Manuel VIII Comnenus

Emperor Manuel VIII Comnenus
Birth 29 March 1772 Accession 26 July 1801 Death 29 October 1810 Titles By the Grace of God, Emperor of Pantocratoria, Autocrator of the Romans, Caesar Augustus, Equal of the Apostles, God's Vicegerent on Earth, the Most Pious, Sebastocrator, King of Kings Ruling over those who Rule, Porphyrogenitus, Grand Master of the Order of the Pantocrator

His Imperial Majesty Emperor Manuel VIII was the eldest of Emperor Manuel VII's two sons. He grew up in the lap of luxury at Chantouillet, his father's favourite palace, and didn't prove to be an attentive student, neglecting his studies to the extent that by the time he ascended the throne, he was referred to as "le Prince faible" (the dim Prince). Even his father referred to him as "mon fils l'idiot charitable" (my son the good-hearted fool), and the young man displayed little interest in anything, not even his gorgeous wife, Alice de Chantouillet (who was rumoured to be the mistress of Manuel VII's winter years).

His lack of interest in almost everything continued when he came to the throne after the death of his father in 1810. Emperor Manuel VIII handed over most of the actual governing of Pantocratoria to his brother, Prince Constantine, who said of his elder brother's decision: "He may not speak Greek, or know a word of Latin, the works of the philosophers and great minds may be foreign to him, mathematics and the sciences may not suit his demeanour, and the finer points of art and music may be utterly alien to him, but still; he has demonstrated by this action that he is the wisest crowned head alive!". Despite Constantine's opinion of his abilities, he was hardly spectacular ruling in his brother's place, especially after the death of his beloved wife and cousin, Constance, who died giving birth to Theodora. When he died in 1803, Manuel VIII was all too happy to leave the government of Pantocratoria to the Imperial Parliament.

It became clear shortly after Constantine's death that the young Theodora would succeed Manuel VIII as Emperor, and she was spirited away from Chantouillet to the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator and placed into the strict hands of her tutors. Although he had been married to Alice de Chantouillet for ten years, she had never once been pregnant, and much to the Empress' humiliation, her bed chamber attendants spread the rumour that the Emperor had never actually consummated his marriage. The suggestion was that the Emperor didn't understand what it was he was supposed to do. The Empress even risked taking a lover to try to produce an heir - she was discovered and her lover executed, but the Emperor didn't seem to understand his wife's offence, and so she went unpunished. The humiliated Empress gave up on her simple-minded husband, and the scandal demonstrated that the Emperor wasn't going to produce an heir of his own. He became an irrelevancy, far away from the capital in his palace of pleasure; the centre of Pantocratorian politics shifted away from him to his young niece Theodora, her chief custodian Constantine Phocas, and the exiled King Louis XVII of France.

The irrelevant Emperor died choking on a peacock bone at dinner whilst visiting his niece at the Imperial Court of Christ Pantocrator in 1810. There appears to be an element of truth in the pamphlets which circulated around New Rome in the days following his death, which suggested that Constantine Phocas stopped anybody from helping the Emperor dislodge the bone.