7 Notorious Sibling Rivalries Throughout History

Nobody knows how to get under your skin quite like a sibling does. For many, these squabbles typically never amount to anything beyond petty disagreements over liberally borrowed items of clothing and personal belongings. But for some families, sibling issues make their way into the history books. 

1. Commodus and Lucilla 
2. Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine 
3. The Brontë Sisters 
4. Richard the Lionheart and King John 
5. Cleopatra, Ptolemy, and Arsinoe
6. Mary I and Elizabeth I 
7. Edwin and John Wilkes Booth 

Commodus and Lucilla 

Annia Aurelia Galeria Lucilla (better known mononymously as Lucilla)—daughter of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and empress Faustina the Younger—was promised to marry her father’s co-ruler, Lucius Verus, when she was was around just 12 years old. The couple wed in 164 CE and had three children together before Verus was killed while returning from a military campaign against the Parthians in 169 CE. Much to Lucilla’s disappointment, Verus’s death robbed her of her empress title; she was soon married off to Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus, an influential Roman military commander twice her age. 

Lucilla’s father died from the Antonine Plague while leading a military campaign on the Danube frontier in 180 CE a few years after her second marriage. Following the late emperor’s passing, the Roman throne was handed to Lucilla’s younger brother, Commodus, squashing any hopes Lucilla may have held about regaining her empress title. Despite maintaining her noble status as sister of the new emperor, Lucilla resented her brother’s ascent to the throne and began plotting to have him removed. 

In 182 CE—just a couple of years into Commodus’s rule—Lucilla and a group of dissatisfied Roman senators schemed to assassinate him and regain power. Lucilla’s part in the plot was revealed to her brother after one of the coconspirators bungled the assassination attempt and was captured by Commodus’s guards. After ordering the deaths of her coconspirators, Commodus exiled Lucilla and her daughter Ummidia to Capri before ordering the pair’s execution later that same year. 

A fictionalized version of Lucilla (played by actress Connie Nielsen) appears in Ridley Scott’s 2004 film Gladiator as the former lover of Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus. Whereas the real Lucilla is said to have been an adept political operator keen to mastermind the assassination of her own brother, Scott’s fictionalized version of the Roman noblewoman paints her in a much more sympathetic, romanticized light.

You May Also Like ...

• 10 Famous Siblings Who Conquered the World
• When Your Mom Mistakenly Calls You By Your Sibling’s Name, It’s Because She Loves You
• 10 Middle Children Who Really Stood Out

Add Mental Floss as a preferred news source!

Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine 

The only pair of siblings to have both won Best Actress at the Academy Awards, actresses Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine had a lifelong, acrimonious professional and personal rivalry. Fontaine and de Havilland’s rocky relationship began from an early age, with each sister always seemingly determined to upset the other in that special way only siblings can. In her 1978 memoir No Bed of Roses, Fontaine described the sisters’ relationship as rocky from the start, stemming in large part from their mother’s favoritism of Olivia over her younger sister. Much of their early relationship resembles that of many siblings with conflicting temperaments—though a LIFE magazine article from May 1942 describes a 9-year-old Joan’s plot to kill her older sister. 

When de Havilland pursued a career as an actress in her late teens, her sister followed closely behind, much to the chagrin of her mother who’d banned Fontaine from using the family’s last name in her own career. The siblings’ rivalry remained throughout the entirety of their decades-spanning careers; it came to a head in 1942 when each sister was nominated in the same category at the Academy Awards. Fontaine ended up winning that year (and de Havilland won in 1947). 

The siblings maintained a combative relationship right up until Fontaine’s death in 2013. Even after Fontaine passed, de Havilland continued trashing her sister, continually referring to her as “Dragon Lady” and refusing to concede she’d done anything to exacerbate their feud. Fontaine had actually predicted she’d die before her elder sister, quipping, “Olivia has always said I was first at everything—I got married first, got an Academy Award first, had a child first. If I die [first], she’ll be furious, because again I’ll have got there first!”

De Havilland passed away in 2020 at the age of 104 with two Academy Awards under her belt—one more than her sister, surely to her great pleasure.

The Brontë Sisters 

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë were a trio of preternaturally talented sisters now known as the authors of some of the most influential literature of the 19th century.  The siblings were born to a working class, deeply religious family in Victorian England and each published under male pseudonyms as Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (these pen names let them maintain their actual initials). Despite their later immortalization in the literary canon, the sisters’ first publication, a collection of poetry they’d written together, hardly attracted any attention at all; it sold just a few copies. 

