misrule

The state of being ruled badly; disorder, lawlessness, anarchy.

They followed their leader in regular procession, and the motley characters, which had waited his arrival, now crowded into the church in his train, shouting as they came,—“A hall, a hall! for the venerable Father Howleglas, the learned Monk of Misrule, and the Right Reverend Abbot of Unreason!”

Before and after the revolution, in the several states and in the country at large, pressing emergencies have occurred, periods of danger, trouble and dismay have arisen, when the community was full of misrule, and a particular state or the nation, seemed to be upon the brink of some fearful and disastrous change—yet the danger passed quickly away.

Misgovernment; bad or unjust government.

But in the recent past, there had been plenty of accusations and instances of Henry's oppressive misrule, of which the execution of the earl of Warwick, Suffolk's cousin, was the most recent and emphatic example.

Of a trial judge, to make a bad decision in court.

To rule badly; to misgovern.