Kings and Idiots

Sometimes kooky people get to run a country. Good example: Henry of Richmond who became the first Tudor king of England as Henry VII. Thanks to Tudor apologists, most notably Shakespeare and John Morton, we have been given the picture of Richard III as a demented and relentlessly self-absorbed and deformed bungler of power from whom the nation was spared by the exploits of Henry.  Richard of York, this object of disdain, was rather a man of honorable conduct and courage in battle who had integrity and administrative skills beyond what kings often have had. And he did not have that withered arm. Henry, on the other hand, that bizarre interloper, was simply weird. He once pitted 4 mastiffs against a lion, and then hanged the victorious dogs for treason because they dared defeat a lion, the symbol of royalty. (Under his predecessor’s historic Plantagenet family, the royal symbol had been the leopard.)

Modern times are no different. There have been many examples. Idi Amin comes to mind, of course.  Oops.  I meant to say “His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.” And then there is Kim Jong Un, dictator of North Korea. His family is invincible, you know. Something about a special bloodline?  Well, maybe not…..last week his Kim Jong Nam, half brother of the “Dear Leader, who is a perfect incarnation of the appearance that a leader should have”, to choose only one of that illustrious person’s titles, was apparently killed in Malaysia by a nerve toxin so deadly that it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction. Maybe that bloodline IS so strong that a weapon of mass destruction had to be chosen, and perhaps now the dead brother may serve as a weapon of mass distraction.