Yet just a year later, each sister would see the publication of their first novels: Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s Agnes Gray. Emily and Anne’s work each received comparatively modest critical and commercial success. But Charlotte’s Jane Eyre was a sensation, making her something of a literary darling while bringing the young author considerable wealth and acclaim. 

Despite her own success, Charlotte publicly criticized the subject matter and morals of Wuthering Heights, citing its dark subject matter and the experimental nature of the novel. As Charlotte critiqued the moral fiber of her sister Emily’s work, she largely dismissed Anne’s, often supporting its publication but not providing her youngest sister’s work with any serious praise. 

Following the death of Emily in 1848 and Anne in 1849, Charlotte overtook management of her sisters’ literary estates, where she continued to downplay Anne’s talents as a writer and regarded Emily’s work with both admiration and dismissal. Though Charlotte could be prone to regarding her sisters’ work with a sometimes harsh critical eye, her maintenance of their estate and continued support of their work’s publication helped cement her younger sisters as some of the most influential writers of their time.

Richard the Lionheart and King John 

Sons of King Henry II of England and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionheart and his younger brother John shared a hostile, resentful relationship for much of their lives. Richard—his mother’s favorite—was promised to inherit Aquitaine in southwestern France. John, the youngest of the family, was originally looked over for any notable land inheritance and was subsequently given the nickname “John Lackland.”

When Richard and his brothers Geoffrey and Henry later rebelled against their father with their mother’s full support; King Henry II squashed their rebellion in 1174 after capturing Eleanor of Aquitaine and defeating the brothers’ foreign allies. Later, Henry the Young King (Henry II’s eldest son and heir to the throne) battled against Richard in a bid to steal control of Aquitaine from him. Henry the Young King wound up contracting dysentery and died in 1183, making Richard heir to their father’s vast empire. After King Henry II died in 1189, Richard the Lionheart—by then an accomplished and storied military officer—ascended the English throne as King Richard I. 

Though John inherited little land following his father’s death, he used Richard’s extended absences from England to grow his own power and influence. After Richard was captured in Germany while returning from the Third Crusade, John tried to take advantage of his brother’s indisposition by conspiring with Philip II of France to seize control of the kingdom. 

Their plot unraveled after Eleanor of Aquitaine was able to rally support for Richard, who showed mercy on his brother and restored his titles and designated him as his heir. After the failure of his brother’s royal coup, Richard returned to his military campaigns and continued ruling England from afar before being killed during the siege of Châlus in 1199, making John the next King of England. 

Despite finally disproving his “Lackland” moniker, John was largely unpopular during his rule. He was seen as cowardly and scheming in contrast to his lionized elder brother. Later in his reign, John had considerable chunks of territory in France seized from him by his former coconspirator Philip II of France. By the time John died in 1216 and handed the crown to his 9-year-old son Henry III, his rule had been plagued by military failures, clashes with the pope, and widespread civil unrest. 

Cleopatra, Ptolemy, and Arsinoe

Cleopatra and her younger brother (and later husband), Ptolemy XIII, were born into one of the most incestuous and familicidal dynasties in ancient Egyptian history. After their father, Egyptian king Ptolemy XII, died in 51 BCE, a teenaged Cleopatra and her prepubescent brother Ptolemy (said to be around 11 at the time) were appointed co-rulers of Egypt. Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII were married, as was customary for Egyptian royalty, in a bid to consolidate familial power. When Cleopatra later tried to take full control of Egypt for herself, she was ousted by her brother/husband and replaced with her younger sister, Arsinoe. 

Cleopatra headed to Rome in a bid to rally support and retake the throne from her siblings—something her father, Ptolemy XII, had done years earlier when he was exiled by his daughter, Berenice IV, whom he had executed upon his Roman military-backed return to Egypt. While in Rome, Cleopatra embarked on a storied sexual and political relationship with Julius Caesar. With Caesar’s support, Cleopatra returned to Egypt in 47 BCE, retaking the throne from Ptolemy XIII and Arsinoe (the former drowned in the Nile while battling Caesar and the latter was captured). 

Once back in power, Cleopatra remarried her younger brother Ptolemy XIV, who was still a child at the time. She chose to keep Caesar as her lover and advisor. Cleopatra gave birth to her first son, Ptolemy XV Caesar, shortly after regaining power; the boy is widely believed to have been fathered by the Roman dictator. 

