10 monarchs who went to the next world straight from their own restroom

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

Commonly Known Fact: Elvis Presley died in his restroom. However, he is not one of the famous people who ended his life in this way - there are many cases in history when even monarchs left for another world in the toilet. In this review, stories that look comical and tragic at the same time.

1. Ruler of the Jing

The Duke of Jing was the ruler of Qin Province, one of the most powerful provincial states in ancient China, from 599 BC. before his untimely death in 581 BC. They say that he had a nightmare one night, after which his personal shaman predicted the untimely death of the ruler, before he even "had time to eat the new grain." The duke, being superstitious, immediately thought he was ill and called a doctor. Further dreams "told" him that the cause of his illness lies somewhere between his diaphragm and his heart.

When the doctor was called again, he confirmed the diagnosis he had heard in the dream. Jing, trying to remove the curse, ate a new grain that was not yet fully ripe. Then, feeling much better (remember his suspiciousness), the ruler executed his shaman. For a while, the duke believed that he had cheated the curse, but the unripe grain began to ferment in his stomach. While hurrying to the toilet, he fell into a cesspool and drowned in a stinking slurry.

2. King of England Edmund II

Edmund II (nicknamed Edmund Ironside) was king of England for only seven months in 1016. He gathered an army to resist the invasion of the Danish invader Kanut (aka Knud the Great). However, after the siege of London, Edmund was finally defeated. Under the Treaty of Alney, Canute allowed Edmund to keep the land in Wessex in exchange for a peace agreement.

Edmund died shortly thereafter. Some say he died of natural causes. However, Henry Huntingdon's story says that when Edmund was in a hurry "at the call of nature", he was stabbed twice by an assassin hiding in a cesspool. The knife that tore apart Edmund's gut protruded from the "back" of the king as he escaped from the closet with his pants down.

3. Gottfried IV, Duke of Lower Lorraine

In 1076, Duke Gottfried IV (also known as Gottfried the Humpbacked) went to the toilet "for his natural needs." He was a military leader who fought in the war on behalf of the German Emperor Henry IV, so it's fair to say that he had plenty of enemies. Although he was usually a cautious person, Gottfried could never have foreseen that when he was relieving his natural need, he would be attacked with a "sharpened weapon" from below.

It is believed that one of the guards surrounding the house was paid to stand under the toilet with a spear or long sword. It is said that the duke managed to survive for a whole week before finally dying of his wounds. It would probably be fair to say that during this time he had problems going to the toilet.

4. King George II

George II ascended the British throne in 1727, despite the fact that he was German. He was clearly not a popular king. When he was only a prince, Georg fell out with his father and most of his advisers, and it is even said that he hated his own son. He disliked Great Britain and spent so much time in his native Germany that his subjects called him "the king who was not." However, he loved his wife.

After her death, he never married again, and when he died himself, he was buried next to his wife, and the side walls of their coffins were removed so that their remains could be "reunited."However, despite his bad character, George II lived to old age. Finally, shortly before his 77th birthday, the king, who was sitting in the "dressing chair", ruptured the right ventricle of the heart due to an aortic aneurysm.

5. Catherine II

Although death in a toilet is often considered quite humiliating, Catherine II would probably have been glad if people believed that she died in this way. The fact is that it was much less humiliating than some of the rumors that circulated in St. Petersburg after her death. When Catherine married the heir to the Russian throne in 1745, the beginning of her marriage was rather difficult. For eight years she had been unable to conceive a child, and it was rumored that her husband could not or did not want a child from her. But when, in 1754, Catherine finally gave birth to a child, gossip immediately spread at court that in fact the child's father was a Russian soldier with whom the empress had an affair. Catherine herself seems to have encouraged such rumors, although the question of whether they were true is still a matter of debate.

However, it is almost certain that none of her three subsequent children were born of her husband. Catherine, of course, was ruthless, and just six months after her husband Peter III became king, she overthrew him, forcing him to abdicate and become the sole ruler of Russia. It was also rumored that Catherine was complicit in the murder of her husband some time later. The Empress was known for having many lovers during her reign, giving them land and serfs. Perhaps it was this reputation that caused the rumors about how Catherine died.

Her enemies at court, in an attempt to damage the empress's reputation, claimed that she died after having intercourse with a horse. Others claimed at the time that the Empress died of a stroke in the toilet. This is much more common and much more likely. She officially died in her bed the day after suffering a stroke.

6. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, born in 1835, founded the Islamic religious Ahmadiyya movement in India. He claimed to have heard revelations from God, and in 1889 announced that God had given him the right to take an oath of allegiance from his followers. He soon formed a small group of devoted disciples, and his followers grew steadily, as did opposition from traditional Islamists. Ghulam Ahmad claimed to be a mahdi ("savior"), the reincarnation of the Prophet Muhammad, as well as Jesus Christ and the Hindu god Krishna, and all this is in him alone.

In late 1907, Ghulam Ahmad claimed to have received several revelations that informed him of imminent death. In May 1908, the day before his death, he wrote his last treatise, The Message of Reconciliation. Ghulam Ahmad suffered from dysentery for some time and died in the bathroom at the home of his doctor friend from complications caused by acute diarrhea. However, this is disputed by some of his followers, because the cause of death does not coincide with his visions, and also because diarrhea is a shameful death for the prophet.

7. Uesugi Kenshin

Uesugi Kenshin was a Japanese military leader until his death in 1578. He was renowned for his martial prowess and fierce rivalry with Takeda Shingen, with whom he fought at least five times. Although the two were rivals, it seems that they began to respect each other, and Kenshin received a very valuable sword from Shingen as a gift. As a result, they became allies and friends.

In later years, after the death of Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin rebelled against Oda Nobunaga, the most powerful military leader in Japan. Although he achieved a number of tactical victories over the enemy, his health quickly deteriorated, and he died a death that was not at all suitable for a hero. Uesugi Kenshin suffered a stroke while sitting on the potty and died a few days later. Unsatisfied with such an unconvincing end to the war, many people, including Oda Nobunaga, tried to rewrite events and come up with stories about the ninja hiding in the closet, but the death of the warlord seemed to have completely natural causes.

8. Edward II

King Edward II was killed at Berkeley Castle in 1327, and in a rather ghastly way. When Edward was still a young man, it was believed that he had a close relationship with a male friend at court. When the prince's father discovered this, he expelled the lover "because of the unjustified intimacy that the young Lord Edward allowed himself."

Later, the lover was killed, and this led to the fact that Edward fought several wars in revenge. Edward's wife, Isabella, dissatisfied with her husband's behavior, organized a conspiracy against him together with her lover. Edward was captured and forced to abdicate. While this cannot be proven today, it was said that Edward was killed in the closet at Berkeley by a red-hot poker inserted into his anus as punishment for homosexuality, and that his screams could be heard miles away.

9. Wenceslas III of Bohemia

King Wenceslas III ascended the throne of Bohemia in 1305. At that time, he was already king of Hungary and sought to take the Polish throne (although, in order not to seem greedy, he gave up his right to be king of Austria). At the time of his accession to the throne, he was only 15 years old. They killed the King of Bohemia Wenceslas, the last in the male line of the powerful Přemyslid dynasty, just a year later, in 1306.

He was often described as well educated, although too inclined to drink and be merry instead of running his kingdom. His rival Karl Robert of Anjou, under the patronage of the Pope, as a result of intrigue, eventually made sure that the Hungarian crown after the death of Wenceslas was transferred to him. In 1306, Vaclav arrived in the city of Olomouc, where he lived in the dean's office. It was argued that the king of Poland, Władysław Korotkiy, fearing that Wenceslas was preparing to overthrow him, sent assassins to the young man. It is said that Wenceslas was sitting in his wardrobe (a room with a toilet with a hole leading into the lake below) when the killers found him and stabbed him to death. He was only 16 years old.

10. King Eglon

The story of King Eglon is one of the strange stories found in the Bible. Although many biblical characters were later confirmed in history, very little is known about King Eglon. In the Talmud, he is described as the grandson of King Balak of Moab, who tried to destroy the Israelites by persuading them to the sin of adultery. According to the Old Testament, the Israelites were sold into slavery under King Eglon, so God sent Ehud to free them. He paid tribute to Eglon and later visited the king in his "private room" (read, toilet), hiding a large, double-edged sword under his robe.

Eglon, who was a rather corpulent man, got up "from his seat", after which Ehud stabbed him with a sword, thrusting it into the king's stomach until the hilt of the sword disappeared under the folds of his flesh. Then Ehud fled, and Eglon's servants, sensing a certain smell emanating from the king's private room, suggested that the king was in the toilet, and left him alone. While they patiently waited for the king to complete his affairs, Ehud led his men into battle and destroyed Eglon's army.