There are some powerful parents who made family life difficult, and then there are those who made their children’s lives unbearable, in more ways than one.
Constantine the Great
Crispus was Roman emperor Constantine the Great’s son. He’d done pretty much everything expected of him, like winning military victories and serving as Caesar. It all seemed like he’d have a major role to play in Rome’s future, but his father had other ideas.
Yes, in 326, Constantine had him arrested and executed at Pola, in modern-day Croatia. We’re not exactly sure what the charge was. One account mentions an affair involving Constantine’s wife, Fausta, as bad as that sounds, while another claims it was a political plot. Either way, Crispus was killed, and Constantine had him removed from official inscriptions.
Frederick William I
It was clear from the start that Frederick William I of Prussia didn’t have a gentle relationship with his teenage son, the future Frederick the Great. He beat his son and insulted him. He openly spoke about how he hated his son’s interests, like music and French culture.Â
It got to the point where the younger Frederick tried to flee Prussia with his friend Hans Hermann von Katte. They were caught. So, the king imprisoned him and ordered von Katte to be executed. To make it even worse, he made Frederick watch the beheading. He was that cruel.
Philip II
It happened late one night in January 1568. That was when Philip II of Spain entered his son’s bedroom with armed men, and the king took away his son’s possessions. Don Carlos’s weapons and papers, both were gone. Philip also had Carlos’s room’s windows covered.
He turned the Madrid palace into a guarded prison for his son. It wasn’t completely unjustified. Carlos had threatened people and been violent, after all. Still, imprisoning your own child is a lot.
Irene of Athens
Irene of Athens did a lot more than simply remove her son from power. Her supporters captured Emperor Constantine VI after he tried to escape Constantinople, eventually dragging him back to the imperial palace. Then they blinded him.
In fact, they did it in the same room where he’d been born, just to really rub salt into the wound. Blinding was supposed to make someone unfit to rule, although it could easily kill them. All that, just to take the throne. What an evil mother.
Tokugawa Ieyasu
Matsudaira Nobuyasu was only 21 years old when he was accused of plotting against his own father, Tokugawa Ieyasu, a Shogun of Japan. Matsudaira had apparently plotted against Tokugawa along with his mother, Lady Tsukiyama.
Historians still aren’t sure about whether he actually did it. Still, Ieyasu sent men to kill Lady Tsukiyama, and he sent his son to Futamata Castle. He told his son to die by seppuku, aka suicide, on September 15, 1579, despite Nobuyasu saying he was innocent. His father didn’t care.
Augustus
As the first emperor of Rome, Augustus loved acting like he was the guardian of Roman morals. But he was anything but. His own daughter, Julia, was accused of adultery, and Augustus used laws he’d introduced to send her into exile in 2 BC.Â
She was forced to live on a small island called Pandateria, just off the Italian coast. It wasn’t a nice place. Any visitors needed official permission, and even the men who were allowed near her had to be described to Augustus, to make sure they were okay. Augustus never forgave her.
Lord Byron
Allegra Byron was only four when her father, famous poet Lord Byron, placed her in a convent at Bagnacavallo, Italy. It was all because he wanted her raised as a Catholic. He even limited Allegra’s contact with her mother, Claire Clairmont, although she objected to the whole thing.
Allegra sent letters asking him to visit. But he never did. She spent all of 13 months in the convent before falling ill with a fever, which Byron was told about. He chose to stay away. She died at the convent at only five years old, without any family members present.
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin was hardly someone you’d expect to be a loving father. You’d be right. His son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, grew up mostly away from his father, and things didn’t get better when they were finally around each other. Yakov tried to shoot himself but failed.Â
Stalin joked that he couldn’t even shoot straight. In July 1941, German soldiers captured Yakov near Smolensk, Russia, yet Stalin didn’t seem to care. He made no effort to bring his son home. Yakov was stuck as a prisoner until he died at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Empress Dowager Cixi
Zaitian was three years old when Empress Dowager Cixi, a Chinese noblewoman, chose him to become the Guangxu Emperor. She also adopted him. This wasn’t a loving ‘mother and son’ relationship, though, because she began to dislike everything about him.Â
He’d begun backing reforms that moved far too quickly for her liking. So she decided to put him in his place. The empress took away his power and confined him at Yingtai. It was basically like jail. He stayed there for about 10 years and died in 1908 from arsenic poisoning.
Francesco Cenci
A strict father is one thing. A nightmare like Francesco Cenci is another. The Italian noble was infamous in Rome for being violent toward his family, especially his children. He had his daughter, Beatrice, kept at the family castle in Petrella Salto with her stepmother, Lucrezia.
Francesco controlled their every move. It gets worse, though, because Beatrice accused him of sexual assault, and Francesco’s family eventually plotted to kill him. They managed to do that, but they were also punished for their crimes and executed in 1599.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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