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Some of History's Funniest Honorifics, Part One: The Babymaker, the Debauchee, and More · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
0:27
Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man, the Myth,
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Speaker 1: the legend, our super producer, mister Max Williams.
0:37
Speaker 2: Max the Maximum Max Williams.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, we always aside honorifics to mister Max Williams, as
0:47
Speaker 1: well as to mister Noel Brown.
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Speaker 3: Go ahead, laid on me.
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Speaker 4: You want one?
0:53
Speaker 1: I called you the back man earlier.
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Speaker 3: That was okay, Yeah, we've for a minute.
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Speaker 2: It is. It is my wish to be a bag
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Speaker 2: man in a highst type scenario speaking of a hight
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Speaker 2: type scenario.
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Speaker 3: Sorry, guys, this is an old here. Have I either
1:06
Speaker 3: of y'all seen the.
1:07
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventies film The Taking of Pelham one, two three, Yes,
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Speaker 2: it's about It's so cool. It's a it's a heist
1:16
Speaker 2: movie about these criminals who hijack a New York City
1:21
Speaker 2: subway train in an effort to extort the government of
1:26
Speaker 2: New York City for a million dollars. And it's got
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Speaker 2: Walter Mathow in it, and it's like, it's funny, it's exciting.
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Speaker 2: It's the classic seventies vibes heist type picture, highly recommend unrelated.
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Speaker 3: I don't know that there you know what there are.
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Speaker 2: That's the first time I ever heard like a mister
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Speaker 2: color thing like in reservoir Dogs.
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Speaker 3: That's kind of no honorific, but not quite.
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Speaker 2: But the whole point is, though, Ben, you can't really
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Speaker 2: give yourself an honorific.
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Speaker 3: It's kind of dirty pool.
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Speaker 1: That's right, and that is me. So to finish up
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Speaker 1: the introductions here, I am all and called Ben Bullen.
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Speaker 1: Some honorifics I have received are the benevolent, the beneficent.
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Speaker 1: None of those were my choice. I actually learned the
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Speaker 1: word beneficent when it was bestowed upon me back in
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Speaker 1: the day. The nickname rule is applicable to honorifics as well.
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Speaker 1: Honorifics as a phrase is simply the concept of nicknames.
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Speaker 1: With a tie on. Nickname rules will state, as previously mentioned,
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Speaker 1: that you should not give yourself your own nickname. It
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Speaker 1: has to be an aggregate observation, hopefully from people who
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Speaker 1: love you, but it doesn't always work out that way.
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Speaker 1: This episode is about some of the funniest honorifics in
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Speaker 1: history and our super producer Max, who is pulling double
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Speaker 1: duty as a research associate on this episode, has an
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Speaker 1: anecdote that you want to share Max about your friend Greg.
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Speaker 3: Oh.
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Speaker 4: Greg Williams such a wonderful man.
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Speaker 3: I love this kind of death.
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Speaker 4: He's one of my closest relation, no relationship.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, your last name is Williams, right, yeah, yeah, from
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Speaker 2: another mother type situation.
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Speaker 4: We don't look similar. Well I'll just I'll just leave
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Speaker 4: it that way. But yeah, Greg, back when we were
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Speaker 4: in our twenties, he had this period of time where
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Speaker 4: he was really convinced he wanted to cool nickname. And
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Speaker 4: the problem was he wanted to give to himself. And
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Speaker 4: his other problem was his two best friends for me
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Speaker 4: and some other guy named Phil, and we're trolls.
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Speaker 1: Who you describe as idiots.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, we're absolute idiots. That that is fills to this day.
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Speaker 4: Another very close friend of mine still. And so we'd
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Speaker 4: be just like, you know, hanging around at our local
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Speaker 4: watering holes, and Greg would just be like doing this
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Speaker 4: in the Norse over. He's just like turbo firing out
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Speaker 4: Nick Nanns for himself. He's like, I want to be
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Speaker 4: the cougar, now, the jaguar, No, the mountain lion. I'm
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Speaker 4: like dude, sounds like you want to be a cat,
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Speaker 4: So why don't you call you like mister fuzzy Pie's.
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Speaker 1: That's very funny. I've seen a It's Always Sunny episode
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Speaker 1: where it I think it's the Gang gets whacked Port
4:00
Speaker 1: one or two. It's a two parter rare for that
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Speaker 1: crew where in our pal mac It tries to do
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Speaker 1: the same thing. He says he's he's sly like a cat,
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Speaker 1: and so on. We've we've all been in these situations.
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Speaker 1: A good nickname, a good honorific is amazing. Sometimes they're
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Speaker 1: a compliment, Peter the Great. Sometimes they're an insult, of
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Speaker 1: course are I mean one of my personal favorites just
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Speaker 1: been here talking ethel read the Unready. It's just such
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Speaker 1: a walk for that one.
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Speaker 2: It's such a low key disc too. It's like, you're
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Speaker 2: not You're not terrible, You're just a little unprepared. You
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Speaker 2: didn't really do your homework. I've in the terrible one
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Speaker 2: could argue is a nickname that inspires fear uh to me.
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Speaker 2: You know, terrible in this context is more are like
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Speaker 2: a terrible ogre, a horrifying dragon. Not necessarily that you're
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Speaker 2: like a terrible person. You know what I mean, it does.
