Has there ever been a knight in history that has been given the throne of king?

Question:Im writing a story for a advance writing class, and i was thinking "has there ever been a knight in history...ever, that has been honored the throne of king and a ran a kingdom"? Does any1 know of such a tale or poem in history that involves knights and kings.

Also, i was wondering if there was ever a king who got so absorbed in his power and tried to gather a bigger empire with wars, greed and corruption or any terrible sins to get more power?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Im writing a story for a advance writing class, and i was thinking "has there ever been a knight in history...ever, that has been honored the throne of king and a ran a kingdom"? Does any1 know of such a tale or poem in history that involves knights and kings.

Also, i was wondering if there was ever a king who got so absorbed in his power and tried to gather a bigger empire with wars, greed and corruption or any terrible sins to get more power?

Knights being crowned, YES. Knighthood was a rite of arms and was usually earned. Royal princes often earned their own knighthoods in the old-fashioned way--by being a royal page, a squire, and then a knight. Princes were pretty much guaranteed knighthood anyway, but earning it got them the respect of their men.

Henry II was a knight and Count of Anjou when he married Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was 21. He became King of England later.

Now a knight errant (a younger son of a noble) has little or no chance of reaching the throne. That takes skill in battle, diplomacy, and a political machine.

Corruption of power and expansion of empire don't go hand in hand. In order to expand political power, you need the complete loyalty of your nobles. If you have personal corruption where you are abusing them and your household, you don't have that loyalty. You can do what you want to enemy captives, but it's very important not to abuse your own.

The great expansionists (Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Elizabeth I, and Napoleon) had the loyalty of their troops and did things to maintain that loyalty.

Kings and emperors who were personally corrupt and abused their own include Caligula (emperor for less than 4 years) and Nero and Commodus.

for the second - pure Shakespeare - see link

for the first one maybe William Wallace or Robert the Bruce

Wallace was only lord protector but close enough

for poems covering this take a look at Shakespeare

First question: I don't know of a good example
Second question: Plenty of monarchs abused their powers in ancient and medieval times. It is more challenging to find one who did not.

Careful with Robert the Bruce-he wasn't "honoured with the throne" he kind of fought tooth and nail for it, killing off his main opposition in a "friendly peace conference" (but don't tell anyone Scottish that, it's like reminding an American that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had lots of slaves)

Well, in the 12th century there was Guy of Lusignan, a younger son of the Lord of Lusignan in Poitou (central France) who went on crusade to Palestine in the late 1790s. While there he married the Princess Sibylla, sister of King Baldwin IV (the "Leper King") ofJerusalem. When Baldwin died Sibylla was his next heir, which meant that she became Queen and Guy - born the younger son of a tinpot minor lord of Poitou, really not anybody important at all - became King of Jerusalem.

Within a couple of years Guy had led the army of the Frankish Kingdom to total defeat against Saladin, and lost the city of Jerusalem. But his patron Richard I ("the Lionheart") gave him the kingdom of Cyprus as a booby prize and he ruled that quite successfully till his death a few years later, when his elder brother Amaury (another not-very-important knight) inherited it from him, and started a dynasty which ruled Cyprus for nearly three centuries.