Top 10 Badass Medieval Monarchs With Obnoxious Nicknames

Plenty of ancient nobles took on names designed to make their foes run away in wet-trousered terror. People like Thorfinn “Skull-Splitter” Einarrson—a 10th-century Earl of Orkney, or Vlad “the Impaler” Dracula—Wallachian prince and vampire prototype. Then, of course, there were a lot of lame kings who got called suitably lame things—Aethelred “the Unready” of England, Stefan “the Weak” of Serbia.

But there was also a unique class of rulers, who cunningly adopted absurd nicknames to lull their enemies into a false sense of security before brutally erasing them from the face of the planet. These are their stories.

Top 10 Badass Medieval Monarchs With Obnoxious Nicknames

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