May 6, 2025 • 42 mins
Have you been blessed -- or, perhaps, cursed -- with a nickname that just won't go away? Some of most terrifying, inspiring and ridiculous figures in human history are in the same boat. Join Ben, Noel and Max as they return to their continuing series on Ridiculous Historical Honorifics, exploring the stories of Charles the Bald, Ethelred the Unready, and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it for our super producer,
mister Max Williams. Rah, did I do it this time? Right?
Benh you're nailing an Oh? Rah ras al Uh? What
was the thingan? Yes? Yes? Check check out stuffer sorry,
(00:56):
check out hook and stuff. They will want, you know,
for more on the infamous Rufio. We're gonna give Max
an honorific for today's episode. You're an old brown I've
been bullying' Yes, what if we call what if we
call Max the ready?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Williams, Oh, he's always ready, He's he is uh Johnny
on the spot as they say yes.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
For some reason, I instantly wanted to reply Spotty on
the jog, But that.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Feels like why wouldn't you. That's what the mind does.
It seeks patterns and then jumbles them up.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I don't want to say what that made me think
of everybody, which is one of the nicknames we gave
my friend Greg once when he tried to give himself
a nickname.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh yeah, I remember, legendary Gregg guys, have you ever
heard of a porta potty brand called honey bucket?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I have not, and it is that name despicable. Can
I just say I think it's just awful. Honey bucket
sounds like a bad name for anything, including a literal
bucket of honey.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Absolutely, don't want it, don't need it, don't want it around.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I'm not gonna say I'll say this off air, y'all,
but I do not have to censor out, so I'm
not gonna say it.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah, I'm just now I'm picturing honeybucket as one of
those one of those weirdly idiosyncratic Southern nicknames that someone
will just drop in conversation, maybe at a diner, and
you don't know how to react, like, Okay, what can
I get you? Honeybucket? Yeah, somebody sugar and a word.
(02:29):
And with this, as you can tell, folks, we are
super into nicknames and wordplay. This is part of our
continuing series on something called honorifics Noel. As you and
I discovered previously, honorific is just the fancy version of
(02:54):
a nickname often assigned to historical figures, to royals, and
sometimes without their consent. Coside or agreement.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Typically, that's the way proper honorifics work. To Max's point
about his friend Greg giving himself a nickname and that
backfiring dreadfully.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Like that old I love that legendary Saturday Night Live
sketch about Sting giving himself the nickname Sting and everyone's going, okay, Gordon, Gordon.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
This is also reflected in Dana Carvey's Seminal nineteen ninety
stand up special, where he does that whole bit and
I didn't actually realize that it was originally part of
a sketch, and that a lot of the bits he
does in that that the first time I was hearing them,
like Choppin' Brocoli.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And all that that was from his days on S
and M. And speaking of spectacular comedy of yesteryear, let's
get into some more terrible hoterrifics. Maybe we start with
Charles two, Charles the Second.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
That's right, the King ruler of France and the Holy
Roman Emperor. When talking about kings and emperors, Charles the
Second was actually both of them. Britannica puts it thusly.
Charles the Second born June thirteenth, eight twenty three died
October sixth eight to seventy seven Bridess Lebon, France. Doing
(04:17):
my best there, hopefully casey pegrim is prout. He was
the King of France known as Francia Occidentales the West
Frankish Kingdom. He served from eighteen forty three to eighteen
seventy seven, and was also the Western Emperor from eight
seventy five to eight seventy seven. And you know, if
(04:38):
that wasn't complex enough, history has reckoned him as Charles
the Second, both of the Holy Roman Empire and also
of France.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
All right, so be informed, folks. It may sound to
a casual reader that there are two different Charles the Second.
In this case it's the same guy. He's just pulling
double duty in the great gig economy of monarchy. He
is the son of Emperor Louis first, the Pious, who
(05:09):
is also and he's the grandson. Do you think he
was Do you think he was that pious? He probably
had a good thing going with the church, fair enough,
they liked him.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
That's a good example of an honorific bestowed on someone
who has a lot of political cachet, right, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, And Charles the Second is also the grandson of Charlemagne,
who is just a fascinating character. Charles the Great another
very flattering, honorific. Yes, like our coworker, Charlemagne the God.
He is technically our coworker, that is true. Ben He
and his second wife, Judith, that's Louis's second wife, not Charlemage.
(05:45):
The gods got it, yes, exactly. So Charles was the
unwitting cause of violence. In eight twenty nine, he was
granted lands by his father and this essentially led to
a the Cavalca, the Domino effect series of internal civil wars.
And by internal I mean within the family. Yeah, very
(06:09):
secession style, right, that's right. So so Charlie gets a
bunch of land, how does that lead to civil war?
We have to remember what we what we just mentioned
there there was a first wife, you know, and Louie
had three sons with this previous spouse. And these three guys, understandably,
(06:31):
they don't like that their younger half brother is getting
all this real estate. Those three guys are low there.
The first Louis two electric Boogaloo and Pippin one. Pippin
what is it? What's that song from Pippin?
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Do you know Pippin?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
The musical was written by the same guy that real Wicked,
and when you listen to the music, you can really tell.
I don't know if you guys are musical theater people,
but I think he's got a song. It's called My
Place in the Sky or something. It's very jubilant and
very Wicked esque. But Pippen, yes, the first. Don't think
it has anything to do nothing. It has to do
with Pippin one. I I like saying Pippin one as well.
(07:09):
It really rolls off the tongue or pops off the lips, so,
you know, playing favorites, I suppose is maybe the issue
at hand here. Dad gifts Charlie boy a bunch of
tracts of very valuable land and it causes some resentment,
sure from the aforementioned Lothair one, Louis two, and Pippin one.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yes, and our research associate for today's episode, Max Williams,
speculates that perhaps the brothers three were resentful because Charles
had a better name than them, and loth are Louis
Pippen those are yeah, they're esoteric, right, So this civil
war over this real estate and other resentments goes from
(07:54):
eight twenty nine all the way up to eight thirty eight,
and this is when one dies, unfortunately for Pip and one.
After the death of the Patter familias Louis the First
in eighteen forty, the civil war kicks back into gear
and it continues until Louis the Second, whose street name
(08:17):
is Louis the German, joins forces with Charles and they
banned up against Lothar, and they do this through something
called the Treaty of Verdoon in eight forty three. And
the Treaty of verdon is kind of bringing order to
the chaos, getting everybody on the same page. You know, look,
(08:38):
we're all still one percenters. Can't we all just get along?
So they allocate out all the lands they control to
these three living brothers in pursuit of peace. However, as
any ruler can assure you, peace does not always automatically
mean things are simple, So being contrary right right peace
(09:02):
can be complicated. So for Charles ruling post verdon Is
is kind of tricky for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
And really quickly off air, we had a funny little
stumble wherein I accidentally played through my speakers a vintage
SNL clip called Lothar of the Hill People When I
hear the name Lothar in this in this story, I
think of like it should be followed up with like
the Terrible or the Barbarian or something. And then it
turns out Mike Myers played Lothar of the hill people
(09:33):
on an old s n ol spelt differently, but it
is Lothar, not low Fair. But it's still the mind
once with the mind wants.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Mike Myers, famously known for basing all of his sketches
on this Civil War Indian Ye, yeah, don't fatch I
is there? No? No, no, I mean think about think
about Wayne's world, really think about it.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well, well, now we've got Mike Myers and Jana Carvey
entering the chat properly. So I think that was an
important assign. So when Lothar's albus son, who is the
Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis the second he
passed away in eight to seventy five, Charles took a
little sojourn over to Italy and where he was crowned
emperor on December twenty fifth by the Pope John the eighth.
