The Exploding King

“So I chastised a great multitude of men and women with the lash of starvation and, alas! was the cruel murderer of many thousands….” – William the Conqueror

William the Conqueror is most notably known for being the King that triumphed at the Battle of Hastings. In 1066 William and his army defeated an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman conquest of England. Prior to this victory William was known as ‘William the Bastard’ as he was the illegitimate child born out of wedlock circa 1028 to Robert I, the Duke of Normandy, and Herleva, who is traditionally described as a tanner’s daughter. After this success he became known as William the Conqueror and went on to hold the title King of England for 21 years. Ruling with an unheard of brutality even for the time. Every member of the royal family today is a direct descendent of William the Conqueror. Every English monarch who followed William, including Queen Elizabeth II, is a descendant of the Norman-born king. According to genealogists, more than 25 percent of the English population is also distantly related to him, as are countless Americans with British ancestry. All lands, wealth and assets that are currently possession of the Royal family of England can be directly traced back through lineage to being the spoils of William’s 21-year conquest and colonization of England. William was a French Viking that settled in Normandy before invading England to claim it as his own in 1066. With it, he named himself King and pillaged, plundered, slaughtered and brutally ruled like people of the 11th century had never seen. It is historically agreed that his reign saw a viciousness, and callous disregard for life that was unprecedented. This is well documented. However, what is less well known, is that he exploded at his own funeral.

Though William instituted constitutional and social reforms, forged close ties with France, and ended Viking influence in England during his reign, he was also a tyrant. In 1069, he began what would become known as ‘The Harrying of the North’, a campaign of putting down rebellions by burning villages and crops as well as slaughtering herd animals and even villagers. Those who survived became desperate (they reportedly resorted to cannibalism) and many starved to death. Being King, William lived and ate like one and as a consequence became enormously overweight. It was his size that eventually contributed to his death. He was engaging in a battle with his own son Robert in France. Robert had felt aggrieved that he was not afforded the land he felt he was owed and sided with his Father’s enemies with the aim of getting what he felt was rightfully his. William mounted his horse to prepare for battle, the horse unexpectedly reared, thrusting the wooden pommel of the saddle into his abdomen with such force that it punctured his intestines. The mortally wounded king journeyed to Rouen, where he spent six agonizing weeks dying with knights, noblemen, and clergy by his side.

According to Orderic Vitalis's Historia Ecclesiastica, the king eventually confessed that what he had done during his reign was terrible:

"I treated the native inhabitants of the kingdom with unreasonable severity, cruelly oppressed high and low, unjustly disinherited many, and caused the death of thousands by starvation and war, especially in Yorkshire. ... In mad fury I descended on the English of the north like a raging lion, and ordered that their homes and crops with all their equipment and furnishings should be burnt at once and their great flocks and herds of sheep and cattle slaughtered everywhere. So I chastised a great multitude of men and women with the lash of starvation and, alas! was the cruel murderer of many thousands, both young and old, of this fair people." Although this claim is largely disputed by historians.

On September 9th 1087, William finally died. His body was then removed from Rouen to Caen a small village in France. This journey is roughly 70 miles and would have taken a considerable time. As the corpse slowly made its way to Caen by water and by road, the bacteria in the late King's gut leaked out into the rest of his body, decomposing the tissue at a frightening rate and filling the late king with putrid gas. In an unusual twist of fate, the night the Kings body arrived in Caen, the village had succumbed to a fire. Leaving parts of the city in ruins, and others untouched by fire but most importantly the fire delayed the funeral mass even further while residents fought the blaze. Furthermore, when the fire was successfully extinguished, a sickly heat could be felt during the funeral, this along with the poor embalming methods of 11th century funerary practices, combined with the extensive journey, ultimately became a deadly mix that would soon become apparent to the funerary procession.

By the time the mass was over and the burial could actually take place, it had been weeks since William’s death. The residual heat from the fire combined with the delay it caused had resulted in William’s bowels inflating to capacity. A short stone sarcophagus that had been created for William to be buried in, because of the delay. Williams remains had swollen beyond previous measure. The delay had disastrous consequences. It caused the late king to inflate to enormous proportions in the heat. While trying to lower William into his final resting tomb, the king's corpse would not fit. When the grave diggers attempted to force the body into place, “the swollen bowels burst, and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the by-standers and the whole crowd”, according to Orderic. The crowd was immediately covered in the former King’s putrefied innards and overwhelmed by the scent of decomposing flesh. The funeral party horrified, immediately left the church and didn’t return. The funeral was hastily finished, and quickly forgotten and is most likely why to this day is ja relatively unknown fact about William the Conqueror.