10 History Characters Who Went “Mad” Because of Power

Imagine being so powerful that no one dares to deny you anything, other than having a bunch of servants at your disposal to carry out even your most absurd orders. In these circumstances, it stands to reason that power will go to their heads. And that is precisely what happened to some characters of ancient royalty. For them, sitting on the throne was the beginning of the end of wisdom. At that time, it was a matter of luck to stay alive if you dared to question them.

They say that power can make us crazy and the awesome.club wants to talk about 10 historical characters that demonstrate how true this statement is.

Historians generally do not refer to him as “mad”, but rather as eccentric and cruel. He ascended the throne after Claudius, his uncle, died. To maintain his position, he murdered his half-brother and soon took it upon himself to eliminate 2 of his wives. He also devised how to murder his mother and carried out the bloody plan without guilt.

Unlike his predecessors who won the sympathy of the people for their military exploits, Nero was fond of art. He forced his senators to sit for hours just enjoying while he recited poems. He even set up a few poem contests, just to feel the satisfaction of winning them.

Common sense realizes that, while Rome was burning, Nero began to sing and play the lyre. Even if this is not entirely certain, the fact is that he built a golden house over the ruins of the city, which made a bad impression among his subjects.

He inherited the throne when he was very young, during the long conflict that France had with England in the so-called “Hundred Years’ War”. Carlos rose to power at the age of 20, and he appeared to be an easygoing young man.

But in 1392, during a period in the forest, something affected his mind. He returned to the palace with several fewer servants, whom he himself had savagely murdered. After that, his behavior went from bad to worse. He ran madly through the palace without recognizing his name or his position, howling like a wolf.

Sometimes he said it was St. George, and other times he said it was made of glass, so he was terrified of breaking. The people felt great relief when they finally died in 1422, for through their madness France lost the war against England.

The pressures that princes were subjected to inside the palaces were so heavy that it was to be expected that power would affect their minds. At least that’s what happened to Mustafa I, who led the Ottoman Empire twice in the 17th century, despite his highly questionable sanity.

Despite this, as stated, he had to take the throne twice. In his first brief reign, he mocked the viziers by pulling their beards and making their turbans fly. After years of failed government attempts, his cousin Osman II defeated him.

But the new sultan was assassinated and Mustafa returned to the throne. The poor man believed that his cousin was still alive and searched for him for hours all over the palace. His inability to take over the empire was so obvious that his mother asked to be removed from office.

He rose to power after an internal dispute in the Romanov dynasty, the most famous in Russian history, when he became the victim of assassination plots. Knowing that his life was on the line was the trigger for him to become a cruel ruler. When he began to rule, it occurred to him to take a dangerous tour of England.

There, he stayed at a friend’s house and, along with some partying companions, destroyed the place, leaving the floor full of vomit, urine and shooting at the images that adorned the place. Pedro could not be thwarted, even when his orders bordered on the absurd. He even made courtiers line up to shave their beards Western-style. If anyone refused, he had to pay a tax.

Even though he was responsible for the construction of the incredible city of Saint Petersburg, he was little concerned with the fact that, in the process, thousands of workers died due to the unhealthy swamp in which he decided to build the city. If anyone objected, he was executed. Pedro might not have been “crazy”, but his aggressive and often cruel behavior has gone down in history.

He was the rebellious son of the monarchy. He wasted his youth in excesses of alcohol, sexual intercourse and gambling. To show his opposition to strict court morals during his father’s reign, he clandestinely married a Catholic widow.

Soon, he was forced to marry the German princess Caroline of Brunswick. He was hate at first sight. To console himself, Jorge drowned his sorrows in drink. The long wait to ascend the throne threw him off balance. He felt such admiration for Napoleon’s exploits that he knew every detail of the battles by heart to the point that he was convinced that he had participated in them. The excesses with alcohol led him to a sad death, obese, sick and almost blind.

Louis definitely did not care about politics and the throne. What he really loved was art and music. A fan of Richard Wagner, he sent for him as soon as he took the throne. He made Bavaria a sanctuary for the famous musician’s operas. After seeing France, he was in awe of the French love of the arts and restoration.

He decided that his country deserved a renovation and had dream palaces built everywhere. The construction of the famous Neuschwanstein castle, probably the most famous in Germany and which inspired Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” castle, is his work. But it consumed an enormous sum of resources and plunged the region into debt.

This behavior began to worry his ministers, who called several doctors to declare him insane without even having examined him. So they took him out of power. Louis was locked up in a mansion near the palace, but some time later he was found dead for circumstances that have never been clarified.

Eccentric, sadistic and much crazier than his nephew Nero, Caligula had extreme projects that he made a reality at the cost of many lives. For example, a floating bridge he sent to build just so he could gallop his horse from one end to the other. On another occasion, he sent his troops to “plunder” the ocean, gathering snails to fill his boats.

He loved his horse, the still famous Incitatus, very much. So he had a luxurious mansion built for her. He even tried to make him consul, but luckily, for the court, he died murdered before signing the promotion.

He stood out as emperor of the Ming dynasty not because he was intelligent, but foolish and cruel. He was in the habit of organizing capricious military campaigns that he himself led. On these expeditions, he liked to send orders to an imaginary stuntman, whom he called Zhu Shou.

He had the bad idea of ​​appointing a eunuch as his representative. When things went wrong, she had him executed with a slow death that was supposed to last 3 days. The poor eunuch died at 2 days.

In novels about the Ming dynasty, Zhengde appears as a silly and gullible emperor. In one chapter, he is told how he was led to believe that the dish he was enjoying was boiled pearls, when, in fact, it was simply rice.

Eccentric to the bone, Rodolfo loved art, science and pseudoscience. The ruler, say some historians, believed everything, because he economically supported alchemists, scientists, astrologers and mystics of all stripes.

In his palace in Prague, he had an extensive collection of exotic animals, such as tigers, orangutans, lions and even dodo birds, and he was also a great collector. He proudly displayed a wide variety of curious natural and human objects.

It is believed that he was a bipolar ruler, as he alternated seasons of euphoria with melancholy, moments in which his voice was not even heard. Other times, he would disappear from the palace for several days without anyone knowing why.

Queen Maria Eleonore’s goal was the same as that of all women of her time: to give her husband a male heir. In 1626 she gave birth to a girl and this fact drove her mad. She immediately rejected her daughter, calling her a monster. Several times she tried to kill her by dropping her or pushing her down the stairs, but never succeeded.

When her husband passed away, Maria’s madness escalated to the most extreme level. She refused to bury the body for a whole year and slept under a box that contained the king’s heart. The gold chest hung from the ceiling above the queen’s bed. But she didn’t sleep alone, for she forced her daughter, Cristina, to accompany her while they went through a rigorous and asphyxiating mourning.

Do you believe that excess power contributes to people becoming crazy? Which of these 10 stories was the most impressive? Share your opinion with us!