King Leopold

"I seek nothing more than the happiness of all who set foot in my kingdom."

- King Leopold to the Genie

King Leopold, formerly known as Prince Leopold, is a character on ABC's Once Upon a Time. He débuts in the eleventh episode of the first season. He is portrayed by guest stars Richard Schiff and Eric Lange, and does not have a Storybrooke counterpart.

King Leopold is based on the King from the fairytale, "Snow White".

History
Leopold was engaged from birth to a princess of the northern kingdom, Eva. The day before meeting his fiancée in person, he arrives to help a woman, Cora, after she claims a bandit robbed her. Leopold begins to bond with her, and after some time, he chooses to marry Cora instead of Eva. However, before the wedding, he receives news from Eva of Cora's previous relationship with the gardener Jonathan and the child she gave birth to. Angered at her deception, Leopold breaks off the engagement and casts Cora out.
 * -|Before the Curse=

Eventually, Leopold marries Eva as planned. They become king and queen of the land and have a daughter, Snow White. During their daughter's coming-of-age party preparations, King Leopold is away on business. Behind the scenes, Cora, older and even more ambitious, seeks to make the queen's seat vacant so her own daughter, Regina, can take it. She poisons Eva, who then passes away. Following this, King Leopold grows lonely without a companion and also wishes to find a woman worthy enough to become a mother to Snow White. With his knights and daughter, he traverses the lands in search of a new wife. One day, he and his men stop in the woods. Again, Cora has the advantage in speeding up her grand plan. She purposely startles Snow White's horse and sends the animal trampling away furiously. Unable to get off the horse, Snow White yells for help. Nearly, Regina is alerted to the girl's cries and jumps on her own horse to pull Snow White to safety. Snow White becomes grateful towards Regina for saving her life. Later, King Leopold gains word of Regina's feat. Impressed, he decides she fits the criteria of the kind of woman he needs for his daughter and formally proposes to Regina. Stunned, Regina is unable to respond until Cora accepts in her stead.

Following this, King Leopold marries Regina, but is still unable to forget Eva and devotes his life to raising Snow White. While walking along the shoreline of a river, Leopold stumbles across a magical lamp. As he rubs the dirt off of it, to his surprise, a Genie comes out of the lamp to grant him three wishes, but warns that the wishes cannot be undone as all magic comes with a price. Since the Genie longs for freedom, King Leopold uses a wish to free him from servitude. Then, he takes the second wish to give the third wish for the Genie to use. King Leopold takes his new friend to the palace to meet Regina and Snow White and also invites the Genie to his birthday celebration. At the festivity, King Leopold dotes on his beloved daughter, who is so much like Eva, as the "fairest one of them all". Oblivious to Regina's unhappiness, he later finds evidence in her diary of an affair with another man. Furious, he shuts Regina into a room while requesting the Genie to find the man his wife is consorting with, who gave her a mirror as a gift. That night, King Leopold is asleep in bed when the Genie deliberately frees an Agrabahn viper to attack him. As he lays dying, the Genie fully admits to giving Regina the mirror as he deeply loves her. With his last breath, King Leopold regrets ever making his first wish to free the Genie as this was the ultimate cause of his own downfall.

Trivia

 * The name "Leopold" is of Germanic origin derived from the words "leud" and "bald" that respectively mean "people" and "bold".
 * The casting call for his younger self describes him as "grounded, humble and not afraid to open his heart, coveting more from marriage than just a political arrangement."

Appearances
Note: "Archive" denotes archive footage.