In Game of Thrones, we know the little Cersei who proclaimed herself queen and who likes to kill a lot of people with techniques all more disgusting than the others. But in real history, there are queens (or leaders, we’re not going to quibble) who have nothing to envy him as they were big puffs. Back to these women that we would not really like to have as mothers.
1. Fredegonda
Initially, Frédégonde was the servant of Queen Audovère, wife of the King of the Franks Chilpéric (the grandson of Clovis.) But as she had a rather attractive physique, she was also the king’s mistress. And she really wanted to be a little more. So she arranged for the queen to be deposed by manipulating her. When the queen gave birth to her 4th child, the king was off to war. Frédégonde convinced her to bring her child to the baptismal pool herself, except that it automatically made her the godmother of her own son. And basically at the time it was akin to incest, so the queen was deposed and had to end her days in the convent. From there, Frédégonde felt a bit like the new queen.
But shortly after, Sigebert, one of the brothers of Chilpéric with whom he shared the kingdom of the Franks, married Brunehaut. Chilpéric thought then that he should perhaps find a new queen too, so he married Galswinthe, Brunehaut’s sister. On the other hand Galswinthe was not very well in this marriage so she quickly left where she came from, in Spain. And strangely, we found her murdered shortly after. Frédégonde had urged Chilpéric to send someone to kill her. Nice. A war ensued between the two brothers, during which Fredegonda sends two men to her to kill King Sigebert by surprise. Not satisfied, she then had Chilpéric’s first wife (Audovère), their children killed, then Chilpéric himself a few years later. There are still a few crimes here and there, but you start to figure out the character. A very unlikable character.
2. Mary Tudor
Marie was Catholic, while her father Henry VIII of England and her half-brother Edward VI (who became King of England in 1547) were Protestants, so she had been pushed aside from power. When Edward died in 1553, it was even his cousin Jeanne Gray who became queen when Mary should have had the throne. So she raised an army because she wasn’t super playful. She defeated Jeanne Gray and had her beheaded, taking her crown in the process. During her reign, to restore Catholicism, she did not hesitate to ask Protestants to leave or convert to Catholicism. Some people refused, and she burned about 280 of them, because still, don’t mess around. Thanks to that little bit of blood, we now call her Bloody Mary, which also gave name to the cocktail based on vodka and tomato juice. Blood color what.
3. Isabella of France
The daughter of King Philip IV the Fair married at age 12, in 1308, King Edward II of England. It wasn’t going too badly, except that Eddy was a bit in love with his friend Pierre de Gabaston, the Count of Cornwall, and Isabelle didn’t like that too much, especially since everyone had noticed it. In 1312, Gabaston was killed by opponents of Edward II, but a few years later the king found a new unofficial boyfriend, Hugues Despenser. And there Isabelle is not happy at all. She returns to France with her lover and mercenaries to kill the new favorite. She also had Edward II deposed and had him imprisoned (it was Edward III, their child, who took over the throne.) And while her husband was in prison, Isabelle of France had a visit brought to her: men have come to stick a white-hot iron through his anus to roast him from the inside. Here is a woman who should not be neglected too much.
4. Joan of Burgundy
She was the wife of Philippe VI de Valois, king of France from 1328 to 1350. And when she didn’t love someone, she asked her husband to kill him. Maybe because everyone called her ugly and lame and it annoyed her, we don’t know. But one fine day she decided that she didn’t like the knight Robert Bertrand, except that the king didn’t want to kill him. So one night she exhausted the king in bed (you know what I mean) and then used her royal seal while he slept to sign a death warrant against the knight. Fortunately, the knight asks as a last wish to speak to the king and he is granted. This way the king realizes that Jeanne has abused him and punishes her very severely. Later, she wanted to kill the Bishop of Beauvais by running him a bath with something very dangerous in it. The bishop, not stupid, exchanges his place with the son of the queen. She manages to save her son, who throws a dog into the bath to check that his mother was on. The dog dies, the queen was well lit. Fortunately, there is a moral: Joan of Burgundy ended up carried away by the Black Death.
5. Catherine II of Russia
She wasn’t really queen, but empress (which is even more classy, let’s face it.) Married to the Tsar of Russia Peter III, she is close to the opposition, and therefore against her husband. One day in 1762, she arrived with the help of opponents to have him imprisoned, then strangled in his cell. Thanks to this sympathetic execution, Catherine II was able to reign over Russia for 34 years. Jackpot.
6. Catherine de Medici
Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 and regent for the following 4 years, Catherine de Medici was probably what one might call “a beautiful bitch”. Not all historians agree on this, but it is probably because of her that the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre took place. In a very tense situation between Catholics and Protestants, Catoche would have given the order to eliminate all Protestant leaders to calm things down. Except that between 15,000 and 30,000 Protestants will be killed throughout France. Was this planned by the Queen? Maybe not, but nevertheless the starting order was already not folichon.
7. Wu Zetian
There you have to hold on a bit. Taizong the Great was Emperor of China in the 7th century, and Wu Zetian was part of his harem but was close to his heir apparent, Gaozong. When the emperor died, his son Gaozong succeeded him. Problem: he has a wife. Wu Zetian wants his place, but she has a daughter herself, which isn’t great for giving Gaozong an heir. So she kills her own daughter and accuses the emperor’s wife of having committed this crime, accusing her in passing of witchcraft. Since people were superstitious at the time, Wu Zetian was asked to take care of the wife’s case. She condemns her to a disgusting torture: her arms and legs are cut off and she is plunged into a bath of vinegar to cauterize the wounds and bring her a very slow death. It’s won, Wu Zetian will become Empress
Afterwards, as some objected to her power, she had them killed. And as she was asked to leave her place to her sons, she also had three of them killed. No mercy. She is also suspected of having ended up killing her husband who was sick. Either way, she wasn’t around anymore.
8. Queen Boadicea
She was queen of the Iceni, a Breton people (from Britain, not Quimper), during the reign of Nero. Not at all happy that the Roman Empire wanted to annex its lands, Boadicea simply decided to gather an army of around 100,000 men to go and massacre at least 80,000 enemies (including civilians), impaling them and cutting off the breasts of the women. Afterwards, as mustn’t mess with the Romans either, the army of Boadicea ended up being defeated, and the queen, according to the sources, either committed suicide using poison, or died of disease almost. nearly the same time. What is certain is that she was not convenient (and not Commodus either, the Roman emperor who arrived a century later MDR.)
9. Elizabeth Bathory
We’re going downmarket a little bit with this Hungarian countess, but since she was very furious too, we made room for her here. Elizabeth Bathory disliked the common people and hated her servants. So when her husband taught her the torture techniques, she trained on them. For example, she had fun throwing naked maids outside to sprinkle them with cold water, but that’s pretty nice when you know that she burned others with a hot iron or coated some with honey. to throw them to the bees. Finally, the creepiest “detail” was that she was convinced that virgin’s blood was a good elixir of youth. It is therefore natural that she would have zigouille more than 650 virgins throughout the country to pay for her little beauty cream. Rest assured, she still ended up in jail. OK, that’s not that reassuring.
10. The Queen of Snow White
The girl still wanted to kill a kid because her mirror told her she was prettier than her. Let it be said once and for all: a mirror that speaks does not exist.
