Which Terrified Child Monarch Are You?

Wow, you’re an out-of-touch oddball! Which means . . . you’re Pu Yi, the last emperor of China and a puppet ruler from 1908–1912 and 1934–1945! You were raised in an isolated bubble of retainers and eunuchs, whom you’d have flogged for entertainment. You tried to escape the Imperial Palace once in your teens, but then resigned yourself to your fate, taking several wives but never consummating any of your marriages. You fled during WWII, and ended up under house arrest in the Soviet Union, then later in a Chinese prison camp. In your older years, free at last to roam the streets, you learned how to ride buses and pay for things with cash.

You’re Mary, Queen of Scots, which means you’re pretty cool . . . until somebody gets in your way. Then you DESTROY them. Named queen of Scotland as a baby, you were sent to live with your future husband (and the future king of France) Francis II when you were five years old. You married him in 1558, when you were 15, and soon added “Queen of France” to your résumé. But you really wanted to be Queen of England—and you had a legitimate claim to the throne. When Francis died, you wrote a bunch of sad poetry and moved back to Scotland. You married your asshat second cousin, and after he murdered your secretary/BFF, your manor mysteriously blew up with him inside. You immediately married a handsome lord, causing a civil war and forcing your abdication. Then you moved to England and plotted to take the throne from your cousin Elizabeth I, who eventually had you executed.

Well this is a bummer, you’re Ivan VI of Russia. Named emperor as a baby in 1740, you were deposed a year later and nearly all record of your rule was destroyed by the new Empress Elizabeth. You were jailed in a windowless cell for pretty much your entire life, and your only human contact was with prison guards. You grew up emotionally and intellectually stunted and, by some accounts, insane. At age 23, a group of loyalists tried to help you escape, but your prison guards stabbed you to death first.

Gold everywhere, baby . . . you’re Tutankhamun, aka. King Tut! You’re the rare exception—a boy king who was actually a pretty decent ruler. You took the throne of Egypt at age 8 after your father’s death, and you (probably at your advisors’ suggestion) repealed your dad’s culty laws and restored traditional religious practices. You married your half-sister, which sounds icky, but was normal at the time. You were a big outdoorsman and a patron of the arts, but you died suddenly before you turned 20. No one knows why. The next pharaoh, Ay, erased your name from all records, turning you into a celebrity in 1922 when your tomb was discovered by British archaeologists.

Kind-hearted but a little odd, you’re Henry VI, 15th-century king of England and France! Named king as a baby, you led a quiet childhood until age 8, when you were coronated in two over-the-top ceremonies in England and France. You mostly lived in seclusion with your nurses and tutors until the 1430s, when you begrudgingly began to accept your kingly duties. To the dismay of your court, you insisted upon dressing more like a farmer than a king. And you were really, really obsessed with religion—even by 1400s standards. After a severe mental illness (maybe schizophrenia) you were unable to rule, setting off the violent scuffle for the throne known as the War of the Roses. You returned briefly as a puppet king in 1470, but you were soon imprisoned in the Tower of London and probably murdered.