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Speaker 2: It does seem to have a little bit more gravitas
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Speaker 2: to it. So Ivan might have been cool with that nickname. Honestly, yeah, it.
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Speaker 1: Might have been a marketing decision. We also have to
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Speaker 1: point out here's what I would argue is one of
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Speaker 1: the great differentiators. Nicknames are what we call little sobriquets
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Speaker 1: assigned by your contemporaries. Honorifics can occur across history, and
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Speaker 1: that's why there are a lot of you know, emperors
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Speaker 1: or rulers of old who get their honorific posthumously. They
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Speaker 1: are assigned that by an historian who may not have
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Speaker 1: met them. It's usually, uh, it's usually a mixed bag.
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Speaker 5: You know.
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Speaker 1: Some honorifics are super complimentary, some are super insulting and
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Speaker 1: are honestly insider jokes for historians and bookkeepers of the
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Speaker 1: time when books were much more of a niche pursuit.
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Speaker 3: Sure.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's of course where history was recorded, often
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Speaker 2: by the victors, and they're usually the ones that give
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Speaker 2: out the honorifics.
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Speaker 1: Postures written by the victors.
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Speaker 2: Indeed, a huge shout out to Aaron Kelly over at
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Speaker 2: all that's interesting for her list history. He's twenty five
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Speaker 2: most embarrassing royal nicknames with a big resource used for
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Speaker 2: this dossier. So why don't we jump right in with
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Speaker 2: William the Third, another Landian king, or, as Max puts it,
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Speaker 2: another Landy king. Maybe that's right, Yeah, another Landian, the
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Speaker 2: king of the Netherlands.
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Speaker 1: And I'd like to give a preemptive shout out to
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Speaker 1: our buddy Ben Thompson, who deals a lot with a
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Speaker 1: lot with sober quets, a lot with street names of
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Speaker 1: history in his excellent blog and podcast Badass of the Week.
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Speaker 1: So William the third, not the first William. He's sort
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Speaker 1: of what is it, He's sort of return of the
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Speaker 1: King as Williams go. If we go to our friends
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Speaker 1: in Britannica, we will see that our pale William was
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Speaker 1: born relatively recently in the Great Scheme of Things February nineteenth,
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Speaker 1: eighteen seventeen, and he made it all the way to
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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety November twenty third, which is honestly not that
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Speaker 1: bad for a king.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, had a bad life also, you know, given the
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Speaker 2: nature of a much shorter life expectancies back then. I
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Speaker 2: love the name of the town in which he passed away,
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Speaker 2: though apple Dorn, also in the Netherlands. He was pretty
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Speaker 2: conservative in the way that he governed the Netherlands. He
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Speaker 2: was also a Grand Duke of Luxembourg, being the eldest
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Speaker 2: son of King William the second. Also possessed a pretty
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Speaker 2: interesting hairstyle. Let's see what we got here, Yeah, okay, wow,
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Speaker 2: bit of a combover, bit of a curious George kind
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Speaker 2: of vibe.
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Speaker 3: He's sort of like his whole face is ringed in a.
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Speaker 2: Very thinning line of hair with a combovery bald spot
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Speaker 2: on the top, and he's perfectly cleanly shaven. It's a
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Speaker 2: weird amish hybrid kind of thing going on there for.
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Speaker 4: A lot of compensation, it feels like, and it's just
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Speaker 4: making it worse.
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Speaker 1: And it's also it shows us the bubble of success.
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Speaker 1: He's not welcoming people for advice or anything other than yes.
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Speaker 1: And at this point we should also point out to
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Speaker 1: get in front of this that when I said he
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Speaker 1: was born on February nineteenth, eighteen seventeen, he was born
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Speaker 1: in Brussels, which is in Belgium, and then he died
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Speaker 1: in apple Doorn in the Netherlands. So he also by
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Speaker 1: the way he comes from a little bit of a
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Speaker 1: close family tree, there's not a wide branch. He marries
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Speaker 1: his cousin Sophia, who is the daughter of his grandfather.
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Speaker 2: That's all right, King William the Og number one, and
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Speaker 2: he is of Wurtemburg. In eighteen thirty nine, by the way,
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Speaker 2: is when this marriage took place between William and his cousin,
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Speaker 2: daughter of King William the First, and in eighteen forty
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Speaker 2: nine he succeeded to the throne. A little bit of
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Speaker 2: a muddled chronology here with all these similar names. But
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Speaker 2: we got this man with this par for the course,
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Speaker 2: for ridiculous history. Don't you worry. Once you open up
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Speaker 2: the family tree, it just starts to get even more confusing.
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Speaker 3: So we're doing our best here.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and let's go to William three. Before we introduce
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Speaker 1: his hoterrific Let's give the guys flowers. As I mentioned earlier,
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Speaker 1: he had a pretty good reign as far as kings go,
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Speaker 1: around about forty one years. A lot of it was
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Speaker 1: associated with what we could kind of call conservatism. For
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Speaker 1: the time. He was opposed to things like making a
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Speaker 1: constitution or human rights.
