It's dangerous at the top

Striving upwards is a common part of many peoples lives. They work hard in their chosen fields in order to make something of themselves. They earn money, respect and power. They're able to look themselves in the mirror and say “I'm a somebody”. But in the dark hours of the night they must sometimes be plagued by the fact that someone else is more successful, richer and just simply more powerful.

Unless they're kings that is. No one is higher on the totem pole than the king. At least that used to be the case, back when kings ruled, both actually as well as figuratively.

However things weren't always so rosy. With great power comes great responsibility and all that. But ultimately even the mightiest king is still only human. And humans die. Sometimes in pretty funny ways. This is what we're discussing today: some of the oddest ways monarchs have perished.

We open our Royal Gathering of Death with King James II of Scotland. Over all, he was pretty well liked as he was a just king who ruled fairly.

The biggest criticism against James was that he ordered the murder of the Earl of Douglas at what became known as the Black Dinner in 1440. Incidentally this was George R.R. Martin's inspiration for the Red Wedding. But apart from this slight case of murdering, James was liked.

What James himself liked, was cannons. He had imported several from Flanders and was most keen to see them in action at the siege of Roxburgh Castle. In fact he was standing right next to one when it decided to blow up and scatter little bits of king all over the vicinity. That's right, James II was killed by his own artillery.

Up next is Charles VIII of France.

Charles wasn't very well liked, mostly because he never did very much. He was popular abroad since he made several concessions to his neighbors, but the French preferred to ignore him.

One day though, he decided to enjoy a game of tennis. Not to play mind you, just watch. When the game was over, the king left, but failed to notice how low the lintel was. He smacked his most royal head and fell into a coma from which he never woke up. Talk about walking to your death...

Let us now turn to Frederick I, King of Germany, as well as King of Italy and to top it off Holy Roman Emperor! With out a doubt the most powerful man in Europe back in 1155.

He had it pretty good, until he wanted to do the fashionable thing and go crusading. Now if you've detected the tone of today's post, you can probably guess that Freddy didn't meet his demise in battle against the heathen horde.

Nope, he wanted to cross the Goksu River in Turkey, but the bridge was out. His staff argued for finding another bridge (you know, the sensible solution) but Freddy being king twice over as well as Emperor! figured it was up to him to show everyone how it was done.

He rode his horse into the water and was promptly swept away. Sadly the horse drowned too.

Finally we conclude tonight's sombre cavalcade with Charles II of Navarre. He was known as Charles the Bad, mostly because he kept switching sides during the Hundred Year's War in order to get the best deal every time.

One day the Bad Boy fell ill, and the doctors figured that the best cure was to wrap him in several layers of linen soaked in brandy and sew the whole thing together. I guess they thought marinating kings in brandy was good for them.

An unnamed maid was tasked with the sewing, a task she took to with great care. A bit too much care as it turned out. She didn't want to risk cutting the king with her scissors in the dark, so she burned off the final thread with her candle. In a flashy instant Charles went from being the Bad to being the Crispy. Divine Retribution or an exciting new recipe? You decide.

That's all folks! See you next week.

Fate has an odd sense of humor

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the sad, but funny fate of the Swedish King who ate himself to death on dessert. So in keeping with our recent themes, I thought we'd explore other rulers who croaked in interesting ways.

I won't include anyone who was killed in battle (a whole lot) or murdered or assassinated in a power play (also a whole lot). It's indeed good to be the king, but only if you survive.

Back in about 600 BCE, there was a Grecian ruler called Draco. Not to be confused with the little twerp from Harry Potter, this Draco was a really great guy. He worked very hard to write up laws that were both fair and just. And to stop people from inventing laws on the go.

So to celebrate his great work, they threw a party for Draco. Wasn't that nice? Unfortunately, they had a custom back then that consisted of throwing your cloak at the guy you were celebrating to show your respect. Odd habit I know, but aren't most customs a bit odd?

Anyway, it turned out Draco was SO popular that they threw way too many cloaks at him, and he suffocated under the mass off cloth they heaped upon him in his honor. At least they liked him, right?

