by an overfed bladder in 
Latin. Of course, he left the court beaming. The brilliance of it was timing. Elizabeth 
never exploded, never raised her voice. She wrapped her insults in golden syntax and classical 
authority. And while Elizabeth sliced with syntax, the next queen read omens into everyday thing 
seven sneezes, which she believed were messages straight from hell. Mary, I believed, sneezes were 
demonic messages. Mary, I wasn’t just devout. She was obsessively spiritual, interpreting every 
twitch of the world around her through a lens of divine signs and infernal warnings. And in 
this world view, sneezes weren’t just bodily reactions. They were demonic messages whispers 
from the devil himself. She flinched when someone sneezed. She once delayed a council meeting for 
nearly an hour after three sneezes occurred in succession. Servants were questioned. Rooms were 
inspected. One minister was nearly dismissed after sneezing twice during a proposal about 
church land. According to palace whispers, Mary believed that sneezes were omen’s warnings that 
something unholy lurked nearby. In a few cases, letters were burned unread simply because someone 
sneezed as they were handed over. The act of sneezing near the queen became a serious faux pa. 
Ministers carried handkerchiefs like holy shields. Coughing was safer. Her paranoia stretched to 
the chapel. A priest once sneezed during mass and was quietly removed from court three days 
later. No explanation, just vanished. For Mary, every inhale came with risk. Every exhale might 
be a portal. And while she feared the invisible, the next monarch dowsed himself in scent so 
pungent it made his courters dizzy. William II wore perfume so strong it made courtiers 
dizzy. William II, also known as William Rufus, was not known for subtlety in any form least of 
all his scent. While most kings bathed rarely and wore cologne sparingly, William turned himself 
into a walking cloud of fragrance, a sensory battering ram that hit courters the moment he 
entered a room. His perfume was so intense it made people lightaded, dizzy, occasionally nauseated. 
The scent was said to be floral with heavy musk mixed with exotic oils imported from the east. 
Rather than dab, William doused layers upon layers. Some reports claimed he reapplied midday, 
fearing that the aroma of power might fade. Others whispered that he used perfume as a political 
tool or factory show of force. Standing next to him at court was a challenge. Courtiers learned to 
breathe shallowly. Ambassadors discreetly covered their noses with lace. One noble reportedly 
fainted after a prolonged audience. William considered it necessary a king should be larger 
than life and smell like it, too. Subtlety was for peasants. Royalty, he believed, should overwhelm 
every sense. And while William assaulted the nose, the next king soothed his troubled sleep with 
something equally potent. Candies laced with opium, served like bedtime bon bonss. George 
IVth ate opium candies to help him sleep. George IVth wasn’t just a gourmand. He was a medicated 
gourmand. Amid the lavish dinners, mountains of roast meats, and oceans of wine, he also indulged 
in something sweeter and far more dangerous. Opium candies, a delicacy to some, a necessity to him, 
wrapped like innocent confections, these candied treats were infused with opium, meant to calm the 
nerves, and more importantly, knock the king into unconsciousness. George suffered from anxiety, 
gout, and a cocktail of royal malades, and he refused to tolerate insomnia. So, every evening he 
reached for his nightly fix. One candy became two, then three. Eventually, he couldn’t sleep without 
them. Doctors warned him. Ministers ignored it. Servants were told to always have them ready 
beside his bed, stacked neatly on a silver tray, like poison masquerading as dessert. The candies 
dulled his pain, but they also dulled his mind. His public appearances became sluggish, 
his speeches rambling. Behind closed doors, he sometimes forgot who he was addressing or 
what century it was, but he slept. And for a king haunted by pressure and poor health, that was 
enough. And while George sought refuge in opiates, the next monarch surrendered to opera where 
he cried like a child every single time, no matter the plot. Edward VII cried at the opera 
every time, regardless of the plot. Edward VIII, the famously romantic king who gave up his crown 
for love, had one other emotional Achilles heel, opera. But not just tragic areas or doomed heroine 
opera. Comic, tragic, historical didn’t matter. Within minutes of curtain rise, Edward would be 
quietly weeping. Tears streamed down his cheeks with mechanical regularity. Acti sniffles. By the 
finale, full-on silent sobbing. His handkerchiefs were embroidered for the specific purpose. Staff 
called them weep rags. He carried several to each performance, dabbing discreetly while trying to 
keep up royal composure. The odd part, the plot didn’t matter. He once cried through a satirical 
opera about ducks. Another time he broke down during a light-hearted performance that involved 
singing vegetables. No deaths, no tragedy, just vegetables. Some say it was the music. Others 
blamed a fragile, emotional core cracked under the weight of royal expectation. But one thing was 
clear. Edward didn’t just watch. Opera felt it intensely every time. Couriers grew accustomed 
to it. Guests whispered behind fans, but Edward never stopped attending, nor did he stop crying. 
And while he soaked handkerchiefs at the theater, the next monarch started his day like a tutor 
tyrant with pheasant, ale, and 10 courses before breakfast even ended. Henry VIII had a 10 course 
breakfast, including ale and pheasant. Henry VIII didn’t nibble. He devoured. From court politics 
to church doctrine, he consumed everything with a legendary appetite. And nowhere was this more 
literal than at his breakfast table. While modern mortals might start the day with toast and tea, 
Henry greeted the morning with a 10 course meal that could feed a small army, and probably did. 