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Speaker 3: Who needs that?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was pissed at Catholics for sure, we have
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Speaker 1: some quotes from different places. You can read this everywhere. Britannica,
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Speaker 1: for instance, points out that he opposed the Constitution of
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Speaker 1: eighteen forty eight because that would create a nascent form
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Speaker 1: of parliamentary government. He also he was not an absolute monarch,
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Speaker 1: so he did have political forces that compelled him to
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Speaker 1: allow certain people to head a new government of the
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Speaker 1: one of the big thorns in Issai being Johann Thorbek,
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Speaker 1: who was, by the way, a big fan of constitutions.
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Speaker 3: That's right.
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Speaker 2: Throwbeca did resign, however, from that government in eighteen fifty three,
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Speaker 2: when William adopted, against the wishes of this government a
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Speaker 2: staunchly anti Catholic stance in a dispute over the re
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Speaker 2: establishment of a Roman Catholic episcopal hierarchy headed up by
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Speaker 2: the Archbishop of Utrecht.
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Speaker 1: Which is a great art store these days, is it?
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Speaker 3: No?
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Speaker 1: No, it's a real it's a real town.
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Speaker 2: It sounds like it ought to be like a bicycle,
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Speaker 2: a brand, or an outdoors e type shop.
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Speaker 3: I might just be thinking of Trek.
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Speaker 1: I want to say Utrecht is an art store.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Here in the US it's a brand of art supply
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Speaker 1: stores so maybe he was way more in front of
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Speaker 1: stuff anyway, on the way to on the way to death,
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Speaker 1: our buddy Willy Willie Trace. He attempted to sell the
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Speaker 1: entirety of Luxembourg to France. Luxembourg is currently an independent nation.
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Speaker 1: It is, by the way, super fancy. He ran into
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Speaker 1: trouble with that. Prussia was still very much in play,
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Speaker 1: and they said it's a bridge too far. They were,
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Speaker 1: they were not quite to the point of, you know,
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Speaker 1: just pushing people out third story windows that at that
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Speaker 1: juncture in history.
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Speaker 3: But there are tough customers.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, their threats would be followed. Through all of this,
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Speaker 1: All of this is just context. William the Third's nickname
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Speaker 1: does not deal with his political machinations. Instead, it deals
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Speaker 1: with his more skinemax ridiculous history after dark behavior.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, he and his wife had what you might call
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Speaker 2: a loveless marriage. Didn't seem like they vibed super well
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Speaker 2: with one another interpersonally or you know, between the old sheets.
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Speaker 2: So he needed to seek gratification of that kind elsewhere.
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Speaker 2: As Kelly writes in the article that we mentioned at
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Speaker 2: the top, William was known for an enthusiasm for extramarital relationships.
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Speaker 2: It almost would seem as though they had a bit
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Speaker 2: of a you know, understanding, which, according to some sources,
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Speaker 2: resulted in potentially dozens of illegitimate airs during his first marriage.
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Speaker 2: He's so anti Catholic. How come I guess they didn't
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Speaker 2: really have contraception back then, did they? Sorry?
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Speaker 3: You know, I pull out and pray, that's the one.
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Speaker 3: It seemed like he was doing more praying than pulling out.
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Speaker 1: It's also important to note that he did have three
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Speaker 1: sons with his first wife, Sophie, and so sadly, as
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Speaker 1: was not uncommon in the time, child mortality was very high,
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Speaker 1: all three of William and Sophie's legitimate children passed away
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Speaker 1: while their father was still alive. Sophie also died.
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Speaker 3: Oho Max is raising his paw.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, And just to jump in here, I think one
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Speaker 4: of the children died very young. But this is actually
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Speaker 4: one of these cases where the dad just lived for
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Speaker 4: a really, really long time. It's actually struck comparison. It's
14:29
Speaker 4: Tyercepton was the longest living human in Elder Scrolls universe,
14:34
Speaker 4: and his son, who became kingwinn sept Typerceptim died was
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Speaker 4: very old and did not have a very long Empire.
14:42
Speaker 1: And if you want to learn more about the basis
14:45
Speaker 1: of Elder Scrolls and Skyrim lore, please do remember to
14:50
Speaker 1: pick up every book you run across when you're playing
14:53
Speaker 1: the game, or hop over to their wiki.
14:56
Speaker 2: It's good stuff, it's good writing. After his first wife, Sophie,
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Speaker 2: died in eighteen cent seventy seven, he married another woman
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Speaker 2: by the name of Emma of Waldeck, Piermont's very fancy
15:06
Speaker 2: sounding name, who served as regent in eighteen ninety while
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Speaker 2: the king was unwell. Wilhelmina was the name of their daughter, uh,
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Speaker 2: and was his only living legitimate heir by the way,
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Speaker 2: because you know, he has scoodles of illegitimate airs, but.
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Speaker 1: Narshals have to, you know, goat with a thousand young kindries.
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Speaker 2: We'll recall that his three previous legitimate sons had passed
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Speaker 2: away sadly, and she did succeed to the throne of
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Speaker 2: the Netherlands upon his death in eighteen ninety.
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Speaker 1: And contemporary sources and later historians report that this second
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Speaker 1: marriage was way less loveless, way warmer.
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Speaker 3: Uh.
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Speaker 1: Some people argue that had the idea that he became
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Speaker 1: a better king, and that's a human thing. Sometimes you
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Speaker 1: don't get it right the first time. This is where
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Speaker 1: he gets his hot terrific. The New York Times. That's right,
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Speaker 1: because remember we're in the late eighteen hundreds.