(10:15):
So this is how he managed to become both the
King of France and the Holy Roman emperor, So you know,
no slouch kind of doing double duty there, at least
title wise.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yes, and Max has a great Skyrim reference here. I
don't want us to lose, honey. Yeah, Charles was right,
like you were saying. Old Charles is in a precarious
position because he asked to question the loyalty of his vassals,
the minor nobles. They're supposed to be on his team.
(10:46):
His real estate is getting raided by these groups of Northerners,
and he essentially is reduced to bribing them off, not
conquering them, but paying them to go away. He gets
defeated by the Bretons quote presumably using their partially Elvin
blood for superior magic abilities. Max, I knew it was
(11:08):
important to you that we put that in there.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, the durani Elves and the
needs created the Bretons m Olivia. Olivia wasn't not when
this game got ridden.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Okay wait wait wait wait Max with facts Yeah, oh
(11:45):
of course, in fact fact to Jason, so as you yes,
facted Jason fictional facts. So uh so, like you were saying,
there is this fascinating situation where Charles becomes both the
Holy Broken Emperor co signed by Pope John and the
King of France at the same time. In eighteen seventy six,
(12:07):
after the death of Louis the Second, Louis the German,
Charles invades his half brother's land and then he gets
defeated by Louis the German's son, who is Louis three
and his moniker, his autorific Louis three the Younger, which
reminds me, you know, this is very creative. Can I
say this for all our aspiring MC's in the crowd
(12:31):
this evening. I'm hoping there are a lot of us.
Please please please get in front of it with your
street name. Be very careful about calling yourself young something
or liull something, because if your career is successful, do
you really want to be in your mid fifties and
still going by like young mikey aod.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It's a good point, I will say this. Sometimes these
nicknames can evolve, or by the very nature of one's
own success, you can kind of toss him off. Stevie
Wonder for a long time early in his career, was
known as Little Stevie Wonder because he was a child prodigy.
But then he did not continue going by little Stevie.
Wonder when he reached adolescents and adulthood.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, yeah, So word to the wise folks, we're let
us help you set yourself up for success. Help us
help you. So there's Now, we've told you a lot
of autorifics here, and we've talked a lot about our
buddy Charles, but we haven't given anyone his honorific yet.
We're gonna give you the headline and then we're going
(13:37):
to tell you why he got that nickname. Play along
at home. Can you guess why his honorific is Charles
the Bald? He was frollically challenged. Yes, yes, he was
part of the much maligned and underappreciated class of bald people.
He was cranium enhanced.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Hey see, that's how Larry David would be proud er
well put.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
To understand the full context here, let's go to Aaron
Kelly writing for all that's interesting. Aaron puts it thustly.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Charles was the King of West Francia, the King of Italy,
and Holy Roman Emperor from eight seventy five to seventy seven.
As you mentioned as Charles the Second, a grandson of
Charlotte Magne, he actually wasn't bald.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Dang it.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
It's an ironic epathetic because he was actually quite harry. Oh,
it's like little John in the Robin Hood canon. Okay, well,
you know we made an honest mistake, y'all.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Well we got tricked, as did the rest of history.
It's a very Iceland to Greenland thing. Still, though, even
with very important historical figures, just the sheer amount of
time between eight hundred something in twenty twenty five means
that a lot of the true story has been lost
to history, and it can be difficult to suss out
(14:59):
what is, you know, their equivalent of Internet trolling versus
what is factual improven kind of like the debate over
Napoleon's height, which turned out to be propaganda, there's no
isn't there something about his penis as well? Napoleon's piedus?
I thought there was. I haven't really thought about Napoleon's penis. Yep,
(15:20):
that's right, there was a Sorry.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
The headline from two thousand and eight at NPRPS the
Twisted Journey of Napoleon's Privates. Looking to that yourself, I'm
almost positive we've talked about this in some form or fashion.
But there is a story behind the provenance and ownership
of Napoleon's junk.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
People love relics, people love relics, and the weirder, the better,
says history. So if you want to learn more about Charles,
do check out Charles the Bald, The Story of the Epithet.
It's a thesis written by Margaret Audrey Anderson over at Caltech.
That's a pretty good one. That's a pretty tame one.
(16:08):
Let's go to another honorific. It's weird to call these honorifics,
but let's go to another honorific with Louis the eighteenth
And a big, big thanks to our pal Max for
replacing the Roman numerals with modern numbers and.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Really quickly, just to sum up a quick off MI
a side that I had. I was just curious, like
is honorific like a portmanteau of like honor and terrific
or something.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
No.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
In fact, it actually has a Latin origin, meaning that
which does honor. It comes from honorific cuss. So in
case anyone was wondering, thought we'd go ahead and get
that out of the way. But yes, let us do
roll through with Louis the eighteenth, the King of France,
and Navarre.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, so we're still in France. We're almost a thousand
years in the future flying cars, yet they have some
revolutionary ideas. Cookie okay for sure for a nice little
thematic bookend. Yes, this guy's name is also Louis. There
(17:16):
are eighteen kings in French history who have the name Louis.
They were just super into it. A lot of them
had very famous names. We probably all have heard of
Louis the fourteenth ak the Son King. We mentioned him
in our conversation about ridiculous clothing with aj Bahamas Jacobs.
(17:37):
A lot of other people named Louis who had their
own honorifics to differentiate them. And if we're positing why
these guys keep having the same name, it's likely a
move to generate credibility to the throne, right like I'm
you know, I'm definitely just like the other king. You like,
(18:00):
I've got the same name. We do want to give
a shout out to, of course, Louis the fifth, the
do Nothing. That's a heck of a street dame.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
No.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, rough day for Louis, rough rain for Louis.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
We're going to get to another sort of diss in
terms of laziness horrific coming up in a little bit.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, So, okay, Louis the eighteenth, the subject of our
examination here. He didn't have the best time because he
happened to be king when this other dude with a
penis that will be famous in the future, a guy
named Napoleon, was hanging out.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, apparently it became like this, the consistency of beef jerky,
because they didn't put it in for al day, and
it like toured around the globe like under glass, the
whole thing. Sorry, I don't know why I'm hung up
on this, but you brought it back.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Up again then.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
So Louis the eighteenth says Britannica was born November seventeen
seventy and fifty five in Versailles and the past on
September sixteenth, eighteen twenty four, and Perry he was the
King of France by title only in seventeen ninety five
and in actual facts, to quote Lauren Vogelbaum's genius catchphrase,
from eighteen fourteen to eighteen twenty four, We're gonna get
(19:15):
more into the whole by title period of this reign
in a little bit. But Meritanica goes on Louis was
the fourth son of the Dauphin, which you might have
seen in like I believe, the Dauphin comes up in
the Three Musketeers, which means the eldest heir to the king,
Louis the son of that's right, exactly, the special best boy.
(19:38):
So that was Louis, the son of Louis the fifteenth.
By the way, we're gonna get into some confusing naming
conventions here because everyone here, as you mentioned Ben as
an indicator of you know, prominence or whatever, to remind
the people that Louise are the best, they were the
good ones. They're all named Louis. So we're going to
(19:58):
talk in numbers, so I myself will likely get continue
to confuse and Ben, thank you for going through and
changing all the minerals.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Two actual numbers. I really appreciate. That's Max's.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Oh well, thank you for Max. Then I'm not insulted
at all, but I know I truly am not.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
And we eat it because it can be like reading
one hundred Years of Solitude if you remember that book,
most famous for well, it's great work of magical realism,
but also a ton of people have the same name
or very similar names so well.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
And let's be real, once you get into higher digits
of Roman numerals, unless you're really up to snuff on it,
it can be confusing for even the best of us.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Of course, yeah, so at times we may refer to
these guys as just eighteen and sixteen to save us
all the heartbreak. Louis eighteen the eighteenth is given the
title it provolts but it sounds like a cheese, it does,
and it does sound good. After two of he gets this,
(21:00):
and then two of his older brothers pass away, his
eldest brother Louis the sixteenth, so they're brothers that are
both named Louis. Louis the sixteenth becomes king, Louis eighteen
gets the title of air Presumptive. Louis sixteen has two kids,
so the king has two kids, and that means Louis
(21:23):
eighteen is going to have a much more difficult time
becoming the king because you know, the two direct children
will get the throne first. So the revolution happens. French
Revolution seventeen eighty nine was a wild time. You may
have heard about it, and Louis the eighteenth stays in Paris,
(21:43):
hopefully to exploit the situation. He's thinking, maybe there is
opportunity in this chaos, Maybe I can ascend to the
throne once this unpleasantness dies down. It did not die down.
