Throughout our world’s long history, many women have held positions of power. Most female rulers serve their constituents with honor, dignity, and pride, and had fairly normal reigns where absolutely nobody was murdered by their hands. When most people picture a dictator, the first thought that comes to mind is usually of a strongman in military regalia.
Seldom does one picture a dictator as a woman, and for good reason. There really hasn’t been a female dictator in the modern sense of the word, but that doesn’t mean that powerful women throughout history have never ruled with an iron fist. In fact, some of the most famous female rulers in history have committed cruelties on par with their male counterparts.
Here are the top 10 cruelest female rulers in history.
1. Elizabeth Bathory
Countess Elizabeth Bathory was a Hungarian noblewoman. Elizabeth Bathory Transylvanian countess born in Transylvania, was well known for being a serial slayer. When it came to her favorite hobby of ending people’s lives, she preferred the plebeian class, opting to punch down by offing servants and peasants for years. Her sweet husband even gifted her a torment chamber in her castle.
Men do know the way to a woman’s heart is a well-designed room. All of that craziness apparently made a girl hungry, because Countess Bathory developed an appetite for human flesh. She would take little nibbles here and there off of her victims while they were still alive. If she ate them while they were dead, that would be gross.
It’s rumored she once forced one of her victims to cook and eat a part of themselves – very Hannibal Lecter. In 1611, the countess was finally brought to trial and convicted on 80 counts, which, to be fair, does make it hard for her to do her very favorite thing in the world – kill people. Elizabeth died in that very castle in 1614.
2. Wu Zetian
Only one woman ever held supreme power in the long history of China. This woman was a no-nonsense badass who had a problematic homicidal streak. Empress Wu Zetian’s reign was riddled with stories She had members of the Tang dynasty taken out, and even slaughtered members of her own family in order to keep her power.
One particularly alarming story is that the empress took out her own mother, and after they were openly critical of their homicidal grandma, Wu ordered her two grandchildren to take their own lives. Nobody could ever accuse Empress Wu of not being an ambitious woman, if not an ineffective leader and a pretty horrible grandmother.
3. Irene of Athens
Irene served as the queen regent with her young son, Constantine, whose reign began when he was only nine years old. Normally, in the Byzantine monarchy, an emperor would take sole possession of his throne at the mature age of 16. But Irene was not having that. She remained in power over her son before unwillingly ceding power after her son banished her from the kingdom when he was 19.
This was after she executed seven of his generals and tossed her own kid into jail. Once Constantine’s reign began, it became clear he was an ineffective and deeply unpopular leader, causing him to eventually crawl back to his mother for help. They were able to co-rule for five years before Irene’s thirst for total power became insatiable, and with the help of her political allies, she led a rebellion against her son.
One day, when Constantine was out riding, his mother detained and blinded him, gouging his eyes out in the very same room where he was born. Constantine would succumb to his injuries, and Irene of Athens would become the sole leader for the next five years before she was exiled to Lesbos, where she died a year later.
4. Bloody Mary
Mary I was a Catholic queen in a Protestant country, who ascended to the throne of England in 1553. For five years, her reign of terror saw the execution of Protestants at an alarming rate. She waged a war, executing hundreds and burning over 300 Protestants at the stake for heresy. The people of England were not here for this, and her legacy was defined by these startling acts of cruelty. Her reign as Queen Crazy only lasted, thankfully, for five years.
5. Isabella I of Castile
Queen Isabella co-ruled Spain with King Ferdinand II from 1451 to 1504 and used her power as co-leader to do what bad queens do best – religious persecution. The Spanish Inquisition, a horribly brutal period in Spain, began under her watch and with a lot of her encouragement. Spanish Jews and Muslims were expelled from the kingdom under her guidance.
She was a sponsor of Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the New World the same year that she wildly decreed all citizens who were Jewish must convert to Catholicism or get the hell out of Spain. Jews from around the nation were brought to the Spanish courts to pledge their faith to Catholicism or die right there, in front of everybody, on the spot.
