Loathsome leader: Ivan IV The Terrible of Russia (1530–1584)

In fact he was so – erm – awesome that you would be disgusted by his life-story.

So I won’t tell you.

What? You still want to read it? Oh, very well.

I’ll tell you the story but I’ll leave out the gruesome bits. You can fill them in for yourself – then, if you are sick all over your rat pie and chips, you can’t blame me.⁵

You want a few clues? Oh, go on then. Here are the missing words (in the wrong order, of course):

leg, bird, soup, flea, coal, witch, temper, feather, dog, skin, scream, spider, blood, body, eye, hair, jester

Answers: dog, bird, feather, eye, spider, leg, temper, hair, blood, witch, coal, body, skin, flea, soup, jester, scream.

So what can awesome Ivan teach us about ruling?

Quite a lot.

Did you know…?

Ivan loved his new church, St Basil’s. The men who built it were rewarded – by being blinded. Ivan didn’t want them to make anything better.