It's super not die down. And so Louis had to
flee the country. He skips town. In June of seventeen
(22:05):
ninety one.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Little known detail, the French Revolution was often referred to
as the Great Unpleasantness.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Right the age of the Guillotine, Louis the eighteenth publishes
all these anti revolutionary manifestos. He gets a bunch of
like expat associations together and they go around kind of
door to door, castle to castle, asking other monarchs in
(22:34):
different countries to help them in the fight against this
dirty peasant uprising. Of course, Louis the sixteenth and Marie
Antoinette are still, you know, held captive by the revolutionaries.
They're executed in seventeen ninety three. Louis eighteen, here's about this,
(22:55):
and he says, well, you know, my nephew is young.
Louis is young, and I know he's the Dauphine, but
I am going to be his regent. So right now,
what we would say is that Louis eighteen is given
big scar energy, you know, yeah, yeah, exactly, long live
the king.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Indeed, so Louis seventeen would eventually pass away in seventeen
ninety five and his uncle would declare himself King Louis eighteen.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, we had a.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Little more to get through, the more Louis in fact,
so there's a huge problem to you. Oh yeah, said
on that too with Chris frasciotis here in spirit. Yeah,
check that one out from the early days of ridiculous history.
So there's a huge problem with Louis the eighteenth plan
of like, you know, declaring himself king. At this time
that wasn't a thing. There was not a king of France,
(23:43):
hence the by title note that we mentioned above. So
between seventeen ninety five and eighteen fourteen, Louis kind of
wandered the earth like Cain from Kung Fu, at least,
you know, in Europe. He went journeyed between Russia, England
and Russia, promoting this notion of royalism, and this whole
(24:05):
goal seemed to lose even more steam after Napoleon declared
himself emperor in eighteen o four.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
LOUI, Yeah, and so this is this is weird because
Napoleon actually tries to broker a deal with Louis the eighteenth,
and he says, look, if you abdicate your title and
you admit that I Napoleon am the Emperor, will set
you up for life, will give you a pension. You
won't have to worry about anything. And Louis says, heck, no,
(24:37):
man all. And so Napoleon runs into, you know, his
own series of defeats. He takes epic victories and absolute defeats,
right right. So it's eighteen thirteen, and this is where
Louis the eighteenth issues another manifesto and he says, you know, look, peasants,
(25:00):
I will recognize some stuff from the French Revolution as
long as we restore my monarchy. This is crazy, right,
So Allied armies enter Paris. It's March of eighteen fourteen,
and there's this brilliant diplomat who often, yes, she often
(25:22):
gets forgotten, but he's really good at me. Can you
get forgotten with a name like Tali rad No? And
so he no eighteen and sixteen for that guy, he's
just tally Rand. So he's able to negotiate this restoration
such that on May third of that same year, eighteen fourteen,
(25:42):
Louis is considered again the king, and that's why he
was king in title for a while, but now he's
king in fact.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
So on May the second, Louis eighteen officially declared or
at least promised, a constitutional monarchy. He wasn't going to
be a iron fisted despot, you know, with the totalitarian regime.
He promised a parliament's a a two party parliament, religious tolerance,
(26:17):
rights for all citizens guaranteed, a constitution. This is when
the shot constitutional now was adopted on June fourth of
eighteen fourteen. This was another you know, I mean, hell,
we always refer to our democracy here in the United
States as being a bit of an experiment, so this
(26:38):
certainly was that.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Oh yeah yeah. And things seemed set to reach a
somewhat peaceful conclusion until what's like, anyo moretone music here?
Perfect until there's another returning character, a man who is
(27:05):
unmess withable because we're family. Show Napoleon right, and he
returns from Elba, and this cuts Louise's constitutional experiments short.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
No pun intended, because he in fact was of average height.
After Marshall michel Ney defected to Napoleon on March the
seventeenth of eighteen fifteen, our king fled to Ghent, and
he did not have his return of the King, if
we're being Lord of the ringsy about it until July
(27:39):
the eighth, after a bit of a famous battle known
as Waterloo, also a really nice sunset depicted in a
lovely song by The Kinks.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, and after this, Louis serves as king until he
passes away on September sixteenth, eighteen twenty four. The autorifics
left in his wake are the following You're gonna see
two Okay, you're gonna see him called Louis eight, Louis
the Desired, or Louis Ahead the smoke Show right, sexy
(28:13):
beast right right. They originally went with Louis the Bembo,
but them there it is. But he has a little
bit more heavy metal one that I think we all prefer,
which is Louis the eighteenth, the Unavoidable.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Oh man, he just really insists on himself, doesn't He's
just there because he just turn around.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Would stop, He wouldn't stop saying he was king until
eventually everybody just agreed with him.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
You know, that is a way of doing things. It's
not a cool way of doing things. But no little
thing we see a little bit around these parts and
in the United States. It's just the idea if you
repeat something enough times and people just kind of get fatigued,
then it just sort of roll over.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Outs to jump in here real quick.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
The article from a Saint Neo's Museum, which is a
museum over in England. I look at the photo that
they use of louis the unavoidable. It just it's the epitome.
Just go into the article and click into it. I'm
just like, tell me when you have it up.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Got it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Are here? Uh you're talking about your talking?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, he is just like, hi guy, he looks he
looks like a wear turtle. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Man,
when the full moon waxes, he transforms in the night
into a turtle. Remember those yard hermits. Yes, yeah, it's
like one of those. I mean, not trying to be
(29:46):
a big, big yard hermit vibes.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
But when you when you research royals, you can tell
when like the change happened from like painting completely to like,
you know, trying to be more realistic or you get
photos because like a good example of this was in
our spiritual prequel to this series, Ridiculous World Deaths Part one,
when we talked about the Swedish king who ate himself
(30:09):
to death. Every single painting of him, he's just like
the super tall in shape guys and fit. Yeah, in
every writing about him said that was nothing like him.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I love that stuff. I love That's one of my
favorite things about researching royalty and older historical figures. I
like to read a lot about them before I ever
see a visual depiction because that there's an unending opportunity
for hilarity there. And shout out to all all the artists,
(30:43):
the portraitus and so on who had to make these
royal depictions. We don't blame you. We know that you
would have been murdered if you put it, you know,
if you were a little too accurate in your renditions.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, I mean to be political at all, but like
you don't remember what happened just recently with Donald Trump,
the President of the United States, where he had like
and what he believed to be an unflattering portrait removed. Well,
you know, I mean like back in those these days,
that kind of attitude might have led to the artist
to your point, Ben being you know, executed summarily.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah, they had to be ready, which brings us to
something for all read.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
For so long, we've talked about ethel Read before and
this is very familiar.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yes, and we mentioned him often. I think we talked
with Jack and Miles about him as well. He comes
up as a as a side note whenever we talk
about autorifics in general, just because this poor schmuck has
one of the most hilarious and insulting autorifics in history,
(32:00):
ethel Read the unready. We're not saying he's bad. We're
not saying he's terrible. We're not saying he's you know,
beat me Max, We're saying he's an asshole. We're just
saying he's not prepared. It's bit of a slouch. Yeah, yeah,
to your earlier boint. Ethel Read is part of the
Saxon dynasty that rules rules England from the ninth to
(32:21):
the eleventh century.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
According to the Royal Family website, ethel Read the second,
the younger son of Edgar, became king at the age
of seven following the murder most foul of his half
brother Edward the Second in nine seventy eight at Corfe Castle.
