There have been plenty of monarchs throughout history who were crowned while they were still
children.
Ascending to the throne at such a young age is often a highly precarious position to be
in, which is abundantly clear in the cases of the most powerful royal infants in history.
After Henry V's death in 1422, his son Henry VI was crowned king of England at 9 months
old, and he would become known to history as the last king of the House of Lancaster.
Until he was old enough to actually rule, a regency council was put in place.
Once he was deemed old enough, it quickly became apparent that he wasn't going to be
the leader that England needed.
He had only a passing interest in actually governing and preferred a life of piety.
He also had an unfortunate knack for selecting the wrong advisors, which allowed rivalries
and power struggles to flourish at his court.
When England ended up losing several French territories under his watch, he saw a distinct
decline in respect for his authority.
In 1453, Henry experienced a mental breakdown, which led to Richard, the duke of York, becoming
his protector.
Henry did recover, but by that time, total civil war had broken out between the Yorks
and the Lancasters.
That was the War of the Roses, which lasted for 32 years, but for Henry, it all ended
in 1471 with his imprisonment and killing in the Tower of London.
Mary Stuart wasn't a princess for very long.
Just a few days after her birth, her father died prematurely of a mysterious illness while
he was away at war with England.
So at only six days old, Mary was crowned Queen of Scots, while her mother, Mary of
Guise, ruled as regent.
The young Mary spent most of her childhood at the court of France, her mother's homeland.
She was betrothed to France's dauphin, whom she married when she was 14.
She became the queen of France for a short time, but when her husband Francis II died
after an illness, she returned to Scotland at the age of 18.
For most of Mary's life as queen, she was pitted against her cousin, Queen Elizabeth
I of England.
Mary was Catholic, while Elizabeth was Protestant, and there was a significant Catholic faction
that believed Mary, not Elizabeth, was the rightful queen of England.
Unfortunately for Mary, she ended up on the losing side of their rivalry.
After being forced to abdicate, she fled to England seeking asylum from Elizabeth and
ended up a political prisoner for 19 years.
After Mary was implicated in a plot to overthrow Elizabeth, she was executed at the age of
44.
"Queen Lizzie, my cousin, she was really pissed at me, so she cut my head off."
France's John I, son of Louis X and Clémence of Hungary, was also known as John the Posthumous,
and for good reason.
He was crowned king upon his birth on November 5, 1316, as his father had died months earlier
at the age of 26.
But John I's reign was incredibly short and inconsequential, as he died a mere five days
after his birth and coronation.
Louis X's brother, Philip V, then ascended the throne in his place.
Some speculated that Philip might've poisoned his baby nephew or perhaps had him stolen
and replaced with a dead baby.
Nothing was ever proven, though, and Philip ruled until his own death in 1322.
But here's where the story gets even stranger.
There was an incident in 1358 in which a Florentine man named Giannino managed to convince Louis
I of Hungary, the nephew of Clemence, that he was actually the real John I.
But he ultimately didn't make any real strides towards gaining wealth or power from this
claim, as he ended up dying in jail in 1363.
Isabella II was the eldest daughter of Ferdinand VII and his wife, Maria Cristina.
When her father died in 1833, she was declared Spain's new queen when at just 3 years old.
However, her succession was a major point of conflict.
Many refused to acknowledge a female monarch, believing that Isabella's uncle Don Carlos
should rule instead.
This led to an outbreak of civil war called the Carlist Wars, with Isabella's mother and
General Baldomero Espartero at the helm acting as regents.
Isabella was ultimately declared of age to rule when she was 13.
Alas, her 25 years on the throne were plagued by political instability and violent uprisings.
And even worse for Isabella, her private life came under attack.
The public was reportedly shocked by news that she didn't live with her husband, which
led to speculation of immoral conduct.
In 1868, another uprising drove Isabella into exile in France.
She eventually officially abdicated in 1870 in favor of her eldest son, Alfonso XII.
But she wouldn't be the last child ruler in her family.
Alfonso XIII was crowned king of Spain immediately after his birth in May 1886, as his father
Alfonso XII had died six months earlier.
Until he was 16, his mother, Queen María Christina, ruled as regent.
Alfonso was said to be lively and intelligent as a child, but he was also raised in an ultra-religious
and reactionary atmosphere thanks to his overly doting mother.
This probably wasn't exactly the best preparation for Alfonso during his ruling years.
Alfonso enjoyed being in authority, but he was never particularly consistent about what
kind of government he actually supported.
He wavered between liberal and conservative systems and intervened in political matters
to influence government shifts to the point that Spain was teetering on political instability.
His popularity took a massive hit, and there was at least one assassination attempt against
him and his wife.
He managed to get Spain through World War I, but after the Socialist and Republican
parties' victories in the Spanish parliament, he was pressured to abdicate.
He never technically abdicated, though he did leave the country, spending the rest of
his life living in exile in Italy and France.
The story of Ivan VI, Russia's youngest tsar, is basically like a real-life version of The
Man In The Iron Mask.
In 1740, Ivan was crowned tsar when he was only two months old.
