6 ridiculous cases that led to the death of rulers of different countries and times

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

It is not customary to give a Darwin Prize retroactively, and many characters in the story could earn it. Kings, kings, dukes and emperors mostly died on the battlefield, from disease and coups, but some have managed to die in strange and meaningless ways.

Lover of etiquette

The Spanish king Philip III loved order and discipline, which, quite possibly, brought the country to decline and almost complete loss of foreign policy influence. He suffered from superstition, adored luxury and did not want to know that the country was becoming impoverished, and the debts of the royal family and the entire country were growing. However, when he found out, he quickly found the guilty ones: first, he drove out of the country all the Moriscos - the Spaniards of Arab origin, then - all the Gypsies. At the same time, he issued a memorandum on the importance of blood purity.

As for the habits in everyday life, His Majesty created the most complex court etiquette and steadily followed its implementation. According to his own established rules, the king did not even have the right to pour himself wine into a glass - this had to be done by a specially appointed person.

Once Philip III fell asleep, sitting in an armchair by the fireplace (and, probably, having drunk a lot before that, otherwise the further cannot be explained). The chair caught fire from an accidental spark, and the courtiers … rushed to look for the grandee who had the right to move the king's chair. While they were looking, there was nothing and no one to push back.

At the time of his death, he was 43 years old.

Absent-minded youth

The French king Charles VIII of the Valois dynasty came to the throne at the age of thirteen. He was a sweet boy, he listened to his older sister Anna and did not annoy anyone. From time to time he was taken to fight with someone, according to the customs of his time. But that's not why he died.

Already being an almost thirty-year-old man, Karl, either through absent-mindedness or myopia, did not notice a low doorframe on his way, crashed into it with his forehead at full speed, fell into a coma and died.

That is, you see, everyone around was dying of the plague - for example, the faithful servant of Charles, the Duke of Montpensier died from her - and he walked and crashed into the jamb.

Victim of traditional medicine

The first president, George Washington, at 67, was still a strong and ruddy man. But he managed to get cold. Worried about the president's health, relatives called doctor for doctor. Each of the doctors immediately released some blood to the president - in those days, bloodletting was considered almost a universal remedy. The next doctor ran out of blood in the president, and he died.

And I would have given Washington a normal cheer, otherwise I would have sat down again for state papers.

Animal lover

The Greek king Alexander I was, like many kings of Europe, of German descent. Unsurprisingly, during World War I, he held a pro-German position. However, this did not bother anyone. The king had no real power in Greece.

Perhaps, out of a feeling of protest, Alexander married instead of some princess to Aspasia Manos, the daughter of a simple colonel. The wedding caused a scandal, but in the end the Greeks resigned themselves.

And a year after the wedding, the twenty-seven-year-old handsome king was walking with his shepherd dog in the palace garden. The dog was attacked by one of the macaques living in the garden. Bickering began. The king rushed to separate the animals, and the macaque bit his leg.

Since the teeth of the macaque turned out to be non-sterile, and the wound was not properly treated, Alexander eventually died from sepsis. It is especially stupid that they could have saved him simply by amputating the leg that had begun to rot. But not a single Greek doctor wanted to go down in history as the man who sawed off the king's leg, so the king personally entered history as a victim of the bite of a tame macaque.

It turned out not weak

The legendary German king and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa died suddenly, at the zenith of his glory.

At almost seventy years old, when Barbarossa set out on the Crusade, he was a sturdy man, in all the image of an impeccable knight: pleasant in conversation, brutal in politics, generous after a fight. Perhaps the most powerful army in Europe stood behind him.

On the way from Byzantium to Palestine, the Muslim cavalry attacked the emperor's army and badly battered it. This only provoked Barbarossa, and he moved forward even more decisively.

The path of his army was blocked by a stormy mountain river. Those close to Frederick offered to bypass the dangerous place, finding a ford or a bridge, but Barbarossa insisted that the river must be crossed immediately, on horseback.

After a bitter dispute, he decided to give an example personally and right in armor, right on a knight's horse (probably also in armor) rushed into the river.

And this abyss swallowed him in an instant.

Jolly King

King of Aragon Martin Humane was, apparently, a very funny man. When the jester came up to him and said that he had just seen a deer hanging like a thief in the vineyard, Martin could not resist and burst out laughing. Unfortunately, he just ate a whole goose (this is a rather large bird, even plucked and fried). The king's stomach could not stand the test of both goose and laughter and literally burst. The humane king is dead.

And recently, scientists have a new version, what actually burned Giordano Bruno.