Dorset by ethel Red's retainers.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Whatever is it? Like? What is posse? What are his retainers? Yeah? Yeah,
like his people is okay? Got it? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
For the rest of ethel Red's rule reigned nine seventy
eight to ten sixteen, his brother became a posthumous rallying
point for political unrest. A hostile church transformed Edward into
a royal martyr.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Which means that now Ethelred is forced to go against
the church. Supporting Ethelred means you may be in opposition
to God as the way the public understands it. So
it makes it really tough for Ethelred to keep his retainers,
to have the allegiance of even the civilian population. And
(33:21):
while all this is happening, the Vikings are also trying
to take England for themselves. Yeah, you wolf at the door.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
You know they are coming for the English people's lands
and all that they hold dear.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
And Ethelred is a lot of things. He's not ready
and he's not a fighter, however, so he so he
attempts to kind of stem the chaos by making political
alliances in nine ninety one and almost in nineteen ninety one,
and he says, look, Duke, you gotta help me out.
(33:59):
And so the Duke of Normandy is able to help
fend off Vikings, and then later ethel Red also does
the bribery move. He buys off renewed attacks from the
Danes with a tax called the Dane Guild the Dane Gold.
So imagine, like there's something like, imagine if what's a
(34:21):
fun country to invade the US? Imagine if Jamaica all
of a sudden has this amazing army and there.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I'm here for that and I would love to be
taken over by the Jamaica.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
And they're and they're invading the US. And then sure,
the President puts out a tax so you have to
add X percentage to everything you buy and it's called
you know, like uh, the Rost attacks. Okay, the Iri tax.
There we go.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Yeah, yeah, I love it. Now either one will workshop it.
I love this this this fictional scenario, though, Ben, I
don't know why. It just tickles me.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
It seems pretty cool, right, But yeah, it's not cool
for ethel Red by ten Or, as Max refers to
him as, and numerous flippy dips on his nickname.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
We've got ethyl sauce ethyl fart for some reason. Yeah,
just Ethyl unready, Yeah, Ethyl not ready. I believe this
is how he puts Ethyl no ready. I just love
how you keep us on our Toastmax. Good job, so
good show.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
So look, by ten twelve, forty eight thousand pounds of
silver have been paid via this tax to Danes that
are camped in London. The whole country is just foo bar.
It's an absolute mess.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, the country becomes ravaged and Ethyl Red's efforts to
you know, hopefully secure peace through currency not a good
move because then he just realized the invaders realized that, Okay,
this is a weak individual here trying to pay us off.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
We don't need you to pay us. We're just gonna
take it right. That's our whole thing. Do you not
know about the Vikings? You will? Were you not prepared? Anyway?
They're not just invading and doing hit and runs at
this point or b and ease. They start settling down,
putting down roots and towns, and ethel Red launch as
(36:18):
a massacre of these Danish settlers. Sorry, I'm afraid of them.
As the Vikings. I meant the Danes. The Danes could
be blood thirsty. Two who's to say, yeah, blood's for
everybody if you're thirsty enough. So by the end of
ten thirteen, the Danish king at the time swhen one
had been accepted as the king in England and ethel
Red has to scdaddle off to Normandy. Ethel Fled Ethyl
(36:43):
nice good button. Right.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
So with this we've got a deposed king hiding out
in France on the lamb. But it is not the
end of ethyl Fled's story. So what happened to seven?
I'm gonna go with Sven the First or his much
better names seven for just very Viking sounding. He wasn't
long for this world. Svend or Svend Seveskaide, which was
(37:10):
his native name. It had been around for a bit,
becoming king of Denmark in nineteen eighty seven. He took
control of Norway as well in one thousand in a
year one thousand, before becoming King of England in ten thirteen,
and then he passed away the next year in ten fourteen.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
So now there is a power vacuum. This opens an
enormous opportunity for Ethelred. Ethelred's counsel of advisors invite him
to return to the throne after the death of fork Beard,
and they say, well, let you do this asterisk so
long as you agree to satisfy our grievances. So I
(37:49):
have to kind of pay us off to Ethelred spoiler dies.
He doesn't last too long after this. He passes away
in ten sixteen, but he is legacy is secure. The
line of Saxon rulers has been restored to the throne,
and this is where his son, Edmund the second Ironside
(38:11):
much cooler name side note, Uh yeah, he Ironside is
not really his father's son in terms of behavior. He's
excellent at defending England from Forkbeard's son, who, in a
weird way that we won't get into, is also kind
of co king of England anyway, Unfortunately for Ironside, we're
(38:32):
just gonna throw that one over there. Unfortunately for Ironside,
someone shot him in the ass with a crossbow and
he died with a bolt from the crossbow. Sorry, if
they didn't throw a whole crossbow out him, Yeah, that
would have been like adding insultsanderin. Yeah, and if you.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Want to learn more, check out the Ridiculous or Death
episode where we talk about Edmund Ironside and also the
debate of whether it was a crossbow or a dagger
and if they left the dagger.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
In oh right, yeah yeah, but it was definitely as
but we do you know that part.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
It appears that someone went into the chamber underneath, crawl
through all the poop and shot.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yes, yep, yep, And do check out an episode for
kind of what happens and gain in the Song of
Ice and Fire, similar to uh, what's his name? Uh
till ty Taiwan lanister, he gets shot with a crossbow
in the privy.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yes, crossbow and the privy. It's it's like a clue
situation exactly. So let's just talk a little bit about
this nickname that we tease so often we should the market.
Yeah all right, So Ethel read the unready. It gets
a lot of guff from us here, ridiculous history because
(39:46):
of what the word unready means in twenty twenty five,
back when he got the name, it didn't mean exactly
the same thing unread meant no council or that he
was stupid.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Okay, so even worse frankly than being unprepared really going
after his intelligence there.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah, So maybe on on a more optimistic or empathetic note,
maybe Ethel read the unready meant more that he didn't
have a lot of people on his side, you know
what I mean. Seems so yeah, but it could also
just meant that he was dumb as a bag of
door nubs.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
And actually, if you go a little deeper, the nickname
may well have been a kind of cruel twist on
the meaning of his actual name ethel Read, which it
translates to noble council.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Noble council, no council. Yes, a swiper, no swiping. Yeah,
it's good wordplay both ways. We are going to pause.
We're gonna go have some adventures here in our fine
metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia. Coffee Yeah, a coffee to coffee
time indeed ed. We'll be back later this week to
(40:58):
figure out why the US doesn't really mess with the
metric system. Yeah, if I'm not mistaken too. We also
have some fun little bits that.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
We're leaving out that we're gonna add to our upcoming
bits and Bob's kind of compilation episode with stuff that
we didn't get.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
To from various topics.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
We've got a pretty cool doc that Max has been
assembling of some of these little odds and ends, So I'm.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Really looking forward to doing that. Yeah, big, big thanks
to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Big thanks to
our research associate for this episode, Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Indeed huge thanks to Christopher Hasiotis and he was Jeff
Coates both here in spirit the Rude Dudes over at
Ridiculous Crime, and Alex Williams who composed this biggoty banging
bob a.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
J Bahamas Jacobs. Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist. Word on
the street is that he may return to the show again,
just like Napoleon coming back from Elba. I refuse to
believe it. Okay, I believe it's true. We'll see you
next dop books.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it for our super producer,
mister Max Williams. Rah, did I do it this time? Right?
