For those of you lucky enough to live through the late 90’s, you may be familiar with the groundbreaking series, Horrible Histories. For those of you who’re either too young, common L, or too old, uncommon L, let us spend a second to enlighten you.
Basically it was a series of books, and a subsequent TV show, that retold stories from varying years in the past. With the recent coronation causing a major commotion, I decided to delve into my past and dust off my copy of Terrible Tudors to show wee Seamus an insight into life prior to 2004. Or ‘03; I’m old and can’t remember how young the kid is. But it got us thinking: while the books cover a fair amount of ground, what are they missing?
Well, as it turns out, the royal lineage is built less like a tree and more like burning shrubbery. Follow our accounts of what we found to be interesting and what was just cooked. It’s a good time, plus we thought it more interesting than just some piss poor account of a 29 year old Charles marrying his 16 year old cousin. Or probably a cousin. You never know hey.
Jaklyn
King by day, OF aficionado by night
This is probably a ‘burying the lead’ title, but King Edward II was kind of served up a raw deal. His Dad, Edward I, was one of the most formidable figures ever to sit on the English throne, and he also had to put up with a wife who despised him and ultimately turned against him and who eventually overthrew him in favour of his fourteen-year-old son. The Victorians were notoriously boring in public while being particularly promiscuous behind closed doors. Here’s the thing: Eddy was a gay man, with a VERY illustrious sexual history of engaging in relations with some of the most famous noble men.
He’d even have famous painters paid to illustrate and document his sexual experiences with different men. One could say he started the trend of documenting your endeavours within the sheets. OnlyFans owe this man their lives.
Vapists be damned, Charlotte’s got you made
Queen Charlotte was an avid user of snuff before she arrived in England, and it was a habit that she continued throughout her life. King George, while he was kind of a douche-nozzle, tried it with her but couldn’t stop sneezing. You know what though? I kinda get it. Basically it’s ground up tobacco that you sniff, and sis went in. Allegedly so addicted she’d use it as often as 4-5 times per hour.
Queen Charlotte owned over 90 snuff boxes and had a collection of over 350 different bottles of snuff from the Royal Manufactory of Seville. She even had her own preferential blend that included ingredients like bitter almonds, ambergris, and green tea. So basically, what I’m saying is that Charlotte showed you addiction was a whole new level back in the day. You would be too if you had to deal with racism and just being alive during those shit times. Don’t let Bridgerton fool you into thinking it was all Taylor Swift songs and watching everyone dance.
What ever happened to baby-Edward?
King Edward IV died in 1483, and then his son Edward (12 years old) found himself at the centre of a battle between two rival families struggling to maintain power over the throne. Edward’s father had named his brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester, as Protector while his son remained a minor, but things took a turn when the Duke escorted the new king to London under the guise of his coronation. Dismissing all of the young king’s knights and people before they reached their destination. Once in London, Richard escorted Edward V and his nine-year-old brother to the Tower of London, claimed them to be illegitimate and then took the throne for himself.
There were talks for years about what happened to the boys, whether they were taken overseas to be hidden away or if Richard actually killed them. The harsh truth, they were probably murdered. But we’ll never know. Poor things.
Hung like a…
For all her achievements, Catherine the Great is often remembered for the multitude of salacious and slanderous rumours attached to her name. But one stands out more than the rest, the one surrounding her death. Prep yourself. Legend has it Catherine was fucking her prized stallion, the rumour starting because she often spent a great deal of unsupervised time with the horse. One evening, while attempting to have sexual intercourse with the stallion, the harness holding the horse broke, sending the beast crashing down on top of her.
Okay, none of this is true. In reality, Catherine the Great died of a stroke and she was discovered collapsed on the floor in her washroom. She fell into a coma and died the next day whilst lying in her bed. The cause of death was confirmed by autopsy.
Seamo
King Henry VIII’s sheet kissers
King Henry VIII isn’t necessarily known for being the most sane monarch with his 6 wives (2 of which he killed), constant war mongering, tireless executions, and over indulgent personality. But amidst all his negative quirks and traits lay an even larger one. Henry, the little ratbag, had a servant specifically assigned to kiss his bed sheets of a morning to make sure it wasn’t covered in poison. He did this because he couldn’t trust those that made his bed of a morning to restrain themselves from smearing poison all over it. This came from a panic attack Henry had when he found out poison could also be absorbed through the skin rather than the traditional means of consuming it. A valid paranoia from a man who seemed to murder everyone he met.
Death Tiara
A tiara, called ‘The Strawberry Leaf’, saw Prince Albert die two months after commissioning it. Nothing fishy, right? Well, the next in the family to wear it, Princess Alice, lost two children after it was given to her. The story keeps going, the next inheritor also lost two children, and had a divorce. The curse of the tiara persisted with an inheritor afterwards suffering deaths of family members. The tiara was even present in the plane crash that took Prince Philip’s sister’s lives and SURVIVED. It was found with no significant damage and didn’t burn up in the fire amidst the wreckage. The tiara now exists without any individual ownership which is fortunate as historian, Dr Kate Williams, says, “it’s known to be haunted because it brings bad luck to pretty much anyone who owns it or wears it”.
Royal Family and the Nazis
For one, King Edward VIII was reportedly a bit cosy with the Nazi Party. After he abdicated, to marry the love of his life, Wallis Simpson, he started to begin to rub shoulders with the members of the Third Reich. Now, it’s pretty contentious about what this relationship did entail due to the secrecy of the Royal Archives. However, American soldiers found files in German military property which allegedly report that they wanted to bring Edward to Germany and fake a kidnapping to convince the UK to surrender during WW2. A bit of an iffy plan, Edward. On top of this, there are further reports that these discovered files held that he would be reinstated as King if Germany could have free reign over Europe. Yikes. Eddie also gave a Nazi salute to Hitler and said he was “not a bad chap”. Oh yeah, and Prince Philip’s sisters also married Nazis.
Prince Andrew is a weirdo
Personally, I couldn’t believe it when I saw Prince Andrew treated with greater respect at the recent coronation than King Charles’ own son, Prince Harry. Especially when you weigh up that he was part of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking scheme. A victim of this trafficking scandal, Virginia Giuffre, claimed Andrew sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was 17. Epstein also reportedly paid her $15,000 to have sex with Andrew and flight records show that this could be very true. So yuck. Now, obviously, Andrew has denied all allegations, but this is made more auspicious by various claims from other women. Apparently, he was seen getting a foot massage from two Russian women in Epstein’s home in New York and had sexually abused a lady while posing for a photo. All of these allegations seem to be hard to disprove with the reports of Andy’s friendship with Epstein prompting them to spend large amounts of time together. Disgusting.
So there we have it, a limited edition of Nexus Horrible Histories for your eyeballs. Just remember when you’re reading Horrible Histories next that they failed to mention Queen Charlotte’s Mediaeval juul addiction or the Royal Family’s distant (or not so) affiliation with the Nazi Party.