Since he was still a baby, his mother, Empress Anna, ruled as regent in his stead.
Little Ivan's reign didn't last very long — only a year, in fact, as his cousin Elizabeth
organized a coup against him and his mother, taking the Russian throne for herself.
Elizabeth had a hard time figuring out what to do with her deposed relatives.
She considered exiling them until it was pointed out to her that Ivan, a legitimate heir, could
be used as a pawn by the wrong people.
This meant that Elizabeth could potentially be involved with another insurrection, but
this time it would be against her.
So she decided that the safer option would be to keep her relatives in captivity in Russia,
and thus Anna and Ivan were kept in an isolated house until Anna died in 1746.
Then in 1756, Ivan was sent to a maximum-security prison usually reserved for the worst criminal
offenses.
The guards were forbidden from speaking to him.
In fact, Elizabeth wouldn't allow anyone to say his name.
After 20 years of being imprisoned in various capacities, his mental health was shattered.
He was ultimately killed by his jailers during a miscalculated attempt to free the former
child tsar.
Sobhuza II had a shockingly long reign as the king of Swaziland, over 82 years, to be
precise.
When he was only a few months old, his father died.
His mother served as regent until 1921 when Sobhuza turned 22, and he was finally installed
as a constitutional monarch.
At that time of his initial rule, Swaziland was one of Britain's High Commission territories
in southern Africa.
But Sobhuza wanted that to change.
He fought hard to win Swaziland's independence.
It took decades, but finally in 1968, Swaziland indeed became an independent nation.
The initial plan was for Swaziland to become a limited monarchy with an elected legislature.
But in 1973, Sobhuza secretly raised and equipped a private army that allowed him to take absolute
power, dissolve the legislature, and abolish political parties.
When Sobhuza died at age 82, he'd helped create a booming economy for Swaziland, and his many
marriages allowed him to cement political alliances that helped tie the country together.
At the time of his death, he had at least 70 wives and somewhere between an estimated
100 and 500 children.
"What is good for Africa, I want to keep.
But what is bad for Africa, we won't keep."
Pomare III was only 17 months old when he became king of Tahiti in 1821.
Until he was old enough to rule, his mother was in charge of governing.
Back in 1815, his father Pomare II decided to welcome Christianity in Tahiti, thereby
establishing a new, reformed kingdom with a scriptural code of law.
But after Pomare II's death, there would come new challenges to the missionary kingdom that
he'd created, and there would be conflicts around the power that the Tahitian Christian
missionaries possessed.
Young Pomare III's reign didn't last very long.
At the age of 5, he became gravely ill and died of dysentery.
He was then succeeded by another child ruler, though this one wasn't quite as young as he
was, as his 14-year-old sister ascended to the throne as Queen Pomare IV.
Her life and reign lasted much longer than her brother's, as she ruled from 1827 until
her death in 1877.
Ivan IV of Russia's grandfather was Ivan the Great.
But the Ivan IV would end up with a very different nickname, as history knows him as "Ivan the
Terrible."
He was crowned Grand Prince of Russia in 1533 at the age of 3 after his father's death.
His mother served as the regent until her death five years later, when Ivan was still
only 8.
Russia was then placed under the control of a group of aristocrats called the boyars.
The orphaned Ivan was said to have been highly intelligent and sensitive as a child, but
he was subjected to abuse by the boyars.
Once he turned 16, he reclaimed power by publicly throwing one of the ruling aristocrats to
his hunting dogs.
The boyars then dutifully gave up their power, and Ivan officially became tsar of Russia.
His 37-year reign wasn't particularly enjoyable for the Russian people.
Ivan had suffered years of child abuse, and he was subject to bouts of mental instability.
He certainly did plenty to earn his infamous moniker, as he had a murderous streak and
demanded absolute power and loyalty from those around him.
He organized a special police force to publicly execute anyone he even remotely suspected
of disloyalty.
Gripped by paranoia, he even beat his pregnant daughter-in-law, causing her to miscarry,
and he then killed his own son in a fit of rage.
By the time he died of what appeared to be a sudden stroke or heart attack, Russia was
stuck deep in political and social chaos.
Puyi, the last emperor of China, lived a strange life, which was dramatized in the 1987 film
The Last Emperor.
In 1909, he was named emperor of the Manchu Dynasty when he was only 2 years old, after
his uncle had passed away.
But he held that title for a mere three years.
In 1912, the Republic of China was established, which overthrew the imperial system and forced
Puyi to abdicate.
Although he was no longer emperor, he was allowed to live in relative luxury in Beijing
for several years.
In 1924, Puyi secretly left Beijing and relocated to Japan.
He was later installed as a puppet emperor of the Japanese-controlled Chinese province
of Manchukuo.
After World War II, he was taken prisoner by the Russians and imprisoned in Siberia
for five years until he was sent back to China to be charged and tried as a war criminal.
"What do they think they are doing?
It is dangerous!"
In 1959, Puyi received a pardon, and he lived out the rest of his days as a gardener and
researcher.
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