6. Fredegund of Soissons
Fredegund of Soissons was queen consort to King Chilperic I, ruler of Soissons, a commune in France. She had to jump through some hoops and take out a woman or two in order to win the heart of her beloved king. Chilperic was married to Audovera, whom he left upon Fredegund’s encouragement, and married his second wife, Galswintha. But a separation wasn’t quite enough for Fredegund. She convinced the king to slay his second wife, and he just sort of rolled with it.
Galswintha’s sister, Brunhilda, was understandably not thrilled with the decision to off her sister. Brunhilda was the wife of Sigebert I, King of Austrasia, making her a queen herself, and setting up a queen rivalry between the two, with one clearly having the bigger argument for being the angriest. Righteousness wasn’t enough to win this battle royale, and it was Fredegund who ordered the successful assassination of Sigebert at the very moment he was about to take power from Chilperic, his half-brother.
7. Olga of Kiev
Princess Olga of Kiev’s journey is a real roller coaster. She was the first Ukrainian princess and the first female ruler of Russia, becoming queen regent in 945 CE after her husband Igor, of course, was murdered. Since their son was too young to rule, Princess Olga stepped up to the plate and proceeded to lose her mind. Her first act as ruler was sweet, sweet revenge for her beloved Igor, finding the men who whacked her husband and returning the favor using scalding water. She boiled them alive. Olga’s mean streak wasn’t over, because Olga still had people to burn.
She ordered hundreds of people from the boiled men’s tribes to also be taken out in retribution. Olga straight up buried the tribe leaders alive while trying to burn down the entire town. Next, she tricked the other tribe leaders, who clearly misread this entire situation, and invited them to a retreat. These gullible dummies were lured, and then locked into a bathhouse. And then, the whole thing was burnt to the ground. Olga eventually rediscovered her Orthodox Christianity shortly after and was later the first person of Russian heritage to receive sainthood from the Orthodox Church.
8. Agrippina the Younger
Agrippina the Younger was the first Empress of Rome, who spent the duration of her early years trying to depose her predecessors. Agrippina believed she and her son were rightful heirs to the throne by birth. She manipulated her uncle, Claudius the Roman emperor, to change the laws of Rome, as well as the laws of nature and society, so she and her uncle could marry. Soon after, Claudius died, and his demise was seen as being just a little suspicious.
With Claudius out of the picture, Agrippina and her son Nero ruled Rome from 49 to 54 CE. Nero would eventually tire of his mother’s controlling nature and manipulation and forced her out. Not to be deterred, Agrippina, a big fan of power and not of normal family relationships, tried to organize a coup against him, which backfired tremendously when a still-in-power Nero had her expelled.
9. Elizabeth I of England
After Bloody Mary passed away from possible uterine or ovarian cancer, her half-sister Elizabeth succeeded her on the English throne. With Elizabeth as queen, things were going to change around England, as the old ways of oppression for England’s Protestants would move over in favor of oppressing a different religious group – those bloody Catholics.
Under Queen Elizabeth, the Catholic Church of England was legally abolished, which seems like an overcorrection. It was replaced by a new church with the English monarch at the head, and all support for Catholicism was illegal. Catholics could have their property seized, their bodies beaten and imprisoned, and in some cases, even executed.
10. Catherine the Great
Catherine the Great was a meager German princess when she traveled to Russia. Little did Russia know she would rule them all. Catherine married Tsar Peter III, a real dud of a leader in Russia, according to the Orthodox Church that hated him, and his own wife, whose pet name for him was feeble-minded drunkard. Catherine started an extramarital affair with Count Grigory Orlov.
The two of them concocted a plot with the military to overthrow her husband. This cunning Catherine didn’t do this from the sidelines. She got extremely involved. A talented horseback rider herself, she personally led 14,000 soldiers to dispose of the tsar. After the victory, she dressed in a man’s uniform and declared herself the Empress of Russia.
