Farouk of Egypt

Farouk came to the throne of Egypt at sixteen genuinely popular and left it at thirty-two on a yacht, having become the symbol of everything the officers who removed him despised. He was the son of Fuad I, educated partly in England, and succeeded in 1936, the year of the treaty that reduced but did not end the British presence. His authority was broken in February 1942, when British tanks surrounded the Abdeen Palace and the ambassador presented him with an ultimatum to appoint a Wafd government or abdicate; he signed, and the humiliation was watched by the junior officers who later overthrew him, Nasser among them. He grew enormously fat, gambled, collected - stamps, coins, watches, cars, and pornography - and the press abroad wrote about little else. The 1948 war against the new state of Israel was fought with defective equipment bought through contracts that enriched people around the court, and the scandal did more damage to the monarchy than the defeat. Cairo burned in January 1952 in riots the government could not control. In July the Free Officers moved; he was allowed to abdicate in favour of his infant son and sailed from Alexandria with a salute fired in his honour. He lived in Italy for thirteen years and died at a restaurant table in Rome at forty-five. He is credited, probably wrongly, with saying that in time there would be only five kings left: England, and the four in a pack of cards. He was a compulsive collector and the auction of his possessions in 1954 took seventeen days. He was stripped of Egyptian nationality in 1959 and took Monegasque citizenship. His infant son reigned nominally as Fuad II for eleven months before Egypt was declared a republic.

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