6 ridiculous accidents that led to the death of kings of the past

It is not customary to give the Darwin Prize retroactively, but many characters in the story could have earned it. Kings, tsars, dukes and emperors mostly died on the battlefields, from diseases and during coups, but some managed to die in a strange and senseless way.

Philip III, portrait of an unknown artist

The Spanish king Philip III loved order and discipline, which, quite possibly, led 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 impoverished, and the debts of the royal family and the whole country were growing. However, when he did find out, he quickly found the culprits: first he expelled all the Moriscos from the country — hardworking and wealthy 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 monitored its implementation. According to the rules established by him, the king did not even have the right to pour wine into a glass — this had to be done by a specially appointed person.

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

The eighth of the kings of France named Charles

The French king Charles VIII of the Valois dynasty came to the throne at the age of thirteen. The dear boy obeyed his elder sister Anna de Beaujeu, who was regent with him, and did not annoy anyone. From time to time, he began to fight with someone, according to the customs of his time. But that's not why he died.

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

That is, you see, everyone was dying of the plague around-for example, Charles's faithful servant, the Duke of Montpensier — and he was walking and ran into a jamb.

George Washington, the first President of the United States

Not a king, of course, but also an outstanding ruler. The first US president, George Washington, at the age of 67, was a strong and ruddy man. But he managed to get caught in the snow and rain, he did not change into dry clothes and eventually caught a cold. Worried about the president's health, relatives called a doctor after a doctor. Each of the doctors immediately released some blood to the president — in those days, bloodletting was considered an almost universal remedy. The next doctor ran out of blood in the president, and he died.

And if they would have given Washington a normal cheer, he would have sneezed and sat down again for state papers.

The Greek king Alexander I was, like many kings of Europe, of German origin. It is not surprising that during the First World War he took a pro-German position. However, no one cared. The real power of the king in There was no Greece.

Perhaps, out of a sense of protest, Alexander married Aspasia Manos, the daughter of a simple colonel. The wedding caused a scandal, but in the end the Greeks reconciled.

And a year after the wedding, the 27-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. A squabble began. The king rushed to separate the animals, and the macaque bit through his leg.

Since the macaque's teeth turned out to be unsterile, and the wound was not properly treated, Alexander eventually died of sepsis. Especially stupid is the fact that he could have been saved by simply amputating the leg that began to rot. But no Greek doctor wanted to go down in history as the man who sawed off the king's leg, so the king personally went down in history as a victim of a pet macaque bite.

Frederick Barbarossa became a legendary king

The legendary German king and Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa died quite suddenly and at the zenith of his fame.

In his almost 70, when Barbarossa went to Crusade, he was a strong man, in every way corresponding to the image of an impeccable knight: pleasant in conversation, cruel in politics, generous after a fight. Behind him stood, perhaps, the strongest army in Europe.

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

After a fierce argument, he decided to give an example personally and threw himself into the river right in armor, right on a knight's horse (probably also in armor). And this abyss swallowed him up in an instant.

The kind and cheerful King of Aragon

The King of Aragon, Martin the Humane, was apparently a very funny man. Although there is no historical evidence for this, it is believed that the king died of laughter and gluttony. When the fool came up to him and said that he had seen a deer hanging upside down like a thief in the vineyard, Martin could not help but laugh. Unfortunately, he just ate a whole goose (this is a fairly large bird, even when 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.