Being a royal might sound like fun, but it's
not all jewels and feasts. Some royals have to deal with jealous family
members, wars, and even disappearances that history still can't explain. These royals mysteriously vanished, and they
probably won't be showing up anytime soon. As far as Byzantine emperors go, Constantine
XI's life was kind of rough. According to historians, when Constantine
came to the throne he pretty much knew that his life was going to be a series of battles. He knew he'd have to fight the Turks and he
was pretty sure his empire would eventually collapse. Imagine if you spent your days never making
any progress and eventually dying in the line of duty. You'd probably take a pass on the whole ruling
an empire thing. The last time anyone saw Constantine was at
the fall of Constantinople. He pretty much knew he'd lost the battle,
so he jumped into the fray along with all his common soldiers. As for what happened next, stories differ. In some versions he avoided capture by asking
one of his soldiers to kill him. In others, he escaped by boat. But since Constantine threw his royal emblems
aside when he leaped into battle, it seems most likely that he just died along with the
other common soldiers. Legend says Rome was founded by twin brothers
Romulus and Remus, who were raised by a she-wolf after their uncle tried to have them killed. The story goes that in 753 BC the brothers
started Rome, and then Romulus ruled it for nearly 40 years. One day, Romulus went down to the temple of
Vulcan to talk to some senators and promptly disappeared. There are a couple different versions of this
story. In one, a cloud engulfs him and he's just
never seen again. That's super dramatic and cool, but it also
really doesn't seem very likely. In another version of the story, a solar eclipse
comes along and when it's gone, so is Romulus. That one doesn't seem likely, either, since
we had an eclipse in 2017 and it totally failed to take out any world leaders. Romulus was most likely just assassinated
by the senators, who then made up the cloud story. What finally ended the debate back in ancient
Rome was the sworn testimony of Julius Proculus. Julius said that when he last saw Romulus,
Rome's co-founder told him he'd actually been a god all along and he was going back to the
heavens. The Romans figured that was plausible, and
it was settled. Royal succession in the old days was supposed
to be pretty simple. The King has a prince, the prince becomes
king, and then the new king makes more princes. But what happens when the king doesn't have
any sons? For some reason, no one ever seemed to settle
on the absolute rules of succession, therefore a bunch of people usually had to die. "Are you ready for a war?!" "Yeah!" This kind of thing happened in 1190 AD, when
the childless King Richard I of England decided to make his nephew Arthur, Duke of Brittany,
heir to the throne. Then Richard went off to Crusade and died
on his way back. In his brother's absence, Richard's younger
brother John decided he'd love to be King. Arthur, only 12 years old at the time, wasn't
cool with that. Naturally, this meant war. John defeated Arthur and for a while it looked
like he planned to spare his nephew's life. Then, in 1203, Arthur disappeared. One story goes that John killed him with his
bare hands when the boy said something snarky. In another, it was Arthur's jailers who killed
him, mostly because John told them to. Either way, John certainly had something to
gain from killing his rival. As with a lot of historical mysteries, though,
we might never solve the whodunit. No one in Archduke Johann [YO-hahn] Salvator's
family really approved of him. The Archduke was always going on about how
bad the Austrian educational system was and talking smack about the military. His family wasn't all that impressed with
his liberal way of thinking, and Johann didn't seem too impressed with their lifestyles either. Johann didn't really care for the whole royal
thing, and in the late 1880s he gave up his title and married a dancer. This was extra-scandalous at the time because
royals were only ever supposed to marry other royals. Not long afterward, Johann got a captain's
commission and purchased a cargo steamer, with the intent to travel to South America. Johann and his wife were last seen at Cape
Tres Puntas on July 12, 1890. Conventional wisdom says their ship probably
sunk during a storm off Cape Horn, but with no witnesses there's really no way to know
for sure. Still, Johann wasn't actually declared dead
for more than two decades. Rumors that he lived under an assumed identity
in Norway and thus has heirs that can claim his lands have persisted ever since. By the time Julius Caesar came to power, it
was fairly well established that the Romans' purpose was mainly just to crush enemies and
dominate the world. So Caesar did what was expected of him. He conquered nations and championed the Roman
way of life. One of the first territories on his list was
Belgica, where modern Belgium is today. Caesar introduced himself to the region by
conquering them and selling a bunch of them into slavery. A few years later, he sent his legions into
the region to establish winter quarters and got his butt kicked by a tribe called the
Eburones, led by a king named Ambiorix. Within a year, Caesar and his legions had
put down the uprising for good. But after his last stand, Ambiorix was seen
running off into the forest with some guards and was never heard from again. According to legend, his people resettled
among the German tribes. As far as history remembers, the Romans never
did track him down. Today the Belgians consider him a national
hero. Cleopatra gets a lot of love, but her children
are hardly ever mentioned. She had four of them, but when Octavian defeated
