A French King Thought He Was Made of Glass
Charles VI of France (1368 – 1422) started his reign auspiciously, and he became known as “Charles the Beloved”. However, that was probably because he ascended the throne at age 11, and his kingdom was governed by regents. When he came of age and took personal charge of France at age 21, things changed. By the time he died over four decades later, he had gone from “Charles the Beloved” to “Charles the Mad”.
Charles had his first bout of insanity in 1392. At age 24, he set out on a military expedition to punish a vassal who had tried to assassinate a royal friend. The king acted weird from the campaign’s start. He was in such a fever to get at the offender that his speech often became incoherent while urging preparations sped up, and once on the road, the army’s slow progress drove Charles into a frenzy.
En route, a crazy leper by the roadside started yelling at the king to halt and turn back because he had been betrayed. The leper was shooed away, but he was persistent, and kept following Charles, repeating his warnings at the top of his lungs. While that was going on, a drowsy page dropped a lance, which clanged off somebody’s helmet. Something about the noise caused the king to snap: drawing his sword, Charles charged at his retinue and started hacking and stabbing them, left and right. By the time he was restrained, he had killed at least four knights and men at arms. The king had to be returned to Paris in fetters for his own safety.
The following year, Charles got amnesia. He forgot that he was king, forgot his own name, and failed to recognize his wife. He recognized his companions and officials, but for some reason could not recognize his wife and children. As far as his wife, he might have simply tired of her, and was crazy like a fox in pretending not to recognize her. Be that as it may, things got worse in 1395, when Charles started imagining that he was Saint George.
He also imagined that he was made of glass, and grew extremely frightened of shattering if he fell or was jostled. So he attempted to avert the danger by inserting iron rods in his clothes. At other times, Charles would run wildly at top speed, in the streets or in the halls of his palace. It got so bad, that to keep him inside his Parisian residence, its entrances were bricked up. Charles the Mad kept slipping in and out of insanity until his death in 1422.