St. Louis IX, the "Franciscan" king of France. Amassed a lot of prestige to the point of being the chosen arbitrator for disputes in Europe but was first of all humble (washed the feet of the poor, fed and waited on them), temperate and patient (Egyptian emirs said they'd stop believing in Muhammad if the same had happened to them), scrupulously free of ambitions aimed at his own aggrandisement (ruling against himself by default in a dispute with a vassal, while he was normally nowise shy to inflict justice on wrongdoers, e.g. had Enguerrand de Coucy tried in a normal court for murder as opposed to trial by peers when the latter hanged three squires in a trivial dispute), and capable of admitting it when he was wrong and apolosiging to a courtier (after defending the founder of Sorbonne no less, who was in the wrong). Meddled in the affairs of others only when there was something charitable to do, e.g. tried to reconcile the Pope and the Emperor, arbitrated between Henry III and his barons. Religious and highly deferential to the Pope but did not hesitate to rule against bishops or abbots when their claims didn't have merit, and continued to refer to the Emperor as a fellow sovereign ruler even after the papal deposition (as much as the HRE supposedly kept trying to provoke him into a war).
Survived dysentery or worse at camp in Egypt, during the failed seventh crusade. Just as he lay sick and his collaborators were negotiating an advantageous truce (possibly including the restoration of Jerusalem), a traitor started screaming at the army to drop weapons because the king had supposedly been captured and would otherwise be killed. In captivity, he was threatened with an elaborate rack, a bloody knife used in a freshly committed murder, and a sword to his neck and those of his men. Never budged. Supposedly considered for the next Sultan of Egypt but the emirs feared he'd force them to convert or be executed. (While he himself said to a different Sultan's envoys that he'd gladly spend the rest of his years in their jail to see his master baptised. Which happened on the occasion he stood as godfather (IIRC) for some converts.) He spent a lot of his wealth augmenting or rebuilding fortifications in the Holy Land.
Forced the proud Templars to apologise on their knees lined up in sand one after another despite not actually being their liege (other than as natural liege as king of France vis-a-vis the nationality of most of them). Had his knight literally hack into Templar treasury when he was short of cash for ransom but Templars refused a loan on the grounds that they swore not to disburse that particular money (regardless that different money would be returned for it in the same amount). This little use of force apparently satisfied the conscience of everybody (including the Templars). Purged abuses among royal magistrates and insisted on making them accountable and broadly outlawing deals where conflict of interest would be the case. Absolutely refused to tolerate swearing or obscenity and would banish people from his presence for it--as much as he loved music.
I'm currently covering him and will be covering other royal saints in my AAR. Others include St.
Ladislaus of Hungary, referred to as "King Lancelot" (supposedly very chivalrous),
David I--"the king who made Scotland" and uncle of Empress Matilda while being descended from St. Margaret of Wessex (Edgar Atheling's sister)... in fact, two iarls of Orkney.
Or
Saint Knud, the king of Denmark who actually planned an invasion of England (after William's conquest) and was not exactly the mildest of rulers.
I'd need to see if
Conradin is in the game. Last scion of the Hohenstaufer, executed at age 16 after a victorious procession through Italy, including Rome. However, he seems to have been on the Pope's bad side as was his entire dynasty (the Pope prohibited his election as the King of the Romans and attempted to redistribute the dynasty's lands), and ended up excommunicated and eventually beheaded by the followers of the papally supported Charles d'Anjou after being tried as a "traitor" (notwithstanding that he'd been proclaimed as king of that kingdom before Charles).
Arthur of Brittany. (Blood heir of Richard Lionheart) Duke of Brittany through his mother, heir to the English throne by right through his father Geoffrey, the elder brother of John Lackland. Supposedly murdered on John's orders. Held himself to be a vassal of the King of France. His sister ended up living unmarried imprisoned by Henry III. It's surprising that neither the Pope nor even St. Louis of France made him release her.
Also Wladyslaw from my signatures. Duke of this or that (with significant movement across the entire country) or fugitive for all his earlier life until well advanced in years he finally managed to reunite it despite the petty feuds and lack of cooperation by the various princes at the close of the feudal partition of Poland. I managed to pull it off with some reloads but it was awfully hard, given that he didn't have a claim on the Kingdom in the game (despite the fact both his father and his brother had ruled in the capital as supreme princes in theory).