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Speaker 2: The New York Times, who previously supported nuking the Darien Gap.
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Speaker 3: By the way, checkout stuff they don't want you to know.
16:15
Speaker 3: Episode on that subject to Harter in your seed.
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Speaker 1: And the New York Times says to the world at large,
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Speaker 1: or at least English readers, that this guy, William the
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Speaker 1: third is the greatest debauche.
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Speaker 2: Can I just say that what I saw this, I
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Speaker 2: read it as the greatest douchebag.
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Speaker 1: I mean similar.
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Speaker 2: Oh it's funny debauche, very Bacchanalian lifestyle.
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Speaker 1: Eh yeah, there's also you know, look not to split hairs.
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Speaker 1: H huh do you do you get the Jays?
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Speaker 4: Yeah?
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Speaker 2: A h h e.
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Speaker 1: I well I'm here for it, Ben, thank you, sir. Uh.
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Speaker 2: We're not only gonna keep it, then we're gonna put
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Speaker 2: it on the mantle and and dust it lovingly.
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Speaker 4: It's gonna get a bad drama, of course.
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Speaker 1: Okay, well, yeah, all right, I appreciate you guys. This
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Speaker 1: This is not great p R. Right. It happens pretty
17:29
Speaker 1: often where where in you know, uh, high profile target
17:35
Speaker 1: be the political, religious or you know, royal. Uh they
17:41
Speaker 1: they will, they will get smacked around in the tabloids.
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Speaker 1: And we have to remember that the New York Times
17:47
Speaker 1: is super fancy pants today, but they weren't above digging
17:51
Speaker 1: into dumb ideas in the past. And so as we
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Speaker 1: as we return to our pal Aaron Kelly, Uh, she
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Speaker 1: raws a little bit of a disagreement with this because
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Speaker 1: she said, look, you know other people fathered sixty three
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Speaker 1: illegitimate children before they got married.
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Speaker 2: On her list of the weirdest nicknames, oral nicknames, you know.
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Speaker 1: And as that guy's name is John the baby Maker,
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Speaker 1: that's right.
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Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
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Speaker 2: I don't know what do you think is more offensive
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Speaker 2: being a baby maker or a debaci And it's a
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Speaker 2: little puritanical, isn't it. The idea like they're sort of
18:32
Speaker 2: making a judgment call about how many children he fathered
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Speaker 2: out of wedlock, and they're making it sound like he's
18:38
Speaker 2: some sort of you know, sex pest.
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Speaker 1: You very British. I think baby maker is funnier than
18:47
Speaker 1: debche and.
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Speaker 2: Less judges, less assaulting, right, Yeah, I mean, in those days,
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Speaker 2: producing airs was what you wanted to do, you know.
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Speaker 2: And there's also no caveat in John the Baby Maker
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Speaker 2: as to the legitimacy of those children, So I don't know, man.
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Speaker 4: I so he actual Babymaker actually had three legitimate heirs.
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Speaker 4: I reason wand to write about John the baby Maker.
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Speaker 4: But a lot of times the further you go back
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Speaker 4: with in royalty, the harder and harder it is to
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Speaker 4: find like real sources. And I'm saying that about the
19:18
Speaker 4: guy I picked whose name is William the Third. Do
19:20
Speaker 4: you know who William the Third is on the Google search?
19:22
Speaker 4: It's William, King of the Orange King whatever. He's a
19:26
Speaker 4: British king. It's really hard.
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Speaker 1: It's a name thing. There's so many Henry's, Williams and James's.
19:32
Speaker 4: And don't forget about Charles.
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Speaker 1: There's never there's never one Jame. Like I have a
19:38
Speaker 1: friend whose name is Jame. It's this singular of James.
19:42
Speaker 1: It's spelled a little bit differently, but I really appreciate
19:45
Speaker 1: his parents.
19:45
Speaker 2: That was one of the potential names for the Buffalo
19:48
Speaker 2: Bill character in j Jame Gum or Jamie Jame or Jamie.
19:55
Speaker 2: I was the first time I ever heard a singular
19:57
Speaker 2: Jame that is very interesting. Well, we got a little
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Speaker 2: bit of dispute here as to the fairness of this
20:02
Speaker 2: nick name. But unfortunately that's not how honorifics work. Fairness
20:06
Speaker 2: doesn't enter into it. It's all about stickiness.
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Speaker 1: Right yeah, yeah, and speaking up.
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Speaker 3: I don't mean that in a gross way.
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Speaker 2: I just mean like, if it's strong enough, catchy enough honorific,
20:16
Speaker 2: it's gonna stick her out throughout history. And you got
20:19
Speaker 2: you or your heirs or your estate really don't have
20:21
Speaker 2: anything to say about it at that point. Otherwise you'll
20:23
Speaker 2: be employing like the Streisand effect, where you try to
20:25
Speaker 2: get something pulled down or changed after the fact, people
20:28
Speaker 2: are just gonna double down on the thing that you
20:30
Speaker 2: want to change.
20:31
Speaker 1: And I'd love to I'd love to write an episode
20:34
Speaker 1: later about honorifics or street memes given to US presidents.