Benh you're nailing an Oh? Rah ras al Uh? What
was the thingan? Yes? Yes? Check check out stuffer sorry,
(00:56):
check out hook and stuff. They will want, you know,
for more on the infamous Rufio. We're gonna give Max
an honorific for today's episode. You're an old brown I've
been bullying' Yes, what if we call what if we
call Max the ready?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Williams, Oh, he's always ready, He's he is uh Johnny
on the spot as they say yes.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
For some reason, I instantly wanted to reply Spotty on
the jog, But that.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Feels like why wouldn't you. That's what the mind does.
It seeks patterns and then jumbles them up.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I don't want to say what that made me think
of everybody, which is one of the nicknames we gave
my friend Greg once when he tried to give himself
a nickname.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh yeah, I remember, legendary Gregg guys, have you ever
heard of a porta potty brand called honey bucket?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I have not, and it is that name despicable. Can
I just say I think it's just awful. Honey bucket
sounds like a bad name for anything, including a literal
bucket of honey.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Absolutely, don't want it, don't need it, don't want it around.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I'm not gonna say I'll say this off air, y'all,
but I do not have to censor out, so I'm
not gonna say it.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah, I'm just now I'm picturing honeybucket as one of
those one of those weirdly idiosyncratic Southern nicknames that someone
will just drop in conversation, maybe at a diner, and
you don't know how to react, like, Okay, what can
I get you? Honeybucket? Yeah, somebody sugar and a word.
(02:29):
And with this, as you can tell, folks, we are
super into nicknames and wordplay. This is part of our
continuing series on something called honorifics Noel. As you and
I discovered previously, honorific is just the fancy version of
(02:54):
a nickname often assigned to historical figures, to royals, and
sometimes without their consent. Coside or agreement.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Typically, that's the way proper honorifics work. To Max's point
about his friend Greg giving himself a nickname and that
backfiring dreadfully.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Like that old I love that legendary Saturday Night Live
sketch about Sting giving himself the nickname Sting and everyone's going, okay, Gordon, Gordon.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
This is also reflected in Dana Carvey's Seminal nineteen ninety
stand up special, where he does that whole bit and
I didn't actually realize that it was originally part of
a sketch, and that a lot of the bits he
does in that that the first time I was hearing them,
like Choppin' Brocoli.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And all that that was from his days on S
and M. And speaking of spectacular comedy of yesteryear, let's
get into some more terrible hoterrifics. Maybe we start with
Charles two, Charles the Second.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
That's right, the King ruler of France and the Holy
Roman Emperor. When talking about kings and emperors, Charles the
Second was actually both of them. Britannica puts it thusly.
Charles the Second born June thirteenth, eight twenty three died
October sixth eight to seventy seven Bridess Lebon, France. Doing
(04:17):
my best there, hopefully casey pegrim is prout. He was
the King of France known as Francia Occidentales the West
Frankish Kingdom. He served from eighteen forty three to eighteen
seventy seven, and was also the Western Emperor from eight
seventy five to eight seventy seven. And you know, if
(04:38):
that wasn't complex enough, history has reckoned him as Charles
the Second, both of the Holy Roman Empire and also
of France.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
All right, so be informed, folks. It may sound to
a casual reader that there are two different Charles the Second.
In this case it's the same guy. He's just pulling
double duty in the great gig economy of monarchy. He
is the son of Emperor Louis first, the Pious, who
(05:09):
is also and he's the grandson. Do you think he
was Do you think he was that pious? He probably
had a good thing going with the church, fair enough,
they liked him.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
That's a good example of an honorific bestowed on someone
who has a lot of political cachet, right, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, And Charles the Second is also the grandson of Charlemagne,
who is just a fascinating character. Charles the Great another
very flattering, honorific. Yes, like our coworker, Charlemagne the God.
He is technically our coworker, that is true. Ben He
and his second wife, Judith, that's Louis's second wife, not Charlemage.
(05:45):
The gods got it, yes, exactly. So Charles was the
unwitting cause of violence. In eight twenty nine, he was
granted lands by his father and this essentially led to
a the Cavalca, the Domino effect series of internal civil wars.
And by internal I mean within the family. Yeah, very
(06:09):
secession style, right, that's right. So so Charlie gets a
bunch of land, how does that lead to civil war?
We have to remember what we what we just mentioned
there there was a first wife, you know, and Louie
had three sons with this previous spouse. And these three guys, understandably,
(06:31):
they don't like that their younger half brother is getting
all this real estate. Those three guys are low there.
The first Louis two electric Boogaloo and Pippin one. Pippin
what is it? What's that song from Pippin?
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Do you know Pippin?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
The musical was written by the same guy that real Wicked,
and when you listen to the music, you can really tell.
I don't know if you guys are musical theater people,
but I think he's got a song. It's called My
Place in the Sky or something. It's very jubilant and
very Wicked esque. But Pippen, yes, the first. Don't think
it has anything to do nothing. It has to do
with Pippin one. I I like saying Pippin one as well.
(07:09):
It really rolls off the tongue or pops off the lips, so,
you know, playing favorites, I suppose is maybe the issue
at hand here. Dad gifts Charlie boy a bunch of
tracts of very valuable land and it causes some resentment,
sure from the aforementioned Lothair one, Louis two, and Pippin one.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yes, and our research associate for today's episode, Max Williams,
speculates that perhaps the brothers three were resentful because Charles
had a better name than them, and loth are Louis
Pippen those are yeah, they're esoteric, right, So this civil
war over this real estate and other resentments goes from
(07:54):
eight twenty nine all the way up to eight thirty eight,
and this is when one dies, unfortunately for Pip and one.
After the death of the Patter familias Louis the First
in eighteen forty, the civil war kicks back into gear
and it continues until Louis the Second, whose street name
(08:17):
is Louis the German, joins forces with Charles and they
banned up against Lothar, and they do this through something
called the Treaty of Verdoon in eight forty three. And
the Treaty of verdon is kind of bringing order to
the chaos, getting everybody on the same page. You know, look,
(08:38):
we're all still one percenters. Can't we all just get along?
So they allocate out all the lands they control to
these three living brothers in pursuit of peace. However, as
any ruler can assure you, peace does not always automatically
mean things are simple, So being contrary right right peace
(09:02):
can be complicated. So for Charles ruling post verdon Is
is kind of tricky for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
And really quickly off air, we had a funny little
stumble wherein I accidentally played through my speakers a vintage
SNL clip called Lothar of the Hill People When I
hear the name Lothar in this in this story, I
think of like it should be followed up with like
the Terrible or the Barbarian or something. And then it
turns out Mike Myers played Lothar of the hill people
(09:33):
on an old s n ol spelt differently, but it
is Lothar, not low Fair. But it's still the mind
once with the mind wants.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Mike Myers, famously known for basing all of his sketches
on this Civil War Indian Ye, yeah, don't fatch I
is there? No? No, no, I mean think about think
about Wayne's world, really think about it.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well, well, now we've got Mike Myers and Jana Carvey
entering the chat properly. So I think that was an
important assign. So when Lothar's albus son, who is the
Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis the second he
passed away in eight to seventy five, Charles took a
little sojourn over to Italy and where he was crowned
emperor on December twenty fifth by the Pope John the eighth.
(10:15):
So this is how he managed to become both the
King of France and the Holy Roman emperor, So you know,
no slouch kind of doing double duty there, at least
title wise.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yes, and Max has a great Skyrim reference here. I
don't want us to lose, honey. Yeah, Charles was right,
like you were saying. Old Charles is in a precarious
position because he asked to question the loyalty of his vassals,
the minor nobles. They're supposed to be on his team.
