Ies and top pops whose exploits have gone down in legend

YES, Rasputin the “Mad Monk”. History has him accused of all sorts of monk-ey business. Seen by Tsar Nicholas II as a healer for his haemophiliac son Alexei, he was seen by others as a charlatan. After his awful assassination he was accused of THOMAS More, the counsellor to Henry VIII, refused to support the king in his split from the Catholic Church. Henry didn’t want to execute his dear old mate More, but sometimes a psychopath’s gotta do what a psychopath’s gotta do and Thomas went to the block. naughtiness with a nun and dreadful debauchery. It was down to his daughter, Maria, to try to rescue his reputation. Maria escaped Russia a few years after her father’s death and became a dancer, a cookbook author and a lion tamer. (No, honestly.) Tom More became Tom No-More.

Thomas had been a good father to his three daughters and his oldest, Margaret Roper, visited him in the Tower.

After the execution, his head was stuck on a pike at London Bridge for a month. Margaret bribed the man who had been told to throw her father’s head into the Thames River. She pickled it, and after she died her husband had Tom’s head buried with his body.

So, daughters, do your duty and pickle your dad’s head. PHILIP II of Macedon was a ruthless warrior. He once drowned 3,000 enemy prisoners of war rather than keep them captive. No Geneva Convention flim-flam for foul Phil. Then he made the mistake of going to the theatre where he was assassinated (a bit like Abraham Lincoln but without the stovepipe hat). It’s hard to feel sorry for him.

The assassin (his own bodyguard) was killed and his corpse crucified. He was in no fit state to say who was behind the plot. Many historians think the man who ordered this contract killing was Phil’s own son – Alexander the Great. Patricidal Alex made Phil a god, just to show he cared.

Of course Alex went on to conquer the world – with lessons in cruelty learned from dear old dead dad. But Alex was a fast-living, hard-drinking man. At the age of 32 Alex drank too much wine and that helped send him to join his dad-god in Greek heaven. Sort of Alexander the Grape. ANOTHER killer kid was Alexei, the son of Peter the Great. Peter had plenty of practice at fatherhood as he had 14 children with his two wives. But they were a dysfunctional family. Peter’s half-sister (Sophia) headed a rebellion – Peter had the rebels tortured, executed and put on public display. Sophia was packed off to a convent. Then his son Alexei seemed to be part of a plot while he was overseas. Peter said: “Come home, son, and I’ll not punish you.” Alexei returned and confessed to a plot against his father – he was being tortured at the time, so it’s not surprising. Peter wouldn’t want to execute his own son so Alexei did the decent thing and died in his prison cell.