“The Great” tends to be appended only when there are lesser monarchs of the same name in the same country. Elizabeth was the only ruling English monarch of that name for over three hundred years. Catherine the Great, on the other hand, was Catherine II of Russia. Are there any cases of a monarch being called “the Great” who didn’t have namesakes in the same country?
It wouldn’t have been necessary to give Elizabeth I a distinguishing sobriquet until 1953. Of course, to start calling her “the Great” at that point would imply that Elizabeth II was “the Lesser,” which would be rather insulting to a monarch who was just starting her rule. Maybe in a few hundred years people will start referring to Elizabeth I as “the Great.”
Terrible wasn’t a bad thing, it meant something like “mighty” or “will make you cower in terror because he’s so awesome.” Of course, it didn’t help that he had a murderous secret police to bolster his government and earn the sobriquet.
Unready was a mistranslation of unræd apparently. It’s still not a very positive nickname.
Edward, the Black Prince sounds scary, although he didn’t have a bad reputation, except perhaps to his enemies. I don’t know if we know the origin of this name.
We also have Philip IV, who was “the Fair.” It certainly wasn’t given because he slandered the Templars and had them murdered in order to steal their coffers, or because he oppressed the Jews. It was because of his appearance. He did have relations with the Mongols, although Genghis was dead by then.
Precisely. He could just as easily have been dubbed “the Awful”, “the Dreadful”, “the Atrocious” or “the Appalling”
As in “someone who inspires awe”, “someone who inspires fear”, “someone heinous/who commits atrocities” and “someone who makes you grow pale (with fright)” respectively. Funny how the meaning of words shifts, innit ?
That one’s clearer in the original French, where he’s called Philippe le Bel. “Bel” being a dated form of the adjective “beau”, which you can recognize as coming from the same Latin root as “beautiful”.
Ethelred Unraed very loosely translates as something like Wiseman the Foolish (more literally Noble Counsel-No Counsel), so while it has nothing to do with him being unprepared it was not complimentary.
Seeing as Ghengis sounds like a disease (sorry, you have Ghengis, we’ll have to amputate your leg) I’m starting a movement for calling him The Khanster.
As for Alexander the Great, he brought ringneck parrots to Europe. As a longtime owner of ringnecks, I’m still not certain how great he was.