(10:46):
His real estate is getting raided by these groups of Northerners,
and he essentially is reduced to bribing them off, not
conquering them, but paying them to go away. He gets
defeated by the Bretons quote presumably using their partially Elvin
blood for superior magic abilities. Max, I knew it was
(11:08):
important to you that we put that in there.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, the durani Elves and the
needs created the Bretons m Olivia. Olivia wasn't not when
this game got ridden.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Okay wait wait wait wait Max with facts Yeah, oh
(11:45):
of course, in fact fact to Jason, so as you yes,
facted Jason fictional facts. So uh so, like you were saying,
there is this fascinating situation where Charles becomes both the
Holy Broken Emperor co signed by Pope John and the
King of France at the same time. In eighteen seventy six,
(12:07):
after the death of Louis the Second, Louis the German,
Charles invades his half brother's land and then he gets
defeated by Louis the German's son, who is Louis three
and his moniker, his autorific Louis three the Younger, which
reminds me, you know, this is very creative. Can I
say this for all our aspiring MC's in the crowd
(12:31):
this evening. I'm hoping there are a lot of us.
Please please please get in front of it with your
street name. Be very careful about calling yourself young something
or liull something, because if your career is successful, do
you really want to be in your mid fifties and
still going by like young mikey aod.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It's a good point, I will say this. Sometimes these
nicknames can evolve, or by the very nature of one's
own success, you can kind of toss him off. Stevie
Wonder for a long time early in his career, was
known as Little Stevie Wonder because he was a child prodigy.
But then he did not continue going by little Stevie.
Wonder when he reached adolescents and adulthood.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, yeah, So word to the wise folks, we're let
us help you set yourself up for success. Help us
help you. So there's Now, we've told you a lot
of autorifics here, and we've talked a lot about our
buddy Charles, but we haven't given anyone his honorific yet.
We're gonna give you the headline and then we're going
(13:37):
to tell you why he got that nickname. Play along
at home. Can you guess why his honorific is Charles
the Bald? He was frollically challenged. Yes, yes, he was
part of the much maligned and underappreciated class of bald people.
He was cranium enhanced.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Hey see, that's how Larry David would be proud er
well put.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
To understand the full context here, let's go to Aaron
Kelly writing for all that's interesting. Aaron puts it thustly.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Charles was the King of West Francia, the King of Italy,
and Holy Roman Emperor from eight seventy five to seventy seven.
As you mentioned as Charles the Second, a grandson of
Charlotte Magne, he actually wasn't bald.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Dang it.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
It's an ironic epathetic because he was actually quite harry. Oh,
it's like little John in the Robin Hood canon. Okay, well,
you know we made an honest mistake, y'all.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Well we got tricked, as did the rest of history.
It's a very Iceland to Greenland thing. Still, though, even
with very important historical figures, just the sheer amount of
time between eight hundred something in twenty twenty five means
that a lot of the true story has been lost
to history, and it can be difficult to suss out
(14:59):
what is, you know, their equivalent of Internet trolling versus
what is factual improven kind of like the debate over
Napoleon's height, which turned out to be propaganda, there's no
isn't there something about his penis as well? Napoleon's piedus?
I thought there was. I haven't really thought about Napoleon's penis. Yep,
(15:20):
that's right, there was a Sorry.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
The headline from two thousand and eight at NPRPS the
Twisted Journey of Napoleon's Privates. Looking to that yourself, I'm
almost positive we've talked about this in some form or fashion.
But there is a story behind the provenance and ownership
of Napoleon's junk.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
People love relics, people love relics, and the weirder, the better,
says history. So if you want to learn more about Charles,
do check out Charles the Bald, The Story of the Epithet.
It's a thesis written by Margaret Audrey Anderson over at Caltech.
That's a pretty good one. That's a pretty tame one.
(16:08):
Let's go to another honorific. It's weird to call these honorifics,
but let's go to another honorific with Louis the eighteenth
And a big, big thanks to our pal Max for
replacing the Roman numerals with modern numbers and.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Really quickly, just to sum up a quick off MI
a side that I had. I was just curious, like
is honorific like a portmanteau of like honor and terrific
or something.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
No.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
In fact, it actually has a Latin origin, meaning that
which does honor. It comes from honorific cuss. So in
case anyone was wondering, thought we'd go ahead and get
that out of the way. But yes, let us do
roll through with Louis the eighteenth, the King of France,
and Navarre.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, so we're still in France. We're almost a thousand
years in the future flying cars, yet they have some
revolutionary ideas. Cookie okay for sure for a nice little
thematic bookend. Yes, this guy's name is also Louis. There
(17:16):
are eighteen kings in French history who have the name Louis.
They were just super into it. A lot of them
had very famous names. We probably all have heard of
Louis the fourteenth ak the Son King. We mentioned him
in our conversation about ridiculous clothing with aj Bahamas Jacobs.
(17:37):
A lot of other people named Louis who had their
own honorifics to differentiate them. And if we're positing why
these guys keep having the same name, it's likely a
move to generate credibility to the throne, right like I'm
you know, I'm definitely just like the other king. You like,
(18:00):
I've got the same name. We do want to give
a shout out to, of course, Louis the fifth, the
do Nothing. That's a heck of a street dame.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
No.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, rough day for Louis, rough rain for Louis.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
We're going to get to another sort of diss in
terms of laziness horrific coming up in a little bit.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, So, okay, Louis the eighteenth, the subject of our
examination here. He didn't have the best time because he
happened to be king when this other dude with a
penis that will be famous in the future, a guy
named Napoleon, was hanging out.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, apparently it became like this, the consistency of beef jerky,
because they didn't put it in for al day, and
it like toured around the globe like under glass, the
whole thing. Sorry, I don't know why I'm hung up
on this, but you brought it back.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Up again then.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
So Louis the eighteenth says Britannica was born November seventeen
seventy and fifty five in Versailles and the past on
September sixteenth, eighteen twenty four, and Perry he was the
King of France by title only in seventeen ninety five
and in actual facts, to quote Lauren Vogelbaum's genius catchphrase,
from eighteen fourteen to eighteen twenty four, We're gonna get
(19:15):
more into the whole by title period of this reign
in a little bit. But Meritanica goes on Louis was
the fourth son of the Dauphin, which you might have
seen in like I believe, the Dauphin comes up in
the Three Musketeers, which means the eldest heir to the king,
Louis the son of that's right, exactly, the special best boy.
(19:38):
So that was Louis, the son of Louis the fifteenth.
By the way, we're gonna get into some confusing naming
conventions here because everyone here, as you mentioned Ben as
an indicator of you know, prominence or whatever, to remind
the people that Louise are the best, they were the
good ones. They're all named Louis. So we're going to
(19:58):
talk in numbers, so I myself will likely get continue
to confuse and Ben, thank you for going through and
changing all the minerals.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Two actual numbers. I really appreciate. That's Max's.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Oh well, thank you for Max. Then I'm not insulted
at all, but I know I truly am not.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
And we eat it because it can be like reading
one hundred Years of Solitude if you remember that book,
most famous for well, it's great work of magical realism,
but also a ton of people have the same name
or very similar names so well.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
And let's be real, once you get into higher digits
of Roman numerals, unless you're really up to snuff on it,
it can be confusing for even the best of us.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Of course, yeah, so at times we may refer to
these guys as just eighteen and sixteen to save us
all the heartbreak. Louis eighteen the eighteenth is given the
title it provolts but it sounds like a cheese, it does,
and it does sound good. After two of he gets this,
(21:00):
and then two of his older brothers pass away, his
eldest brother Louis the sixteenth, so they're brothers that are
both named Louis. Louis the sixteenth becomes king, Louis eighteen
gets the title of air Presumptive. Louis sixteen has two kids,
so the king has two kids, and that means Louis
(21:23):
eighteen is going to have a much more difficult time
becoming the king because you know, the two direct children
will get the throne first. So the revolution happens. French
Revolution seventeen eighty nine was a wild time. You may
have heard about it, and Louis the eighteenth stays in Paris,
(21:43):
hopefully to exploit the situation. He's thinking, maybe there is
opportunity in this chaos, Maybe I can ascend to the
throne once this unpleasantness dies down. It did not die down.
