6 (Literally) Retarded Monarchs
By Sami on July 07th, 2009
Mental retardation is generally understood to be the lack of normal intellectual development. It was one of the most misunderstood conditions before the advent of modern medicine and there were literally hundreds of pseudo-scientific terms used to describe it. Not surprisingly, the practice of inbreeding helped stack royal courts with hundreds of mentally retarded heirs. Occasionally, one would manage to make it to the throne. These are the stories of 6 of them.
1. Philip III Arrhidaeus
A persisting rumor claims Alexander the Great’s mother Olympias caused Philip III Arrhidaeus’ mental condition with a botched poisoning while clearing out roadblocks to Alexander’s ascension. It is more likely that Arrhidaeus was born mentally retarded and was shielded from the Macedonian army’s politics while Alexander was alive. Afterwards however, he was thrust into a powersharing agreement with the infant Alexander IV and became a pawn for a series of power-hungry assholes. First came Perdiccas, a paranoid regent, who kept Arrhidaeus close to himself and almost caused a troop revolt by killing Arrhidaeus’ half-sister Cynane after she sent her daughter Eurydice to marry Arrhidaeus. The less batshit Antipater was made regent after Perdiccas’ officers had enough of him and killed him. This left Arrhidaeus in the hands of Eurydice, who used him to lobby for more power. She attempted to lead a rebellion against Olympias after Antipater’s death but found that Macedonians were unwilling to fight Alexander the Great’s mother. Arrhidaeus, unaware of what was happening, ended up in a narrow dungeon cell with Eurydice and was executed there.
2. Fyodor I of Russia
Fyodor I of Russia, the not-so-terrible son of Ivan the Terrible, was born with a “minor” case of Down syndrome. Fyodor was an extremely pious man whose idea of a good time was hanging out with monks, listening to Bible stories, and ringing church bells. By contrast, Ivan the Terrible’s idea of a good time involved creating succession issues by beating up his pregnant daughter-in-law, causing her to miscarry, and then murdering the heir-apparent. The “Oh, shit!” moment that followed left 3 possible options: Fyodor; a 3 year old boy; and Boris Godunov, an ambitious veteran of the royal court. Godunov was clearly the most suitable, but the church picked Fyodor anyway thinking that a pious retard would be easier to control. Fyodor managed to become a moderately popular tsar by not being a mass murdering psycho, and also by loosening trade restrictions, favoring the lower classes, and reforming the judiciary. Most of the public didn’t realize that these reforms came from Godunov, who had managed to claw his way into becoming the sole regent, and instead credited Fyodor’s belief that God spoke to him in his dreams. Unfortunately, Fyodor’s failure to sire any male children allowed Godunov to claim the throne after his death and signaled the start of the Time of Troubles.
3. Mustafa I
The Ottomans were good at avoiding succession wars by allowing each new sultan to kill all other potential heirs when he claimed the throne. In fact, the Ottomans got so good at wiping out anyone with a claim to the throne that for a while, the continuity of the dynasty was threatened. Eventually, a more “humane” solution was developed which allowed the heirs to live, but still provided the sultan with security: penning all the heirs in a palatial prison called the “Kafes” – literally, “the Cage”. Even then, it was fairly common for an unpopular heir to be found strangled to death in spite of the heavy security. Mustafa I was born “mentally weak” and was driven completely insane by the constant threat of strangulation. He spent most of his life in the tiny windowless apartments looking for guidance in the Quran, but was forced to become Sultan after his brother, Ahmed I, died of typhus. He was quickly deposed after refusing to learn ixaratte, the royal court’s complicated sign language system, and running around the palace screaming for his dead brother to take away his throne. The Jannisaries made short work of his successor and asked Mustafa to rule again. He responded: “I am reading the Quran, and I do not want to be the Sultan,” but no one listened and Mustafa was forced to reign until the Grand Mufti decreed that Murad IV should be allowed to take his place.
4. Ibrahim I
Allowing Murad IV to rule was a mistake. His bloody reign allowed his power hungry mother, Kösem Sultan, to become the most powerful woman in Ottoman history. She ruled from behind a silk curtain while Murad ran around brutalizing anyone he came across. When Kösem realized she would lose power when Murad died, she began lobbying for the mentally retarded Ibrahim I to become the next Sultan. Murad responded by ordering Ibrahim put to death, but Kösem managed to convince the royal court that Ibrahim suffered from “weakness of the nerves” and posed no threat. Much like Mustafa, Ibrahim had spent most of his life in the Kafes. Unlike the hapless Mustafa, Ibrahim was a sex crazed sociopath who immediately began kidnapping and raping married women. He became enthralled with obese women and paid immense bounties to anyone who could bring him a larger woman than he already had in his harem. Ibrahim eventually became obsessed with a cow’s genitals, had them cast in gold, and ordered his agents to find a woman with a similar vagina. They found Sechir Para (“Sweet Lump of Sugar”), a 300 pound Armenian woman who he dressed only in furs. Ibrahim was finally deposed after he raped the Grand Mufti’s daughter. He was found strangled to death in the Kafes a few months later.
5. Charles II of Spain
Charles II of Spain’s birth was widely celebrated because it helped avoid a succession war. That celebration was short lived, as people began worrying after getting a good look at him. Charles, the result of generations of Hapsburg inbreeding, resembled a Dane Cook joke: countless ailments, severely retarded, and constantly on the edge of an emotional breakdown. His head was freakishly misshapen, his jaw made it impossible for him to eat, and his tongue was so large he could barely speak. He was literally carried around like a baby for the first 10 years of his life because the royal court feared he would die if overworked. Even after he learned how to walk on his own, his legs could barely support him beyond a few steps. By the time he was 35, Charles had given up on cleaning himself, could not walk, and suffered multiple epileptic seizures a day. He spent the final years of his life desperately attempting to have a child. Even though his doctors tried everything from balancing dead pigeons on his head to draping him with the warm entrails of mammals, he could not manage to sire an heir. His death sparked the bloody War of the Spanish Succession, which some argue was the first world war.
6. Ferdinand I of Austria
Ferdinand I of Austria’s “feeble-mindedness” was well known to the general public. In the end, that knowledge probably saved his life. In person, it was practically impossible to understand him (though he did manage to keep a readable dairy). Reportedly, one of his few coherent sentences came after being told that apricot dumplings were out of season: “I am the Emperor, and I want dumplings!” Bedridden by up to 20 epileptic fits a day, Ferdinand relied on a cadre of counselors to guide his decisions. The most controversial was Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, who had brought peace between kings at the Congress of Vienna but ignored the general public’s demands for democratic reform. Ferdinand was forced to dismiss Metternich when revolutionaries started picking up supporters. Before fleeing to London, Metternich informed Ferdinand that the angry mob outside his palace was revolting and demanding that Ferdinand abdicate. A puzzled Ferdinand asked: “But are they allowed to do that?” Considered harmless by the revolutionaries, Ferdinand made it out unscathed and spent the rest of his days in Prague Castle.
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