On a typical day, his breakfast included pheasant, pheasant, as well as beef, lamb, eggs, pies, fish, 
and an assortment of pastries. It wasn’t just about quantity. It was about dominance. Eating 
lavishly in the early hours sent a message. I am the king, and I rise with meat in my mouth and 
beer in my belly. Ae flowed like water. Fruit was optional. Greece was not. Doctors winced. 
Courters blinked in disbelief, but the kitchens obeyed. Each morning they rolled out dishes 
that would make a modern buffet blush. It was said that Henry once threw a tantrum because his 
roast swan wasn’t crispy enough at 8:00 a.m. This breakfast wasn’t fuel. It was theater. And while 
Henry feasted like a barbarian king, his daughter once turned the tables be, forcing her entire 
court to dress like peasants just for laughs. Elizabeth I once made her court dress as peasants 
just to mock them. Elizabeth I loved spectacle, but she also had a cruel sense of humor and a 
ruthless taste for humiliation. One day, amid the usual parade of silks and diamonds, she issued 
an order that baffled her court, dressed like peasants, not for charity, not for diplomacy, but 
for mockery. Her nobles, usually decked in jewels and perfumed fabrics, were forced to dawn scratchy 
linen, mud splattered boots, and potato sacks belted with rope, hair undone, faces unpainted, 
jewelry forbidden. When they entered court, dressed this way, Elizabeth seated on her throne 
in full regaliaoft, hard. According to witnesses, she pointed at some of her most powerful lords and 
declared, “Now you look as you feel.” The court, humiliated but unable to protest, played along. 
They curtsied in rags. They bowed in straw hats. It was both performance art and a power move. 
Elizabeth reminded everyone. No matter how rich or beautiful you thought you were, your status 
was borrowed and could be revoked in a single royal whim. It was a day of dressup that left 
psychological bruises. And while Elizabeth toyed with fashion and pride, the next monarch toyed 
with vegetables by literally kning a turnip. No, really. George III kned a turnip as a joke no one 
laughed. George III’s madness has many chapters, but one of the strangest involved a vegetable, 
a sword, and a very confused kitchen servant. During one of his infamous mental spirals, 
he kned a turnip. As in, sir turnip. It began during a dinner when the king reportedly became 
enamored with the root vegetable on his plate. He held it up, turned it slowly in his hand, and 
declared it more noble than half the lords. Then, with a flourish, he drew a ceremonial sword and 
tapped it on the turnip’s shoulders, proclaiming, “Rise, Sir Turnip.” The room froze. Ministers 
looked to each other. No one laughed because it wasn’t funny. It was terrifying. Here was the 
ruler of an empire elevating a root vegetable with more ceremony than he’d shown to actual nobles. 
Servants said the king even requested that Sir Turnip be preserved. It was later found rotting in 
a linen drawer wrapped in silk. This wasn’t satire was symptomatic. George III’s mind was unraveling 
in front of his courtiers, and they were powerless to stop it. And as George kned his turnip, the 
next queen turned her grief into cloud watching, filling her diary with sky gazing sorrow. 
Victoria’s diary included 18 entries about clouds. Queen Victoria ruled over an empire 
that stretched across continents,   but her gaze often drifted upward to the sky. Not 
in poetic daydreaming or idle weather notes, but with the focused melancholy of a woman who never 
fully escaped her grief. Her private diaries, voluminous, meticulous, and deeply personal, 
contain at least 18 entries solely about clouds. Not political clouds, literal clouds. their 
shape, their movement, their resemblance to Albert’s face or God’s veil or the fading memory 
of youth. Some days she described them as ghostly ships a drift in the ether. Other times soft as 
sorrow and slow as time. The language is intimate, nearly sacred. Her observations were not idle 
musings. They were meditations on morning. Watching clouds became an emotional ritual, a 
way to commune with the only realm Albert might still occupy. She didn’t just write about them. 
She timed her walks by them, chose her sitting rooms based on sky visibility, and even refused 
to close certain curtains on cloudworthy days. Where other monarchs found comfort in ritual or 
religion, Victoria found it in vapor shifting, intangible, beautiful, and always out of 
reach. And while Victoria watched the skies, the next king sought status with something even 
more surreal. A sapphire tooth fit for a medieval Bond villain. Richard III had a tooth made of 
sapphire, though it broke while biting into venison. Richard III’s skeletal remains told us 
many things. His curved spine, his battle wounds, his brutal death. But one lesser known, deeply 
bizarre detail came from whispers in the annals of noble gossip, a tale of vanity, vengeance, and 
one incredibly ambitious dental decision. Richard, it said, once had a tooth made of sapphire. Yes. 
the fire embedded right in his royal grin. Why? Vanity, likely symbolism, perhaps the blue 
stone was associated with wisdom, nobility, and divine favor. Or maybe Richard simply wanted 
something that no other monarch dared to possess, a jewel inside his face. The tooth sparkled 
quite literally. It caught the light at court, unnerving enemies and dazzling allies. But it 
wasn’t built for durability. During a particularly vigorous feast, the story goes, Richard bit down 
on a piece of venison too tough for even his gemstone to handle. The sapphire cracked, the 
tooth shattered. The king roared not in pain, but in fury. For days he refused to show his 
face. Some said he ordered the tooth buried like a fallen knight. And so ended the reign 
of the world’s first and last jewel tothed monarch. But behind that last grin lies the 
final haunting question. What else have the kings and queens of England taken to their graves 
beneath velvet, gold, and a legacy of madness?