It's super not die down. And so Louis had to
flee the country. He skips town. In June of seventeen
(22:05):
ninety one.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Little known detail, the French Revolution was often referred to
as the Great Unpleasantness.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Right the age of the Guillotine, Louis the eighteenth publishes
all these anti revolutionary manifestos. He gets a bunch of
like expat associations together and they go around kind of
door to door, castle to castle, asking other monarchs in
(22:34):
different countries to help them in the fight against this
dirty peasant uprising. Of course, Louis the sixteenth and Marie
Antoinette are still, you know, held captive by the revolutionaries.
They're executed in seventeen ninety three. Louis eighteen, here's about this,
(22:55):
and he says, well, you know, my nephew is young.
Louis is young, and I know he's the Dauphine, but
I am going to be his regent. So right now,
what we would say is that Louis eighteen is given
big scar energy, you know, yeah, yeah, exactly, long live
the king.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Indeed, so Louis seventeen would eventually pass away in seventeen
ninety five and his uncle would declare himself King Louis eighteen.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, we had a.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Little more to get through, the more Louis in fact,
so there's a huge problem to you. Oh yeah, said
on that too with Chris frasciotis here in spirit. Yeah,
check that one out from the early days of ridiculous history.
So there's a huge problem with Louis the eighteenth plan
of like, you know, declaring himself king. At this time
that wasn't a thing. There was not a king of France,
(23:43):
hence the by title note that we mentioned above. So
between seventeen ninety five and eighteen fourteen, Louis kind of
wandered the earth like Cain from Kung Fu, at least,
you know, in Europe. He went journeyed between Russia, England
and Russia, promoting this notion of royalism, and this whole
(24:05):
goal seemed to lose even more steam after Napoleon declared
himself emperor in eighteen o four.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
LOUI, Yeah, and so this is this is weird because
Napoleon actually tries to broker a deal with Louis the eighteenth,
and he says, look, if you abdicate your title and
you admit that I Napoleon am the Emperor, will set
you up for life, will give you a pension. You
won't have to worry about anything. And Louis says, heck, no,
(24:37):
man all. And so Napoleon runs into, you know, his
own series of defeats. He takes epic victories and absolute defeats,
right right. So it's eighteen thirteen, and this is where
Louis the eighteenth issues another manifesto and he says, you know, look, peasants,
(25:00):
I will recognize some stuff from the French Revolution as
long as we restore my monarchy. This is crazy, right,
So Allied armies enter Paris. It's March of eighteen fourteen,
and there's this brilliant diplomat who often, yes, she often
(25:22):
gets forgotten, but he's really good at me. Can you
get forgotten with a name like Tali rad No? And
so he no eighteen and sixteen for that guy, he's
just tally Rand. So he's able to negotiate this restoration
such that on May third of that same year, eighteen fourteen,
(25:42):
Louis is considered again the king, and that's why he
was king in title for a while, but now he's
king in fact.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
So on May the second, Louis eighteen officially declared or
at least promised, a constitutional monarchy. He wasn't going to
be a iron fisted despot, you know, with the totalitarian regime.
He promised a parliament's a a two party parliament, religious tolerance,
(26:17):
rights for all citizens guaranteed, a constitution. This is when
the shot constitutional now was adopted on June fourth of
eighteen fourteen. This was another you know, I mean, hell,
we always refer to our democracy here in the United
States as being a bit of an experiment, so this
(26:38):
certainly was that.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Oh yeah yeah. And things seemed set to reach a
somewhat peaceful conclusion until what's like, anyo moretone music here?
Perfect until there's another returning character, a man who is
(27:05):
unmess withable because we're family. Show Napoleon right, and he
returns from Elba, and this cuts Louise's constitutional experiments short.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
No pun intended, because he in fact was of average height.
After Marshall michel Ney defected to Napoleon on March the
seventeenth of eighteen fifteen, our king fled to Ghent, and
he did not have his return of the King, if
we're being Lord of the ringsy about it until July
(27:39):
the eighth, after a bit of a famous battle known
as Waterloo, also a really nice sunset depicted in a
lovely song by The Kinks.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, and after this, Louis serves as king until he
passes away on September sixteenth, eighteen twenty four. The autorifics
left in his wake are the following You're gonna see
two Okay, you're gonna see him called Louis eight, Louis
the Desired, or Louis Ahead the smoke Show right, sexy
(28:13):
beast right right. They originally went with Louis the Bembo,
but them there it is. But he has a little
bit more heavy metal one that I think we all prefer,
which is Louis the eighteenth, the Unavoidable.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Oh man, he just really insists on himself, doesn't He's
just there because he just turn around.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Would stop, He wouldn't stop saying he was king until
eventually everybody just agreed with him.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
You know, that is a way of doing things. It's
not a cool way of doing things. But no little
thing we see a little bit around these parts and
in the United States. It's just the idea if you
repeat something enough times and people just kind of get fatigued,
then it just sort of roll over.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Outs to jump in here real quick.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
The article from a Saint Neo's Museum, which is a
museum over in England. I look at the photo that
they use of louis the unavoidable. It just it's the epitome.
Just go into the article and click into it. I'm
just like, tell me when you have it up.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Got it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Are here? Uh you're talking about your talking?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, he is just like, hi guy, he looks he
looks like a wear turtle. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Man,
when the full moon waxes, he transforms in the night
into a turtle. Remember those yard hermits. Yes, yeah, it's
like one of those. I mean, not trying to be
(29:46):
a big, big yard hermit vibes.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
But when you when you research royals, you can tell
when like the change happened from like painting completely to like,
you know, trying to be more realistic or you get
photos because like a good example of this was in
our spiritual prequel to this series, Ridiculous World Deaths Part one,
when we talked about the Swedish king who ate himself
(30:09):
to death. Every single painting of him, he's just like
the super tall in shape guys and fit. Yeah, in
every writing about him said that was nothing like him.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I love that stuff. I love That's one of my
favorite things about researching royalty and older historical figures. I
like to read a lot about them before I ever
see a visual depiction because that there's an unending opportunity
for hilarity there. And shout out to all all the artists,
(30:43):
the portraitus and so on who had to make these
royal depictions. We don't blame you. We know that you
would have been murdered if you put it, you know,
if you were a little too accurate in your renditions.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, I mean to be political at all, but like
you don't remember what happened just recently with Donald Trump,
the President of the United States, where he had like
and what he believed to be an unflattering portrait removed. Well,
you know, I mean like back in those these days,
that kind of attitude might have led to the artist
to your point, Ben being you know, executed summarily.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah, they had to be ready, which brings us to
something for all read.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
For so long, we've talked about ethel Read before and
this is very familiar.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yes, and we mentioned him often. I think we talked
with Jack and Miles about him as well. He comes
up as a as a side note whenever we talk
about autorifics in general, just because this poor schmuck has
one of the most hilarious and insulting autorifics in history,
(32:00):
ethel Read the unready. We're not saying he's bad. We're
not saying he's terrible. We're not saying he's you know,
beat me Max, We're saying he's an asshole. We're just
saying he's not prepared. It's bit of a slouch. Yeah, yeah,
to your earlier boint. Ethel Read is part of the
Saxon dynasty that rules rules England from the ninth to
(32:21):
the eleventh century.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
According to the Royal Family website, ethel Read the second,
the younger son of Edgar, became king at the age
of seven following the murder most foul of his half
brother Edward the Second in nine seventy eight at Corfe Castle.