20:40
Speaker 1: You have to wonder what people will get as time
20:43
Speaker 1: goes on. Will it be like or even political figures.
20:47
Speaker 1: I think people have gotten their ship sunk when they
20:52
Speaker 1: get the wrong sort of like you're saying, thing caught
20:55
Speaker 1: up in the zeitgeist, right, Jeb low energy Bush.
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Speaker 3: I guess I just.
21:00
Speaker 2: Don't think of donterrifics being as much of a thing
21:05
Speaker 2: in modern politics.
21:07
Speaker 1: We're too close to it.
21:08
Speaker 3: That must be right.
21:09
Speaker 1: We're not very lying, man. We got to get there.
21:12
Speaker 2: Speaking of time, why don't we pass forward a little
21:16
Speaker 2: bit in time to King Henry the fourth of Castile.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this guy was born where actually we're reverse
21:28
Speaker 1: forwarding time. We're rewinding.
21:30
Speaker 3: Excuse me, excuse me?
21:33
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, this guy, as you pointed out, he
21:37
Speaker 1: is born in fourteen twenty five January twenty fifth, So
21:41
Speaker 1: the anniversary of his birthday as we record today, January
21:46
Speaker 1: twenty fourth, is coming up tomorrow. Happy birthday, buddy. He lives,
21:53
Speaker 1: he does his bit, He does pretty well. He passes
21:57
Speaker 1: away in fourteen seventy four in Madrid. He's born and
22:01
Speaker 1: dies in Spain. And he is king from let's see
22:05
Speaker 1: fourteen fifty four to fourteen seventy four. And he didn't
22:12
Speaker 1: he didn't live during the most staple times.
22:14
Speaker 2: No, at first he seemed like he had a handle
22:17
Speaker 2: on things, but then you know, his reign began to
22:20
Speaker 2: spiral pretty wildly out of control. We're gonna lean on
22:27
Speaker 2: Max here a little bit for a shortened version of
22:30
Speaker 2: how events kind of transpire. Everyone hated this guy, who's
22:34
Speaker 2: not popular. They wanted him out. There was a faction
22:37
Speaker 2: of individuals that claim that his little brother Alfonso was
22:41
Speaker 2: in fact the king. Is a very Game of Thrones
22:44
Speaker 2: esque scenario, and in an act of political theater, they
22:47
Speaker 2: deposed Henry in effigy.
22:51
Speaker 3: What is that like? They literally burned like a doll
22:54
Speaker 3: of him.
22:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, we're getting rid of this puppet who represents
22:58
Speaker 1: this guy down with the Yeah. And three years after that,
23:05
Speaker 1: old Alphonso passes away, or I should say younger Alfonso
23:09
Speaker 1: passes away, and Henry attempts to because this is royalty again,
23:15
Speaker 1: it's not a meritocracy, right.
23:16
Speaker 2: Waitit wait, So this deposing an effigy like took I
23:21
Speaker 2: don't understand. Is this like a real revolution or was
23:24
Speaker 2: this just an act?
23:25
Speaker 3: The whole thing was the start of a civil war. Basically,
23:27
Speaker 3: it started a civil war. That's it was.
23:29
Speaker 2: It was a symbolic act that then spread into actual action.
23:34
Speaker 3: And he was in fact deposed.
23:36
Speaker 4: He wasn't, but there was a faction of people who
23:38
Speaker 4: said he was posed.
23:39
Speaker 1: He was not deposed, but people could not. People did
23:43
Speaker 1: not unanimously agree upon who is king.
23:47
Speaker 2: They did not acknowledge his authority and Therefore Alfonso more
23:53
Speaker 2: or less became in charge because the people rallied behind him.
23:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were a bunch of people essentially saying the
23:59
Speaker 1: equivalent of my president.
24:01
Speaker 4: So a similar comp in modern day would be when
24:04
Speaker 4: the Ukraine Russian War started, there was parts of eastern
24:07
Speaker 4: Ukraine that came out and said, oh, we are not
24:09
Speaker 4: part of Ukraine, We're part of Russia.
24:11
Speaker 1: Similar or similar to the troubles in Crimea as well.
24:17
Speaker 1: So the before we get to stuff that'll want you
24:20
Speaker 1: to know about this one, we know that our buddy
24:23
Speaker 1: Henry tried to shore up the rain, shore up his line,
24:30
Speaker 1: and he said, look, here's my daughter Juana, she's the queen.
24:36
Speaker 1: She's gonna be the queen. She is an infant at
24:39
Speaker 1: the time, she did not have informed consent, and so
24:43
Speaker 1: his rivals is, you know, not my president type dudes
24:47
Speaker 1: then said, no way, nice, try your majesty. The real
24:52
Speaker 1: ruler is your half sister Isabella future Isabelle.
24:57
Speaker 2: The first two, without Henry's knowledge or permission, married the
25:00
Speaker 2: heir to the throne of Aragon, Fella named Ferdinand, who
25:05
Speaker 2: was to become Ferdinand the second. The two would ultimately
25:10
Speaker 2: unite Spain, which is pretty cool, pretty.
25:14
Speaker 3: Tough job to somewhere or less the happy end.