Ptolemy XIV died suddenly (likely at his wife/sister’s hand) not long after Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE. Ptolemy XV Caesar replaced him as heir to the throne. Without a political partner in Rome, Cleopatra soon began a famed relationship with Roman military leader Mark Antony, an ally and distant relative of her late lover Caesar. She urged Antony to have her younger sister Arsinoe (now an exile at the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus) assassinated to further secure her position. 

Cleopatra and Antony had three children together and began dividing their territories among their offspring around 34 BCE, enraging the Romans. Antony officially broke from Rome and was painted as a traitor by his political rival and former brother-in-law, Octavian. Octavian squashed Antony and Cleopatra’s navy at the Battle of Actium, forcing the couple to flee. Once Octavian invaded Alexandria shortly after the Battle of Actium, both Cleopatra and Antony knew their days were numbered. Each decided to die by suicide before the Romans could capture them.

Mary I and Elizabeth I 

Mary and Elizabeth Tudor shared a father in common but little else. Mary, the daughter of King Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, was a devout Catholic and the couple’s only child to survive infancy; Elizabeth, a Protestant, was the daughter of Henry’s second wife, Anne Boleyn. When it became clear to Henry that Catherine would not give him the male heir he sought to secure the nascent Tudor dynasty, the king sought an annulment of the marriage on the dubious grounds it was an incestuous union since Catherine had been previously married to Henry’s late brother. The monarch catalyzed the English Reformation through an unprecedented break with the Catholic Church, setting off a chain of political and social upheavals across England. 

Elizabeth was born when Mary was 17 years old, branding Mary illegitimate and removing her from the line of royal succession. She was stripped of her princess title and essentially demoted to another lady in waiting for her younger sister. Though Elizabeth’s supplantation of her elder sister in the line of royal succession initially created tension between the pair, Elizabeth would soon share in Mary’s illegitimate status when Henry VIII had Anne Boleyn executed. 

Henry VIII married Jane Seymour less than two weeks after Anne Boleyn’s beheading. Jane gave birth to the couple’s only son, Edward, before dying shortly after from postnatal complications. Though both Elizabeth and Mary were politically sidelined by their young brother, Henry restored them to the royal succession after Edward. 

When Henry VIII died in 1547, Edward was officially crowned king and began implementing sweeping Protestant reformations under the influence of John Dudley, a powerful member of the young king’s regency council. These radical reforms engendered further hostility between Mary—still a devout Catholic—and her younger brother. Edward died at just 15 years old in July 1553 and his council attempted to conceal his death and crown Lady Jane Grey queen before Mary to maintain a royal Protestant influence. Their plan did not work, and Mary I became England’s first woman monarch and began undoing much of her younger brother’s Protestant reforms. 

In her attempt to restore Catholicism in England, Mary I earned her posthumous nickname “Bloody Mary” through her burning of nearly 300 Protestants at the stake. After Mary wed King Phillip II of Spain, support for her weakened as accusations of her allowing foreign influence over England began to mount, culminating in Wyatt’s Rebellion in 1554, which sought to depose the queen and have Elizabeth crowned instead. Mary I quickly squashed the rebellion and had her younger sister imprisoned in the very apartments Anne Boleyn resided in in the days leading up to her execution. 

Mary I freed her younger sister, but the event left an air of wariness and suspicion between the two. Mary died in 1558, and because she had no children, Elizabeth I ascended the throne.

Edwin and John Wilkes Booth 

Sons of renowned Shakespearean actor Junius Brutus Booth, both John and his younger brother Edwin took after their father in pursuit of careers on the stage. Edwin’s talents and acclaim wound up far exceeding his elder brother’s. Edwin was lauded for his classical Shakespearean talents (much like his father); John was noted for less refined, but passionate performances. Whereas Edwin took signature roles in Shakespearean political dramas like Hamlet and Macbeth, John carved out a niche for himself in the bard’s more romantic productions like Romeo and Juliet. 

Tensions in their relationship originally stemmed from a healthy professional rivalry. But the brothers’ relationship soured considerably upon the onset of the American Civil War. Edwin was a stalwart Unionist; John began expressing Confederate sympathies. Ironically, a year before John would assassinate President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in 1865, Edwin saved Lincoln’s teenage son, Robert Todd Lincoln, from being hit by an oncoming train during a chance encounter in New Jersey.

Edwin disowned John after the latter killed Lincoln and took a leave of absence from the stage. He returned to acting the following year and continued to enjoy a successful career in theater, though his reputation as a talented actor would be forever eclipsed by his brother’s notoriety.