Free THE WORLD'S MOST EVIL PEOPLE (True Crime) by Rodney Castleden

the support of the Church. In return, the Church acted as a propaganda machine for the Tsar. When peasant revolts were crushed with brutal cruelty, it was never the Tsar who was behind it. The atrocities were always blamed on the excessive zeal of underlings.
    The English ambassador in Moscow, Giles Fletcher, reported when safely back in London that ‘the desperate state of things at home maketh the people for the most part to wish for some foreign invasion, which they suppose to be the only means to rid them of the heavy yoke of this tyrannous government’.
    Ivan died before that could happen. In 1581, he murdered his son and heir with a spear during a quarrel. His licentious sex life had left him riddled with disease. A British trader reported that Ivan ‘began grievously to swell in his cods, with which he had most horribly offended above fifty years, boasting of a thousand virgins he had deflowered.’ Ivan was about to play a game of chess when he collapsed and died. But even Ivan’s legacy was terrible. He had recently killed his heir, the young Ivan, and left his imbecile son Theodore on the throne. Russia was plunged again into decades of chaos, with invasions by both Poles and Swedes.
    It is by no means clear whether Ivan was consciously evil, deciding to do bad things, or unconsciously evil because he was insane. On balance, we can explain a lot of his behaviour by interpreting his personality as manic depressive. The characteristics of both sides of his personality were exaggerated by the personal freedom that came with absolute power. As with Caligula, his existing personality traits became accentuated because there was nothing to hold him back.

Murad Iv
    (1612–1640)

     
    Suleiman the Magnificent was succeeded as Sultan by his son Selim II, who was a drunkard, in spite of the Koran’s ban on alcohol. Selim II died in 1574 when he lost his footing climbing into the bath after a drinking bout, and died of a fractured skull. Selim’s son Mahomet III was the next Sultan. He killed his 19 younger brothers to ensure his own safety. Mahomet III was succeeded by his son Ahmed I, then by his imbecile brother Mustafa I, then by his grandson Osman II.
    Osman II ruled for less than a year before he was murdered in 1618. He loved archery, so long as the targets were page-boys or prisoners. During these lax and undisciplined reigns, the Ottoman Empire weakened perceptibly.
    After Osman II, the imbecile Mustafa I was briefly dragged to the throne again. Murad IV, the son of Ahmed I, succeeded as Ottoman sultan on the forced abdication of his uncle, Mustafa I. It was in 1623, at a time of widespread rebellion, defeat and instability throughout the empire, that Murad IV took over as Sultan. In the first ten years of his reign, Murad got through as many as seven viziers. The Janissaries, the special army of the Sultan, were the real power in the empire when Murad acceded. In fact it was they who had forced the previous sultan to abdicate. The Janissaries also forced Murad to dismiss his chief minister and many other officials. The last time they were able to do this was in 1632, when they entered the palace, demanding the heads of the grand vizier Hafiz Pasha and 16 other officials. The young sultan could do nothing to save them. Later, when he was stronger, Murad was able to take his revenge by having 500 of the leading Janissaries strangled in their barracks.
    This was Murad’s simple technique. Anyone who came under the slightest suspicion was executed. In one year, 1637, Murad had 25,000 of his subjects executed. He executed many of them himself. He beheaded his chief musician for playing a Persian tune. He walked the streets at night, visiting taverns. If he caught anyone smoking, he revealed who he was and executed them on the spot. On one occasion he caught one of his gardeners and his wife smoking; he had their legs amputated and showed them off in public while they bled to death. Murad spent hours exercising his