25:17
Speaker 1: Yeah for Spain perhaps right, Yeah, but maybe not for
25:21
Speaker 1: our buddy Henry the fourth. He is his honorific which
25:25
Speaker 1: we're about to explore. Just for a slight spoiler, folks,
25:29
Speaker 1: It is a one hundred and eighty degrees difference from
25:34
Speaker 1: what happened with our boy Willie three stacks, which I
25:38
Speaker 1: just made up.
25:39
Speaker 2: And I guess it's approachable.
25:42
Speaker 3: I think so.
25:43
Speaker 1: So this guy, No, this guy, This guy apparently was
25:51
Speaker 1: not super lovey dovey in his first marriage, and he
25:56
Speaker 1: was married for a number of years. According to horses,
26:00
Speaker 1: which may have an agenda, he never got frisked up,
26:05
Speaker 1: he never got horned up, he never consummated at all.
26:11
Speaker 1: His thirteen year marriage to his cousin wife.
26:15
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I guess that's sort of a small
26:17
Speaker 2: consolation to marrying your cousin.
26:18
Speaker 3: I think it makes it a little less gross.
26:20
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it's a political thing. I really want
26:24
Speaker 1: to marry her.
26:25
Speaker 2: Also true, but you know, the cousin marrying was pretty
26:28
Speaker 2: wide rife at the time, so I don't think that
26:30
Speaker 2: was maybe the main concern. But some sources saw it
26:34
Speaker 2: a little differently with those perspectives coming from members of
26:38
Speaker 2: the local sex trade.
26:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they said there was nothing wrong under the hood.
26:46
Speaker 1: We're a family show, so let's pretend that's not a circumcision.
26:50
Speaker 2: It's oh geez, Louise Ben. He was perhaps just not
26:55
Speaker 2: fond of his cousin wife.
26:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then he marries another cousin who did birth
27:03
Speaker 1: a daughter. That's the infant he tries to install as queen,
27:08
Speaker 1: but rumor has it, rumor has it that he is
27:12
Speaker 1: not the biological father.
27:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's any cousin scruples going
27:16
Speaker 2: on here. He went from one cousin to the next.
27:19
Speaker 2: So in Max's research he found a lot about Henry's
27:23
Speaker 2: bedroom difficulties, but nothing quite as hilarious as what was
27:28
Speaker 2: detailed in the National Library of Medicine's article King Henry
27:30
Speaker 2: the Fourth of Castilla an exceptional eurologic patient an indochrinopathy
27:37
Speaker 2: causing the euro andrological problems of the monarch, Impotence and
27:42
Speaker 2: penile malformation, Part three, Part three, Yeah, three of three,
27:50
Speaker 2: and our source Aaron Kelly points out that Henry's reign
27:55
Speaker 2: was more or less the history of it was more
27:57
Speaker 2: or less co opted by his half sister, who was
28:00
Speaker 2: the one who kicked him out in the first.
28:02
Speaker 3: Place, and that sort of saddled.
28:05
Speaker 2: Him with about one of the most infantiizing honorifics a
28:13
Speaker 2: male king could possibly be saddled with.
28:16
Speaker 1: Ooh, let us know what is it?
28:18
Speaker 3: What is it? Henry the Impotent?
28:21
Speaker 1: Ah, not Henry the Potent, No, sir, two letters can
28:26
Speaker 1: make such a difference.
28:27
Speaker 3: I know, I know, No, Henry the Impotent. Yeah.
28:39
Speaker 2: It does seem though, perhaps that through his philandering, he
28:43
Speaker 2: may well have brought this one on himself.
28:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of an old goal, as they would say
28:48
Speaker 1: in Europe, hoisted on his own bitar.
28:51
Speaker 4: And I will say there is actually proof that when
28:55
Speaker 4: people like, why don't you have a child with your
28:57
Speaker 4: first cousin wife, he would scream, A curse is upon
29:02
Speaker 4: me and it's made me impotent. When when you're using
29:06
Speaker 4: that as your excuse and you get it as your nickname.
29:08
Speaker 1: Kind of brought on yourself, it doesn't it doesn't work
29:11
Speaker 1: in the modern day. You can't say, uh, you can't
29:15
Speaker 1: blame a curse on misfortune now in a court of law.
29:19
Speaker 2: Now, let's not get too uh yeah, no, you're a
29:21
Speaker 2: hundred percent right then, And let's not get too under
29:24
Speaker 2: the hood here again. But impotence and infertility are two
29:28
Speaker 2: different things, right for sure? Yeah, so the implication being
29:34
Speaker 2: that if he was impotent, he couldn't become too mess in.
29:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.
29:39
Speaker 3: Yeah.
29:39
Speaker 2: But the sex workers, though, do we do we put
29:42
Speaker 2: any credence in their perspective or do we think they
29:45
Speaker 2: were just talking tracks?
29:46
Speaker 1: Guttle but mm yeah, because it's it's difficult now to
29:53
Speaker 1: it becomes a he said, she said, or more likely
29:55
Speaker 1: it becomes uh she said, she said.
29:58
Speaker 2: Well, we do have a Scientific Journal article about his
30:02
Speaker 2: pen so an the body. It sure would seem like
30:06
Speaker 2: that's probably the source that we should lean on the most.
