Genghis Khan
[ranking: 1]
Royal Title: Temujin, Great Khan of the Mongol Empire Most Brutal Moment: While carving out a massive empire that stretched across millions of square miles, Genghis Khan and his nomadic Mongolian soldiers killed an estimated 1.2 million people. That's right, over one million people in only one battle. In fact, one commentator reported that the Great Khan killed so many that their bones formed mountains and the dirt became oily with human fat. Some of his bloodier moments include using young men as human shields and organizing mass rapes. The latter crime probably resulted in many children, making Genghis Khan a direct ancestor of 16 million people today.
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Galeazzo Maria Sforza
[ranking: 2]
Royal Title: Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan Most Brutal Moment: A master torturer and true evil mastermind, Galeazzo Maria once chopped off a rival's hands and killed a poacher by making him swallow an entire hare. This fifteenth-century duke of Milan came by his brutal personality honestly. The surname of his warlord-turned-noble family, Sforza, means "force" in Italian. One contemporary writer recorded how Galeazzo Maria, upon asking a priest how long he would reign in Milan and being told only eleven years, stuck the good father in jail with just a little bit of food. As the story goes, "the man survived on these things, even getting to eat his own excrement, for twelve days. Then he died." Galeazzo Maria was also accused of organizing gang rapes and of poisoning his own mother.
Olaf Tryggvason
[ranking: 3]
Royal Title: Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway Most Brutal Moments: A Viking warrior par excellence, Olaf wasn't afraid of getting his hands dirty - and bloody - when it came to killing pagans and the treacherous (he once beheaded a slave who killed a royal rival for him). In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Olaf began to appear in poems as the murderer of a man named Raud, a determined follower of Thor. Despite Raud's best magical efforts, legend has it, Olaf's Christian faith dominated, but when Raud refused to accept Christ, Olaf forced a snake into his mouth using a red-hot iron. The serpent went through Raud's neck and killed him. Olaf took Raud's gold, killed his followers that wouldn't convert, and brought those that would be baptized into his fold.
Godfrey of Bouillon
[ranking: 4]
Ferdinand I of Naples
[ranking: 5]
Royal Title: Ferdinand I, King of Naples Most Brutal Moment: Killing his rivals and building a "museum of mummies" with them in his palace. Born the illegitimate son of a Spanish monarch, Ferdinand enjoyed keeping his deceased enemies around. Once, he invited some French "pals" (a.k.a. agents of his rival to the throne of Naples) to dinner. After they ate, he then imprisoned others for thirty years, even shoving one guy out a window to his death. Some were propped up in a mock banquet at Castel Nuovo; the bodies were pickled and turned into mummies, then re-dressed to look lively.
James II of Scotland
[ranking: 6]
Royal Title: James II, King of Scotland Most Brutal Moment: The Black Dinner, which inspired the "Red Wedding" on Game of Thrones. A young James II and his guardians were frustrated with the Douglas family, one of the most powerful noble clans in Scotland, usurping much of his power. So Lord Crichton, guardian of Edinburgh Castle, invited a bunch of the royal enemies - mostly from the Black Douglas branch of the titular family - to a dinner on November 24, 1440. After dinner, quite a few nobles were killed. Needless to say, the relationship between the king and the nobles didn't improve after that.
Henry VIII of England
[ranking: 7]
Royal Title: Henry VIII, King of England and Defender of the Faith Most Brutal Moment: Arguably still a medieval monarch on the edge of the Renaissance, Henry VIII did some pretty awful things. Probably his worst misdeed was engineering the deaths of two of his six wives (Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard). Henry burned a number of "heretics" at the stake, including his own friend Sir Thomas More. Although Henry himself didn't lead his forces at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, this conflict was a tragedy for the invading Scots - including Henry's own brother-in-law, James IV, who died there - and ten thousand of their men. By this time, his bloodthirsty ways had truly become a family affair.
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Æthelred the Unready
[ranking: 8]
Andronikos I Komnenos
[ranking: 9]
Royal Title: Andronikos I Komnenos, Emperor of Byzantium Most Brutal Moment: Capitalizing on internal chaos and inciting the Massacre of the Latins. In the latter half of the twelfth century, forces in Byzantium were split down two lines, between Empress Dowager Maria of Antioch and their arch-rival, Andronikos Komnenos. When Andronikos entered Byzantium, he encouraged problems between two other camps - the Catholics (a.k.a. "Latins") and the Eastern Orthodox - in the city. As a result, tension erupted in 1182, which resulted in a wholesale massacre of the Catholic faction; up to 60,000 died in the resulting conflagration.
