{"id":17631,"date":"2022-09-10T11:19:53","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T09:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=215481"},"modified":"2022-09-10T11:50:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T09:50:13","slug":"what-happens-when-a-monarch-dies-lessons-from-history","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/what-happens-when-a-monarch-dies-lessons-from-history\/","title":{"rendered":"What happens when a monarch dies? Lessons from history"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Tracy Borman\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Saturday, 10 September 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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At 11 o\u2019clock on the evening of 21 April 1509, England\u2019s first Tudor king, Henry VII<\/a>, finally succumbed to \u201cthe sharp assaults of death\u201d. The only people who knew of his passing were the handful of privy chamber servants and advisers clustered around his bedside. Anxious to set his affairs in order and ensure the security of the realm amidst the uncertainty that always accompanied the death of a sovereign \u2013 even one with a living, and popular heir \u2013 they ordered that the news be \u201csecretly kept\u201d. The late king\u2019s servants continued to deliver food to his rooms as if nothing had happened.<\/p>\n

Despite their efforts, rumours of the king\u2019s death were already circulating in the city the following day. Fearing unrest, those who were privy to the secret began to quietly stock the royal armoury. Then, on 23 April, when the court was filled with dignitaries for the Feast of the Order of the Garter, Henry VII\u2019s death was finally announced. All the frenzied activity behind the scenes had apparently been worth it: Henry VIII<\/a> would be the first monarch since 1422 to accede to the throne peacefully as a crowned king, rather than by usurpation or conquest (Henry V having died of dysentery on 31 August 1422).<\/p>\n

Although the protocol surrounding the death of a monarch has changed a bit since Tudor times, secrecy has been a running theme throughout the long history of the British crown. This is understandable: the change of regime tends to prompt uncertainty and instability, and those at the heart of the royal establishment have always been keen to make the transition as smooth as possible to safeguard the crown (not to mention their own positions). Or, in the case of Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s grandfather, King George V, to ensure that it was reported in the right newspapers.<\/p>\n

Read more | <\/strong>Monarchy timeline: from Hastings to the Windsors in 122 moments<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
George had been a heavy smoker from a young age and, like his late father, Edward VII, had suffered from chronic bronchitis for a number of years. By the beginning of 1936, the 70-year-old king knew he was dying. On the evening of 20 January, it was clear that he had just hours to live. The senior royal doctor, Viscount Dawson, later admitted that he had hastened the king\u2019s end just before midnight with two lethal injections so that his suffering would not be prolonged. But he had also been prompted by a desire that George\u2019s death should be announced in the morning edition of The Times<\/em>, rather than in \u201cless appropriate\u2026 evening journals\u201d.<\/p>\n
Of course, secrecy is not always possible, particularly during much of the medieval period when kings had a habit of dying in battle. 1066 is widely considered one of the most important dates in English history because it ushered in not just a new monarch, but an entirely new ruling elite. Having defeated and killed the Saxon king, Harold II, at the battle of Hastings<\/a> (although perhaps not with an arrow in the eye, as the Bayeux Tapestry would have us believe), William of Normandy<\/a> proceeded to sweep away almost every last vestige of the old way of life \u2013 customs, laws, and even language. The Anglo-Saxon aristocracy was virtually wiped out and the English countryside was dominated by imposing new castles, a symbol of Norman domination.<\/p>\n
Four centuries later, the Wars of the Roses<\/a> saw the crown change hands no fewer than seven times \u2013 most of those on the battlefield. The last occasion was at Bosworth Field in August 1485, when Richard III<\/a> was slain by the forces of Henry Tudor.<\/p>\n
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Hot pokers & missing princes<\/h3>\nBattles may be bloody, but at least they are decisive \u00ad\u2013 for the most part. What has sparked greater instability in the crown\u2019s history is when the death of a monarch has been shrouded with doubt. After being ousted from the throne by his wife and son in January 1327, Edward II was imprisoned in Berkeley Castle<\/a> in Gloucestershire. Almost immediately there were plots to free the captive king, but these were brought to an abrupt end in September when parliament was informed that Edward had died. To remove any doubt that he was really dead, his body was taken to Gloucester for public display on 22 October. Two months later, he was buried in the city\u2019s abbey, with his son Edward III and widow Isabella in attendance.<\/p>\n
The official line was that Edward had died of natural causes, but he was only 43 and had been in robust health. More likely is that the various plots to free him had prompted Isabella or her lover, Roger Mortimer, to have him quietly murdered. Rumours soon began to circulate about how this was achieved, the most notorious of which is that Edward\u2019s bowels had been burnt out with a red-hot spit or poker inserted into his behind. But there were also rumours that the deposed king had escaped from Berkeley.<\/p>\n
Read more | 7 medieval kings you should know about<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
These rumours were taken so seriously that in March 1330, Edward\u2019s half-brother, Edmund, earl of Kent, was executed for plotting to restore the late king. Before her death in 1358, Isabella left instructions that she be buried with Edward\u2019s embalmed heart over her breast, more to prove that he really was dead than as a final act of wifely devotion.<\/p>\n
An even more notorious mystery surrounded the death of Edward V and his younger brother, Richard \u2013 better known as the princes in the Tower<\/a>. Edward was just 12 years old when his father, Edward IV, died in April 1483, so his uncle, Richard of Gloucester, was appointed Lord Protector. Richard wasted no time in placing his nephews in the Tower, ostensibly to prepare for Edward\u2019s coronation. But in the event it was Richard, not his nephew, who was crowned, after both boys were declared illegitimate. By then, they had disappeared. The vast majority of Richard III\u2019s subjects believed the boys had been quietly murdered at his orders, which fatally destabilised his rule. But the conspiracy theories that one or both survived persist even to this day.<\/p>\n
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The death of Queen Victoria<\/h3>\n
Fast-forward to more peaceable times and the beginning of 1901, when Queen Victoria lay dying at her favourite seaside retreat, Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. She had reigned for longer than any British monarch before her. The contemporary historian Lytton Strachey summed up the public mood: \u201cIt appeared as if some monstrous reversal of the course of nature was about to take place\u201d, he wrote. \u201cThe vast majority of her subjects had never known a time when Queen Victoria had not been reigning over them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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