30:09
Speaker 1: What do you say, guys, Let's do one more. This
30:13
Speaker 1: is going to be a continuing series again with a
30:15
Speaker 1: shout out to our pal Ben Thompson. Check out our
30:19
Speaker 1: earlier interview with him. Go Ben's He created Badass of
30:23
Speaker 1: the Week, which is so neat and so comprehensive in fact,
30:27
Speaker 1: that we routinely check the site when we're writing stuff.
30:32
Speaker 1: We with the help of Ben and Max, learned about
30:36
Speaker 1: our last honorific for today, a guy named Harold H.
30:42
Speaker 1: A R A L D. Not Harold Harold unclear. I
30:49
Speaker 1: think I'm with you, Ben.
30:50
Speaker 2: If that's not how it's pronounced, that's how it's pronounced
30:52
Speaker 2: now in the Ridiculous History extended universe. According to our
30:57
Speaker 2: pal friend of the podcast, Ben Thompson from his site
31:02
Speaker 2: Badass of the Week as well as his podcast Ongoing
31:05
Speaker 2: Badass of the Week, Harold fair Hair was the first
31:10
Speaker 2: true King of Norway, the national hero of his country,
31:13
Speaker 2: and a man known not only for a mighty propensity.
31:16
Speaker 3: For cleaving his enemies in Twain.
31:20
Speaker 5: As as Ben describes it, like a psychotic escaped mental
31:23
Speaker 5: patient carving a Thanksgiving turkey, but also for rocking ahead
31:28
Speaker 5: of epically glorious glam metal hair so righteous it's the
31:34
Speaker 5: primary way violence loving.
31:36
Speaker 2: Vikings Scalds chose to remember his name. That is good
31:40
Speaker 2: quality writing there, Ben Thompson.
31:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, and Ben continues and says, look, this guy
31:49
Speaker 1: was too busy to write stuff down. He's not in
31:51
Speaker 1: the monastery. He's not laboriously scrolling out or scrolling out
31:57
Speaker 1: letters punched over a tome's right, just so, yeah, you're right, Noel. Instead,
32:03
Speaker 1: he is launching multiple campaigns to unify his country under
32:10
Speaker 1: one single ruler, which is historically a very violent pursuit
32:15
Speaker 1: and as a result of his wartime exploits at a
32:20
Speaker 1: lot of the nuts and bolts details about his administration
32:25
Speaker 1: are riddled with mythology and folklore and crazy anecdotes that
32:32
Speaker 1: praise the guy the same like that give him this
32:36
Speaker 1: vibe of a heavy metal guitar solo with an eagle
32:41
Speaker 1: screaming in the background.
32:42
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, as mullet probably resembled that of a
32:46
Speaker 2: golden eagle wings spread. Now, he definitely had a bit
32:50
Speaker 2: of a feathery mallet, and I would profer that he
32:55
Speaker 2: maybe all his powers were contained within his mullet, like Samson.
32:58
Speaker 1: Oh yes, Samson, I love it. We do know he
33:03
Speaker 1: was real. He was definitely a real dude, a biological human.
33:08
Speaker 1: He did succeed in his timeline. He got all the Yarls,
33:14
Speaker 1: the sort of warlords of Norway under his rule.
33:17
Speaker 2: Shout out Skyram, by the way, they use that as
33:20
Speaker 2: the name of the leaders of the different townships.
33:23
Speaker 3: There are yarls.
33:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm not with the nerds in that game.
33:28
Speaker 1: I feel like they're a little racist.
33:29
Speaker 2: To be that is very true, Ben, I can't remember
33:32
Speaker 2: who I aligned with. I think I'm still deciding. Yeah,
33:35
Speaker 2: but you're still on the broken quest line.
33:37
Speaker 3: I'm nowhere, Ben.
33:38
Speaker 2: It's been long enough now that I think I might
33:41
Speaker 2: just just start over, start again.
33:42
Speaker 3: It is a great game. But I also I got.
33:44
Speaker 2: Balder's Gate too, man, I still have to dig in
33:47
Speaker 2: and I want to be a Balder's gatey.
33:49
Speaker 3: I just want to do it.
33:49
Speaker 1: Boulders.
33:51
Speaker 3: I feel like it's over my head a little bit,
33:52
Speaker 3: but I'm gonna try.
33:53
Speaker 2: Just text me with any questions, Okay, I sure will
33:56
Speaker 2: about who I should bang that is Boulders Gates.
34:00
Speaker 1: Okay.
34:01
Speaker 2: So, I mean there's a lot of mythology wrapped up
34:03
Speaker 2: in the way this guy is written about in history.
34:06
Speaker 2: But we do know for sure is that he was
34:08
Speaker 2: the first King of Norway and a bona fide badass,
34:12
Speaker 2: as Ben Thompson puts it. However, you know, given all
34:16
Speaker 2: of the kind of badassy that surrounds this guy and
34:20
Speaker 2: his incredible locks, his epic main it might surprise you
34:25
Speaker 2: to know that he had a less than complimentary honorific.
34:30
Speaker 1: I love this, all right, folks. Get ready, this guy,
34:34
Speaker 1: despite all the things he did, the great violence he wrought,
34:38
Speaker 1: his unification of what we call Norway. Today his street
34:42
Speaker 1: name is Harold the Lousy l o us Y. Yeah, yeah,
34:49
Speaker 1: careful with it.
