Spell It: Meet monarchs that were known for their bizarre habits

Just a peek at a history book, and it’s evident that monarchies have ruled around the world for centuries. While their conquests and reigns have been documented extensively, many of their oddities are not as commonly known.

Click start to play today’s Spell It, where we take a closer look at oddball ‘kings’ and queens of the past.

Here are a few monarchs with bizarre habits and inclinations that you may not have known about:

1. Tsar Peter III

Catherine the Great’s husband, Tsar Peter III of Russia, was a far cry from the famous empress. He was reportedly a child trapped in a man’s body, and had an unhealthy obsession with his toy soldiers. According to one of Catherine’s memoirs, when a rat bit off the head of one of the Tsar’s soldiers, he held a proper military court martial for it, before hanging the rat from tiny gallows ‘for treason’.

2. King Charles VI

Nicknamed ‘Charles the Mad’, King Charles VI displayed paranoid and delusional behaviour even before his reign. He experienced periods where he became convinced his body was made from glass and that he could shatter into thousands of pieces at any moment. Historians later theorised that the king may have suffered from schizophrenia.

3. Qin Shihuang

The founder of the Qin dynasty is considered to be the first emperor of China. But even he was not free of delusional behaviour. The emperor believed in an old myth that there existed three ‘spirit mountains’ in the sea, which were inhabited by immortals. He would send search parties in pursuit of exotic herbs that would grant him immortality, and then drink them as elixirs. Ironically, the elixirs often had traces of mercury in them, which historians think may have led to his early demise.

4. Queen Juana I

Queen Juana of Castile, Spain, was always troubled by her husband, King Philip’s infidelity. But when he passed in 1506, at the young age of 28, her fragile mental state seemed to have fractured even further. She kissed her husband’s corpse and remained with it until it was embalmed and interred in a monastery. Unable to bear being away from him, she had the coffin opened again, and took his body and coffin to Torquemada, with the protection of armed guards who were ordered not to allow any women near it. The corpse remained with her till her imprisonment in 1509.

What do you think of these bizarre moments from history? Play today’s Spell It and tell us at games@gulfnews.com.