her in 31 B.C., she famoously committed suicide - leaving the kids to fend for themselves. Octavian had Cleopatra's oldest son murdered,
so that was that. Then he took the younger kids, Alexander Helios
and Ptolemy Philadelphus to Rome. He spared their lives, but still paraded them
around the city in golden chains. After that, the kids were sent to live with
Octavian's sister. Then, as far as history is concerned, the
two boys sort of fall off the face of the earth. We know that Cleopatra's daughter went on
to become a queen in her own right, but no one knows what happened to the boys. Hereward was kind of the black sheep of the
family. His father exiled him from England when he
was 18, which was the medieval version of kicking your kid out of the house for obnoxious
behavior. For a while he worked as a mercenary soldier,
and then he heard about the Norman conquest of 1066 and figured he'd better go back home. When he arrived, he found that his family
had been murdered and their lands had been given to some random Norman guy. After that he sort of lost it. With the help of just one follower, he killed
14 Normans and then went on to lead a rebellion against William the Conqueror. William was concerned enough about Hereward
that he enlisted the help of a witch, which seems pretty extreme for a Christian king. In the end, the Normans were able to defeat
Hereward by bribing someone to help them get across the marshes where he was hiding. No one knows what happened to Hereward after
that. Some stories say that William eventually pardoned
him, which really seems pretty unlikely. Other stories say he lived as an outlaw until
he was killed by the Normans. Either way, things didn't exactly turn out
great for his cause. William remained king, England remained Norman,
and that random Norman guy still had all his land. Today the eldest son of the king or queen
of England holds the title "Prince of Wales," but once upon a time there was an actual Prince
of Wales and he was actually Welsh. The kings of England almost universally did
not like the fact that the Welsh were running around Wales being independent. In 1282, Edward I finally put a stop to that,
taking down the last Prince of Wales. The Welsh never really got over this, and
100 years later a soldier named Owain Glyndwr decided to start a rebellion. The people of Wales got behind Owain and abandoned
their universities, farms, and even their places in the English army to join him. By 1400 he'd reclaimed the title "Prince of
Wales," but the Welsh never did have a whole lot of luck against the English. It was all sort of destined to fall apart. In 1406 he lost the battle of Pwll Melyn and
by 1410 he was an outlaw. Most outlaws are caught eventually, but not
Owain. No one ever gave up his hiding place, and
he probably died in peace and relative safety. He lives on in his banner, which the Welsh
like to fly when they want to annoy the English. Sebastian of Portugal was a religious fanatic
and heir to the throne of Portugal. He was educated by the Jesuits and believed
that it was his destiny to take down the Muslims. Destiny aside, Portugal was not exactly keen
on starting a deadly war. That changed when Sebastian took power in
1568. Ten years later, he was ready to lead an army
to Morocco, where. It turned out his fellow countrymen were right
to worry about the war, and so ended Sebastian of Portugal ... mostly. History doesn't remember what happened to
Sebastian after his defeat in Morocco. It's likely he died in battle, but when history
is vague there are always people who want to fill in the blanks. Four different people tried to impersonate
Sebastian of Portugal between 1584 and 1598, and after that people just hoped he'd come
back someday. That hope gave rise to an entire messianic
faith called Sebastianism. The followers of this faith believed that
Sebastian would one day return and so far, they're still waiting. Nefertiti was married to the Pharaoh Akhenaten,
and she ended up quite a bit more famous than him. She had so much political power, in fact,
that experts say she's depicted in ancient reliefs about twice as often as her husband. He didn't seem to really mind, though. After his death he had her image carved into
the four corners of his sarcophagus so she could protect his mummy, which basically meant
he considered her a god. Despite this popularity, Nefertiti disappeared
from the historical record about 16 years into her husband's reign just a year before
he himself died. Because historians love to speculate, there
are theories that she either died or fell out of favor. Other theories suggest she took a new name
and ruled as co-regent after her husband's death.That certainly beats living as an outlaw
or dying without fanfare, but some actual answers would be nice. Jianwen was the second emperor of the Ming
dynasty, and the guy who almost wrecked everything for future rulers. When he came to power in 1398, he was mostly
concerned with getting rid of all the other Ming princes so he could rule over everything.. During the first year of his reign he took
out several rival princes and was feeling pretty good about himself. Then he turned on his uncle, who was the prince
of Yan. His uncle said, "No, thank you," and rebelled. The war lasted four years and ended when the
Prince of Yan attacked the capital and burned down Jianwen's palace. Sadly, when Jianwen saw his uncle coming he
reportedly just hid in the palace and he apparently was still there when it all burned to the
ground. Still, there are some people who believe he
actually escaped. The truth will likely never be known. Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about royalty
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