[jason taylor]

Probably the least believable is the "philosopher-king". Though there have been Kings who were pretty good, or at least reasonably handy philosophers, (Alfred comes to mind) the realities of Kingship make it rather difficult to reconcile. At that Alfred, to a large degree was using scholarship as an operating tool to give birth to an infant civilization which is a Kingly task as well as a philosophical. Loving knowledge is all very well for a King but "intelligence" is more important than generic "knowledge" (the government of Britain would care more about the fact that Kim Philby is a traitor than the fact that Francis Bacon did not write the works of Shakespeare). Living a simple life is just not what Kings do unless they are required to slum it on a military campaign. While a King can go overboard on ostentation, a simple life is just not kingly and those kings who pretend to it are posing anyway which is not very simple.