History isn’t always dignified, and for some monarchs, the way they exited this world was anything but regal. From exploding corpses to fatal feasts, the demise of these rulers reads more like a medieval horror story than the end of a royal reign.
While some details are contested, the legends surrounding these gruesome deaths have endured for centuries — because, let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a bit of gory history? Here are some of the most stomach-churning, eyebrow-raising royal farewells ever recorded...
Most gruesome monarch deaths
Edward II (1327)
Edward II was alleged to have been murdered at Berkeley Castle in 1327 – by having a red-hot poker inserted into his anus. This is a contested point, but for the purpose of our conversation here, it's definitely worth including. He is said to have been placed in permanent captivity at Berkeley Castle after his regime collapsed and he was forced to surrender his position on the throne in favour of his son.
Edmund Ironside (1016)
Although there are many different accounts, 12th-century writers stated that Edmund Ironside was stabbed or shot with an arrow while sitting on the toilet.
William the Conquerer (1087)
One account of William the Conquerer's death is that he became ill on the battlefield and his belly protruded so much that he was killed when he was thrown onto his horse, onto the pommel of his saddle. The wooden pommels of medieval saddles were often reinforced with metal, so could have ruptured his internal organs.
It is then said that things got worse...
The king's body became so bloated that it wouldn't fit into the stone sarcophagus designed to carry it. When it was forced into place, Orderich Vitalis (a chronicler and Benedictine monk) reported that "the swollen bowels burst, and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the by-standers and the whole crowd." An exploding corpse? Gross.
Henry I (1135)
On the face of it, "food poisoning" might not seem like the worst way to die – but the source of Henry I's food poisoning raises an eyebrow. His death has been attributed to the consumption of a large amount of lampreys – a jawless fish with a round sucker-mouth.
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King John (1216)
If Edmund Ironside died on the toilet, King John certainly died near one. He died of dysentery, a gut-wrenching form of diarrhoea that has in fact claimed the lives of several English kings. Not a comfortable end.