34:50
Speaker 2: Well, we might say lousy today as just I think
34:54
Speaker 2: I want to think of that.
34:55
Speaker 3: I think of like I love Lucy. They always said
34:57
Speaker 3: everything was lousy, but.
34:59
Speaker 2: In this case you might I pronounced it more as
35:01
Speaker 2: a hard s lousy because this does go back to
35:05
Speaker 2: his copious locks.
35:07
Speaker 3: And think about all a little.
35:09
Speaker 2: In those days of questionable hygiene, little hangers on that
35:15
Speaker 2: can get wrapped up in in a glorious mane like them.
35:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, so go at your absolutely right now, going back
35:21
Speaker 1: to your earlier excellent shout out to Samson, by the way,
35:25
Speaker 1: well done. We see that legend has it our buddy Harold.
35:32
Speaker 1: Harold had vowed not to cut his hair until he
35:37
Speaker 1: became the ruler of a unifide Norway, and by the
35:41
Speaker 1: time he actually received the crown ten years on, his
35:46
Speaker 1: hair was pretty groady. He kind of looked like a
35:51
Speaker 1: trained kid, we will call him here in the US.
35:54
Speaker 1: And along the way he picked up he created a
36:00
Speaker 1: the follicular ecosystem for a lot of parasites louses as
36:08
Speaker 1: they're known. So apparently they were just like jumping off
36:11
Speaker 1: him pigpin style. Also shout out to our very first
36:16
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History episode. Oh my gosh, you guys heard emoji.
36:21
Speaker 1: This all started when we asked each other why British
36:25
Speaker 1: courts require people to wear wigs.
36:27
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because of the syphilis and the lice and
36:30
Speaker 2: the parasites. Yeah, we are talking about lice, by the way,
36:33
Speaker 2: if you hadn't put that one together. So this guy was,
36:37
Speaker 2: in fact crown the first king of Norway, but what
36:41
Speaker 2: he is mostly remembered for is the fact that his
36:44
Speaker 2: hair was riddled.
36:46
Speaker 3: With lice, lousy with lice. In fact.
36:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, let's be fair. This guy is a
36:55
Speaker 1: Viking in the eight hundreds eight hundred C. So a
37:01
Speaker 1: lot of people had lice, a lot of people had
37:04
Speaker 1: you know, all kinds of stuff, crabs, you know what
37:07
Speaker 1: I mean there.
37:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, but not only was this guy the king of
37:09
Speaker 3: the Vikings, he was the king of of lice. It
37:13
Speaker 3: would seem, yeah.
37:14
Speaker 1: Because everybody in his crew would meet him and again
37:20
Speaker 1: the story later get lice. So so he said, he's saying,
37:26
Speaker 1: you know, oh, great battle, we cleaved the snot out
37:29
Speaker 1: of these guys. Give me a hug. I'm gonna promote
37:32
Speaker 1: you to my new yarl and they say like a
37:36
Speaker 1: fist bump, baby.
37:37
Speaker 3: Bump, elbow bump.
37:38
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, maybe try rubbing this peanut butter on your head, buddy.
37:43
Speaker 1: So we have more wonders ahead. Honorifically, uh, this turns
37:49
Speaker 1: out to be a continuing series. Some honorifics are great.
37:54
Speaker 1: Love that we point this out in the beginning. Some
37:57
Speaker 1: people have these amazing, you know, high fluting praises baked
38:03
Speaker 1: into their nicknames. Other people have names that you might
38:08
Speaker 1: remember from our explorations with our pals Jack and Miles,
38:12
Speaker 1: who are overdue to come on for another collaboration with
38:16
Speaker 1: historical flexes. Maybe we end it here, man ethel read,
38:20
Speaker 1: I just I hope one day he's ready. Yeah.
38:22
Speaker 3: I think by now he should be. He's had enough
38:24
Speaker 3: time to prepare.
38:26
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure, yeah, bring your notes, ethel Red, when you
38:30
Speaker 1: recross the Mortal Veil in the meantime. Thank you so
38:34
Speaker 1: much to our super producer and research associate for this episode,
38:38
Speaker 1: mister Max Williams. Thanks to Alex Tawana Williams, who is
38:43
Speaker 1: kicking it playing some amazing guitar. And well, maybe one day,
38:50
Speaker 1: what do you think, Noel, maybe pop by an episode.
38:52
Speaker 3: Are you kidding? How has that not happened yet?
38:54
Speaker 2: It must Hughes Thanks to Jonathan Strickland, the quister, A J. Bahamas,
38:58
Speaker 2: Jacob's the Puzzler, Chris frosciotis Neive, Jeff cos Here It's parent.
39:03
Speaker 1: Rachel Big Spinach Lance are rude dudes at ridiculous crime
39:07
Speaker 1: and maybe we'll have a collab with them on the way. Thanks,
39:11
Speaker 1: of course, to all the historians who took the time
39:17
Speaker 1: from with one ulterior motivation or another to bestow these
39:22
Speaker 1: monikers on honorifics and nicknames on figures of notes and Noel,
39:28
Speaker 1: Thanks to you.
39:28
Speaker 3: Hey, Thanks to you too, Buddy. We'll see you next time. Folks.
39:38
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
39:41
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.