9 queens whose lives ended for very unexpected reasons

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The life of queens, which was so different from the life of commoners, ended, nevertheless, in the same way: in difficult childbirth, from the attack of a contagious disease or from cancer. But there were also exceptions. Some queens died in such a way that their death surprised people for a long time.

Drug overdose

Henrietta Maria, the youngest daughter of the French king Henry IV, who died by chance in a tournament, and the wife of the English monarch Charles I, who was executed in a coup, herself lived a rather long life and died due to a medical error. At that time she lived near Paris. She began to suffer from migraines and insomnia, and doctors offered her an opium-based medicine - both sleeping pills and pain relief. However, cases of overdose were so frequent that the queen refused: they say, poison more.

Then the doctors offered her another medicine, supposedly worse, but without opiates. The queen accepted him and died. Naturally, the basis was actually the same opium, and the doctors still poorly calculated the dose, and as a result, the queen took part in the deadly lottery.

Passion for a healthy lifestyle

At least two queens fell victim to love for healthy lifestyle. In the Middle Ages, horseback riding was considered the best gymnastics for women, and the Queen of France, Isabella of Aragon, decided that riding also strengthens during pregnancy. But it was very difficult to maintain balance in the ladies' saddle (in which the woman actually sits sideways), and during the next ride the queen fell from the horse. As a result, she began to give birth prematurely and died from complications.

Elizabeth of Bavaria, the wife of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I, adored long walks, walked quickly and, in order not to choke, wore a special sports, softer, instead of the usual rigid corset. During one of the walks along the Geneva embankment, she attracted the attention of the Italian anarchist Luigi Liceni, who immediately realized that in front of him was an aristocrat.

Luigi walked over and very quickly hit the elderly woman with a sharpener in the heart. The Empress did not even understand what had happened, it seemed to her that she was pushed. Elizabeth got up from the ground and walked on, but soon felt an acute weakness and pain in her heart. She died in the arms of her maid of honor, right on the unfortunate embankment. Many are sure that if she had worn a regular corset, the assassination attempt would have failed - there was already a precedent when a corset saved another queen from being stabbed.

The French queen Jeanne of Bourbon died of complications in childbirth, but her husband, Charles V, loved her so much that doctors feared his anger and reported that the queen had died of an addiction to bathing. She, they say, was warned not to wash during pregnancy, but she did not heed, and this is the result!

Acute mental pain

For a long time, the three queens were considered victims of severe depression or, as in those days, acute mental pain: Queen Margot's mother, Catherine de Medici, Queen Elizabeth I of England, and Mary Tudor, the French queen of English descent. The last two really suffered from depression, but it is reliably known about Catherine that the autopsy revealed advanced pleurisy. Probably, the version about death from mental pain expressed the expectations of society - after all, the sons of Catherine died one after another, barely having time to take the French throne.

From piety

Another Isabella of Aragon (there were more than one of them, like Anne of Austria), died an hour after giving birth, but, for the sake of variety, not from complications. The fact is that she very much relied on God's help in this difficult female matter and throughout her pregnancy she kept strict fasts, whipped herself with a whip for greater piety and constantly traveled to holy places. By the time of giving birth, she was seriously emaciated, and she did not have the strength to survive them. Her son was born very weak and died at two years old.

From dissatisfaction with subjects

The warlike queen of the Franks, Brünnhilde, fell prey to war weariness. When she tried to rule on behalf of her great-grandson, as she once ruled for her son, the Franks realized that wars would begin again between everyone and everyone (as it already was) and declared Clotar II their king. And Brunhilde, accordingly, was overthrown. If the times were more civilized, she would have been sent to a monastery; in the early Middle Ages, people solved any problem in the most bloody way.

Brunhilde was quickly accused of organizing a series of political assassinations and tied by the legs to a wild horse. She rode off into the fields, carrying the deposed queen to her native places. Brunhilde was about seventy, by the standards of her time, death could not be called very premature, but she never ceases to be cruel.

The chosen Clotar, by the way, was the son of the eternal military adversary of Brunhilde, Queen Fredegonda. And, unlike Brünnhilde, Fredegond actually organized a number of political assassinations, including the husband of Brünnhilde, King Sigibert. But she died peacefully in her bed.

Kings did not always die in their beds. 6 ridiculous cases that led to the death of rulers of different countries and times.