Last weeks TMI Tuesday about Henry VIII was such a big hit, I thought I'd follow it up with another exploding King tale...
As all history buffs know, the last time an army successfully invaded England was William The Conquerer in 1066. He was sometimes known as William the Bastard(out of earshot of course), and despite a lifetime of warring and bloodletting, survived to the ripe old age of 60!! And the irony of it all was, he died because his horse stumbled on some hot cinders, and thrust his corpulent body against an iron pommel, mashing his left testicle, and causing fatal internal injuries!!
But wait...Theres more!
His body was then transported to Caen France for burial, and it was an unseasonably stiffling Summer, and you guessed it, his body exploded in the cathedral!
The stench was so great that the church quickly was evacuated, This panicked the guards stationed outside, and in all the confusion a fire broke out in the neighboring dwellings, and the guards AND the pall bearers had to help put out the fire leaving poor William all alone rotting in the Cathedral at his own funeral!!
In 1562 looters stole everything from Williams tomb, including most of his body. Eighty lears later a new monument was erected, but all that was left of the king was a femur, and thats what is buried there to this day.
I think next weeks story will be about the glories of embalming...Hehehehehe
Peace...!!!
18 comments:
What's with all these exploding kings? Of course, men do tend to be more gassy than women. I hope you don't know any tales of exploding queens!:)
great another family story for me to live down...somewhere back down the line we are distantly related acording to the family tree deal...maybe one day i will explode...hmm...wonder if that skips generations or...any way, enjoyable post.
My husband is a history geek too. What the hell. He could tell you stories like that for days. The weird part is, he REMEMBERS them. are you one of those too? it's scaring me now1 jeNN
Hmm. Testicular homicide?
He was explosive anyway! With all those liasons...
Why yesterday only I was watching, The Other Boylen Girl!
blogging from work hehehehe! :D
Bodies still explode today. Well actually it's the caskets that explode. They sell caskets with an extra seal to keep all icky things from getting inside but what they don't tell people is there is nothing to let the icky gases of a decomposing body out and boom!
So you are saying being a king blows?
So maybe there is something to that embalming thing. :)
The good old days weren't so good...
Can you imagine what a house would smell like after a week of "visitation" and no embalming? The ill used to beg to be kept alive 'till summer so their loved ones weren't forced to leave them outdoors.
Oh, that poor bastard, lol. I did not know that, so you've officially made my day. Any day you can learn something new is a good day. :D
A person could not make this stuff up (could they??).
Kings were big on explosions weren't they? ((wink))
i love these posts, my daughter has a teacher who always has some crazy facts up on his dry erase board (what ever happened to chalk boards?) anyway i read her last week post and she stumped him on your trivia, since she is an honors student i would like to thank you for helping her stump her teacher!!
Kings always blow don't they? LOL. EXPLOSIONS!!!! TIMBER!!!! LOL There will be an award on my blog tomorrow for ya :)
damn, first he popped his balls then his corpse blew up, what an ignomious depature!
I guess he still wanted to be the center of attention.
holy crap
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