Next up is the Roman Emperor Caracalla. He was as nasty as Draco was nice. Caracalla is known as one of the cruelest Emperors Rome ever had, and that's some stiff competition! Only Caligula was definitely worse.

One day, Caracalla was on his way to continue the war in Parthia (north-eastern Iran), when he had to answer Nature's Call. Even Emperors have to drain the lizard, to borrow a modern parlance. However, as Caracalla stood there contemplating whatever one thinks about at such times, one of his bodyguards stabbed him to death with a sword! Which might be why you've never seen a movie with this Emperor, cause how do you film that without making it into a comedy?

Finally for this week, we'll look at the demise of King George V of England. He died in 1925, after a long illness. I'm not going to go into his life here, follow the link if you're interested.

His death is what's fascinating. You see, although the King died in 1925 we only learned the true cause in 1986. Until then it was assumed natural causes did the job. But as it turned out, he was actually killed by his own doctor, Lord Dawson of Penn with a juicy cocktail of cocaine and morphine. That's right. The royal physician murdered the already dying King. And what was his motive? To save the Royal family the embarrassment of having to announce the King's death in the evening papers, of course!

What can we deduce from the fate of these three rulers?

1. You can be too nice.
2. Even Emperors need a toilet break.
3. If you're going to die, announce it in the morning papers.

That's it for this week. I'll see you all on Monday.

What you do know will kill you

This week we'll be taking a lighthearted look at that most serious of matters: Death.

To be more precise, we will take a look at deaths that were self inflicted but not suicides. All the people featured on today's list caused their own demise either through some consequence they themselves set in motion or by not thinking straight.

First up in our macabre cavalcade is Sigurd Eysteinsson, a.k.a. Sigurd the Mighty, 2^nd viking earl of Orkney. I imagine you have to be pretty bad-ass to earn the moniker “the mighty”, especially amongst vikings, who took things like that seriously. Anyhow, in about the year 892, he killed his hated enemy Máel Brigte and took his head as a trophy. Perhaps he was going for an even tougher nickname, we'll never know.

For you see, Sigurd tied Máels head to his saddle and rode off. But he failed to notice that Máels teeth were rubbing against his leg as he rode. This caused a small wound which turned septic and killed Sigurd.

Talk about revenge from beyond the grave...

Next up is Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden (1751-1771).

We're not going to go into his life so much as his demise. You see on 12 February 1771, the king decide to dine on lobster, caviar, sauerkraut and kippers. He washed the whole thing down with champagne before ordering dessert. His favorite dessert in fact, semla. These pastries are traditionally served in a bowl of hot milk, and the king scarfed it down, and ordered another, and another, and another, and then ten more! All in all, he crammed down fourteen portions, before keeling over dead.

Sure, it's good to be the king, but come on!

From king to commoner, we leap into the modern age. Here we find David Grundman, an Arizona man in a serious relationship with his shotgun. One day in 1982, he decided to head out into the desert with the above mentioned shotgun to shoot the ever living hell out of some stuff. And by stuff, I mean cacti. Mostly the saguaro cacti native to Arizona. If you can't be bothered following the link, think of a cartoon cactus vaguely shaped like a man. Shooting these cacti is considered vandalism since they take centuries to grow so big.

Anyway, after executing some smaller cacti, David took aim at a really big one, blew it's top off and promptly met his maker, as it fell on him, crushing him to death in it's spiky embrace.

I guess David got nailed in the end...

Finally, I want to present Basil Brown. Basil was a very health conscious man, and you'd not find him choking down fourteen portions of semla. Oh no, Basil was all about carrots. Juiced carrots in fact. But he does have one thing in common with our unfortunate Adolf Frederick: he couldn't stop in time either. In 1974 he drank 10 gallons of carrot juice in 10 days. That's 45 liters, or 4.5 liters a day. Another way to put it would be 10000 times the recommended dose of vitamin A, which quickly killed his liver and then him.

Too much of a good thing, you know?

That's it for this week folks. Remember, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. Or how it does you.