Neither. The tone of the first being laudatory, the second being contemptuous, academic history isn't in the business of telling readers how likeable historical figures were.
Wait, you're telling me someone born into extreme wealth and power, with an unrivaled network and level of influence throughout the world, who could just click his fingers and have something done and fund it from the vast amounts of money available to him, enjoyed more success than middle class, run of the mill me?
And yet there are endless possibilities for us compared to such a monarch. You wanna go to Bali for a month and just hang around, doing diving, kite boarding, hike to active volcano and much much more? No problem. That monarch? Didn't even read about that place in books.
Even on that Bali, appendectomy won't kill you. Got fungus infection on feet? Here is cream, in 2 weeks you are OK. And so on...
Yes, I think many many people live now much nicer lives than medieval monarchs. In 2 months, I go to Mont Blanc on skis, and I'll propose to my girlfriend up there if we both make it. As for monarch...
Actually, I think we do ourselves a disservice by forgetting how many things we have that he could but dream of.
I can, in seconds, order items from the other end of the globe and have them shipped here in a day or two. I have luxuries, like electricity, modern transportation, communication, modern medicine and the like that he could but dream of.
While it may be that he will have a bigger place in history than I do and that he had more authority, leaving you free to define a 'success' of some kind where that statement is true, I dare say that the day to day lives of decently well-off people in first world countries like myself are, in fact, far more comfortable than even the kings of ages past and we shouldn't forget that.
