My friend Ignoto was considering the case of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. Ignoto says that Charles was pious and fat, and that he was the only emperor to resign his title. No quarrel about pious and fat. As to resign--I guess that strictly speaking, that's true: In 1556, Charles repaired to the monastery at Yuste in Extremadura, no one is quite sure why; it might have been an attack of the gout (link). But we can think of other notable instances of crowned heads who threw it all away. I'm not thinking of poor gullible Edward VIII here, who never really was ruler of anything. Or those who left on the dead run, like James II, who tossed the great seal into the Thames.
I'm thinking of the voluntary exits of bona fide rulers--someone more on the order of Queen Christiana of Sweden, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, who decamped from Stockholm to Rome where she spent 33 years in a mix of piety and high living. Or perhaps best of all, the Emperor Diocletian, who resisted entreaties that he resume his office with some kind of muttering about his cabbages.
There must be other interesting cases?
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