Dorset by ethel Red's retainers.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Whatever is it? Like? What is posse? What are his retainers? Yeah? Yeah,
like his people is okay? Got it? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
For the rest of ethel Red's rule reigned nine seventy
eight to ten sixteen, his brother became a posthumous rallying
point for political unrest. A hostile church transformed Edward into
a royal martyr.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Which means that now Ethelred is forced to go against
the church. Supporting Ethelred means you may be in opposition
to God as the way the public understands it. So
it makes it really tough for Ethelred to keep his retainers,
to have the allegiance of even the civilian population. And
(33:21):
while all this is happening, the Vikings are also trying
to take England for themselves. Yeah, you wolf at the door.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
You know they are coming for the English people's lands
and all that they hold dear.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
And Ethelred is a lot of things. He's not ready
and he's not a fighter, however, so he so he
attempts to kind of stem the chaos by making political
alliances in nine ninety one and almost in nineteen ninety one,
and he says, look, Duke, you gotta help me out.
(33:59):
And so the Duke of Normandy is able to help
fend off Vikings, and then later ethel Red also does
the bribery move. He buys off renewed attacks from the
Danes with a tax called the Dane Guild the Dane Gold.
So imagine, like there's something like, imagine if what's a
(34:21):
fun country to invade the US? Imagine if Jamaica all
of a sudden has this amazing army and there.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
I'm here for that and I would love to be
taken over by the Jamaica.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
And they're and they're invading the US. And then sure,
the President puts out a tax so you have to
add X percentage to everything you buy and it's called
you know, like uh, the Rost attacks. Okay, the Iri tax.
There we go.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Yeah, yeah, I love it. Now either one will workshop it.
I love this this this fictional scenario, though, Ben, I
don't know why. It just tickles me.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
It seems pretty cool, right, But yeah, it's not cool
for ethel Red by ten Or, as Max refers to
him as, and numerous flippy dips on his nickname.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
We've got ethyl sauce ethyl fart for some reason. Yeah,
just Ethyl unready, Yeah, Ethyl not ready. I believe this
is how he puts Ethyl no ready. I just love
how you keep us on our Toastmax. Good job, so
good show.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
So look, by ten twelve, forty eight thousand pounds of
silver have been paid via this tax to Danes that
are camped in London. The whole country is just foo bar.
It's an absolute mess.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, the country becomes ravaged and Ethyl Red's efforts to
you know, hopefully secure peace through currency not a good
move because then he just realized the invaders realized that, Okay,
this is a weak individual here trying to pay us off.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
We don't need you to pay us. We're just gonna
take it right. That's our whole thing. Do you not
know about the Vikings? You will? Were you not prepared? Anyway?
They're not just invading and doing hit and runs at
this point or b and ease. They start settling down,
putting down roots and towns, and ethel Red launch as
(36:18):
a massacre of these Danish settlers. Sorry, I'm afraid of them.
As the Vikings. I meant the Danes. The Danes could
be blood thirsty. Two who's to say, yeah, blood's for
everybody if you're thirsty enough. So by the end of
ten thirteen, the Danish king at the time swhen one
had been accepted as the king in England and ethel
Red has to scdaddle off to Normandy. Ethel Fled Ethyl
(36:43):
nice good button. Right.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
So with this we've got a deposed king hiding out
in France on the lamb. But it is not the
end of ethyl Fled's story. So what happened to seven?
I'm gonna go with Sven the First or his much
better names seven for just very Viking sounding. He wasn't
long for this world. Svend or Svend Seveskaide, which was
(37:10):
his native name. It had been around for a bit,
becoming king of Denmark in nineteen eighty seven. He took
control of Norway as well in one thousand in a
year one thousand, before becoming King of England in ten thirteen,
and then he passed away the next year in ten fourteen.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
So now there is a power vacuum. This opens an
enormous opportunity for Ethelred. Ethelred's counsel of advisors invite him
to return to the throne after the death of fork Beard,
and they say, well, let you do this asterisk so
long as you agree to satisfy our grievances. So I
(37:49):
have to kind of pay us off to Ethelred spoiler dies.
He doesn't last too long after this. He passes away
in ten sixteen, but he is legacy is secure. The
line of Saxon rulers has been restored to the throne,
and this is where his son, Edmund the second Ironside
(38:11):
much cooler name side note, Uh yeah, he Ironside is
not really his father's son in terms of behavior. He's
excellent at defending England from Forkbeard's son, who, in a
weird way that we won't get into, is also kind
of co king of England anyway, Unfortunately for Ironside, we're
(38:32):
just gonna throw that one over there. Unfortunately for Ironside,
someone shot him in the ass with a crossbow and
he died with a bolt from the crossbow. Sorry, if
they didn't throw a whole crossbow out him, Yeah, that
would have been like adding insultsanderin. Yeah, and if you.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Want to learn more, check out the Ridiculous or Death
episode where we talk about Edmund Ironside and also the
debate of whether it was a crossbow or a dagger
and if they left the dagger.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
In oh right, yeah yeah, but it was definitely as
but we do you know that part.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
It appears that someone went into the chamber underneath, crawl
through all the poop and shot.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yes, yep, yep, And do check out an episode for
kind of what happens and gain in the Song of
Ice and Fire, similar to uh, what's his name? Uh
till ty Taiwan lanister, he gets shot with a crossbow
in the privy.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yes, crossbow and the privy. It's it's like a clue
situation exactly. So let's just talk a little bit about
this nickname that we tease so often we should the market.
Yeah all right, So Ethel read the unready. It gets
a lot of guff from us here, ridiculous history because
(39:46):
of what the word unready means in twenty twenty five,
back when he got the name, it didn't mean exactly
the same thing unread meant no council or that he
was stupid.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Okay, so even worse frankly than being unprepared really going
after his intelligence there.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah, So maybe on on a more optimistic or empathetic note,
maybe Ethel read the unready meant more that he didn't
have a lot of people on his side, you know
what I mean. Seems so yeah, but it could also
just meant that he was dumb as a bag of
door nubs.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
And actually, if you go a little deeper, the nickname
may well have been a kind of cruel twist on
the meaning of his actual name ethel Read, which it
translates to noble council.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Noble council, no council. Yes, a swiper, no swiping. Yeah,
it's good wordplay both ways. We are going to pause.
We're gonna go have some adventures here in our fine
metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia. Coffee Yeah, a coffee to coffee
time indeed ed. We'll be back later this week to
(40:58):
figure out why the US doesn't really mess with the
metric system. Yeah, if I'm not mistaken too. We also
have some fun little bits that.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
We're leaving out that we're gonna add to our upcoming
bits and Bob's kind of compilation episode with stuff that
we didn't get.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
To from various topics.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
We've got a pretty cool doc that Max has been
assembling of some of these little odds and ends, So I'm.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Really looking forward to doing that. Yeah, big, big thanks
to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Big thanks to
our research associate for this episode, Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Indeed huge thanks to Christopher Hasiotis and he was Jeff
Coates both here in spirit the Rude Dudes over at
Ridiculous Crime, and Alex Williams who composed this biggoty banging
bob a.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
J Bahamas Jacobs. Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist. Word on
the street is that he may return to the show again,
just like Napoleon coming back from Elba. I refuse to
believe it. Okay, I believe it's true. We'll see you
next dop books.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
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