10 Maddest People Ever To Be In Charge Of A Country

10. Erik XIV Of Sweden Killed People At Random

Erik XIV was at one point considered a potential suitor for Elizabeth I, so Lizzie dodged a bit of a bullet there. He started out intelligent and artistic but descended into a depth of madness rarely reached in the annals of monarchical insanity.

An early sign of Erik's madness came when he murdered five nobles accused of conspiring against him, mainly because an astrologer had told him they were up to something. Erik stabbed one of them to death in person and ordered everyone else executed, including his personal tutor who tried to calm Erik down.

It only got worse from there. Erik would wander the castle with a sword looking for people to stab, and would kill particularly good-looking courtiers on the grounds they must be trying to seduce the ladies of the court.

A violent, murderous and insatiable psychopath, Erik's rage was such that he was eventually brought to trial and deposed by the nobles who both opposed him politically, and were terrified of him because he wanted to kill them all.

Erik was kept prisoner in a series of castles and almost certainly killed by arsenic poisoning to eliminate any chance he might return to the throne.