Russian Tsar Ivan IV is known all over the world as Ivan the Terrible. There are dire rumors about his endless cruelty. However, in fact, if you compare him with other monarchs of that era, it turns out that he was one of the most merciful of them.
The reign of Ivan the Terrible lasted 37 years. The period of the oprichnina lasted only 7 years, and, according to various estimates, the victims of the oprichnina were from four to fifteen thousand people.
Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, once again quarreled with the Pope and took Rome by storm, annihilated 8000 inhabitants of the city in one night.
Enrique I King of Portugal (1513-1580) went down in history as a fanatical hunter for heretics and Jews: it was on his order in 1540 that the first auto-da-fe took place in Lisbon with the burning of the Jews.
Catherine de Medici, Queen and Regent of France (1519-1589) became the organizer of the mass terror against Protestants (Huguenots). It is believed that during the "Bartholomew's Night" in Paris, from 2.5 to 3 thousand Huguenots died, and about 10 thousand throughout the country.
Selim I the Terrible, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1467-1520) became famous for his incredible, even by the standards of the Ottoman conquerors, cruelty: in the first two years of his reign, his oprichniks-janissaries executed more than 40 thousand people.
Henry VII Tudor, King of England (1457-1509) created an extraordinary tribunal called the "Star Chamber". The victims of this organization number in the thousands. Many, in order not to be subjected to sophisticated torture, committed suicide.
Henry VIII Tudor, the founder of the Church of England, launched the most brutal repression in order to force the English clergy to a new order. According to historians, during his reign in Britain, 376 monasteries were destroyed, and more than 70 thousand people were executed and burned at the stake.
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His heiress Elizabeth I (by the way, the failed bride of Ivan the Terrible), went down in history as the author of the most stringent laws against vagrancy. Under Elizabeth, "tramps were hanged in rows." In the "Code of Law" by Ivan the Terrible from 1550, the death penalty was provided only for armed robbery on the roads and the murder of victims of such robbery.
Ferdinand II King of Castile and Aragon (1479-1516) became famous as the creator of the Inquisition. In just 7 years of its work, about 8,800 people were burned at the stake, and 90,000 people were subject to confiscation of property and church punishments. 6,500 people were saved from execution by flight or death.
The Spanish Inquisition was especially brutal. According to historians, the total number of victims of the Inquisition in Europe reached 10-12 million people. However, in Russia they also fought with witches and sorcerers. The chronicle contains records that, for example, in 1227 four sorcerers were burnt in Novgorod.
Taisiya Sergeenko