John of England
[ranking: 10]
Royal Title: John, King of England Most Brutal Moment: Shall we count the ways? The youngest son of the famously energetic King Henry II and his Crusading, duchy-ruling bride, Eleanor of Aquitaine, John lived up to neither of his parents' legacies. Although the English did get the Magna Carta from him, John wasn't a fan of his subjects: He locked 22 knights in a castle and starved them to death. John also betrayed his older brother, King Richard the Lionheart, who was on a Crusade, by rebelling against him. John may also have arranged the murder of his nephew Arthur of Brittany. Finally, he made an enemy of one of his French vassals by stealing the man's bride-to-be!
Edward I of England
[ranking: 11]
Royal Title: Edward I, King of England, a.k.a. "Longshanks" for his height (he was six feet, two inches). Most Brutal Moment: Putting his enemies' relatives in cages and hanging them in castle towers. Edward I of England was also called "Hammer of the Scots" for his decisive victories against his northern neighbors, and he wasn't keen on Scotland getting its independence. So when Robert the Bruce decided he was the rightful king of Scots and struck out on his own, Edward struck back, taking his female relatives and close friends prisoner.
Bruce's sister Mary and close friend Isabel, countess of Buchan, were both imprisoned in cages, which were then placed in castle turrets in England. Bruce's own daughter, Marjorie, was initially kept in a cage in the Tower of London before being sent to a convent.
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Robert II of France
[ranking: 12]
Royal Title: Robert II, King of France (a.k.a. the Franks) Most Brutal Moment: Perhaps the first monarch to burn heretics, Robert II was called "the Pious," but he might as well have been dubbed "the Brutal." In 1022, Robert ordered several individuals burned alive in the city of Orléans. These "heretics," hunted out by an undercover spy, supposedly belonged to an orgy-obsessed cult that worshipped demons and killed babies. Robert naturally had them burned alive.
Charlemagne
[ranking: 13]
Royal Title: Charles the Great, Holy Roman Emperor, King of the Franks Most Brutal Moment: Charlemagne was constantly at war, but his most brutal moment came at the Massacre of Verden in 782. The Royal Frankish Annals record Charles slaughtering 4,500 pagan Saxons after their nobles refused to hand over their war leader, Widukind. Charlemagne's forces, including some of his best men, had previously lost the Battle of Süntel to Widukind and his men. As the story goes, Charlemagne retaliated by killing thousands of Saxon men, all in one day. It's worth noting that Widukind escaped, though he surrendered and converted to Christianity three years later.
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Doña Isabel de Castilla I, Queen Isabella I
[ranking: 14]
Royal Title: Isabella I, Queen of Castile and Aragon Most Brutal Moment: Along with her husband Ferdinand, Isabella brought about the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition, completed the Reconquista (expelling Jews and Moors in the process), and sent out explorers like Christopher Columbus to conquer the "New World." Only officially ended in the nineteenth century, the Inquisition force-converted and exiled hundred of thousands of non-Christians, fostering vitriol and racism for centuries. Together, Isabella and Ferdinand were known as the "Catholic Monarchs." In forcibly unifying Spain under one religion, this mad marital match made the Church a huge presence in their country for centuries to come.
William the Conqueror
[ranking: 15]
Royal Title: William I, King of England, Duke of Normandy Most Brutal Moment: A fierce warrior and the first Norman king of England, William the Conqueror made his name by taking Albion at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. But he had quite the reputation already as duke of Normandy in France... and as an abuser. When William sought the hand of a particularly high-born woman, named Mathilda, she rebuffed him, saying she was too good for a bastard; legend has it that he dragged her around by her hair until she agreed to marry him. As the illegitimate son and young heir of Duke Robert I, William faced assassination attempts and coups from an early age, but he turned that into motivation to consolidate his own power. William crushed multiple rebellions in Normandy, then turned to England. Perhaps as many as 10,000 men, both Saxon and Norman, died at the Battle of Hastings, and William kept a tight grip on his conquests from then on.
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