10 strange ways Tudors died

[Neil]

Courtesy of BBC online:

New research into accidental deaths in Tudor England reveals the strange way people died, writes Sean Coughlan.

Oxford University historian, Dr Steven Gunn, has been scouring 16th Century coroners' reports and researching accidental deaths in Tudor England.

These reports revealed an intriguing possible link with William Shakespeare's tragic character Ophelia. But they also revealed examples of some strange and sometimes stupid deaths.

1. Bears were part of the Tudor entertainment scene. There were performing bears and there were bears kept for the bloodthirsty attraction of bear-baiting. In a purpose-built bear garden, a bear would be tied to a post in an enclosed pit and would be set upon by hunting dogs. Henry VIII had his own royal arena built in Whitehall.

But sometimes they escaped. A widow called Agnes Rapte was killed by Lord Bergavenny's bear when it broke loose at his house at Birling, Kent in 1563. Another victim, Agnes Owen from Herefordshire, was killed in her bed by a runaway bear. When a bear bit a man to death in Oxford in 1565, the bear wasn't punished but was taken into royal custody. Perhaps because it was worth 26 shillings and 8 pence - about six months' wages for a labourer.

2. Archery was a dangerous pastime, both for participants and spectators. Coroners' reports reveal 56 accidental deaths from people standing too close to the targets or those who decided on just the wrong time to go and collect the fired arrows.

There were also some bad judgement calls. Thomas Curteys of Bildeston, Suffolk, was practising archery on a fine June evening in 1556, when he took off his hat and invited another bowman called Richard Lyrence to try to hit it with an arrow. No prizes for what happened next.

Coroners even noted the depth of wounds. The unwanted record is held by a Nicholas Wyborne, who was lying down near a target when he was hit by a falling arrow, which pierced him to a depth of six inches.

3. The first time a coroners' court came up against the new-fangled problem of a fatal shooting accident was 1519, when a woman in Welton near Hull was accidentally killed by a handgun.

The perpetrator was a bookbinder from France, called with dazzling Tudor wit, Peter Frenchman. The victim, not understanding this noisy gadget, had walked in front of the gun as it had been fired.

Establishing the gun's place in the social order, in 1557 when the Duke of Norfolk's horse stumbled on a road in Tottenham, his gun went off and shot dead a servant. Showing the marvels of scientific progress, by the 1560s guns were causing more accidental deaths than longbows.

4. How do you shoot yourself in the head with your own bow? In 1552, Henry Pert, gentleman, in Welbeck, Nottinghamshire, drew his bow to its full extent with the aim of shooting straight up into the air.

The arrow lodged in the bow, and while he was leaning over to look, the arrow was released. He died the next day. Of embarrassment.

5. Imagine an episode of Casualty. How could baking a loaf lead to a fatal accident? There's not even a gas oven or an electric gadget to worry about, because neither had been invented.

Elizabeth Bennet, spinster, was baking bread at the house of Matilda Nanfan, widow, at Birtsmorton, Worcestershire, on 29 January 1558. She went to the moat to collect cabbage leaves to put under the loaves she was baking. The fence broke and she fell into the moat and drowned. End of.

6. "John Hypper was 'playinge Christenmas games' on Boxing Day 1563 at about 6pm with divers other parishioners of Houghton, Hampshire in the house of Thomas Purdew of Houghton, husbandman. While playing he involuntarily crushed himself and injured his testicles so that by reason of his old bodily infirmity he became ill and languished until about 3am on 28 December when he died."

If he'd lived, would anyone have believed him? Old bodily infirmity? Testicles crushed in a Christmas game? Pull the other one.

7. Tudor-style mad cow disease took the form of a "madd cow" belonging to William Cheills of Hogsthorpe, Lincolnshire. A man walking through the fields in March 1557 was attacked by the cow, which gored him to death with her horn. The victim's name was Robert Calf.

8. Maypole injuries were not only caused by careering into another country dancer. Not even a dizziness hazard. Thomas Alsopp of Coventry was standing in the former cemetery of the Coventry Greyfriars under a stone wall on 26 April 1558 when a maypole fell over.

It hit the city wall and knocked a stone out of the top of it, which hit him on the left part of his head and penetrated his brain, killing him instantly. What were the chances? What would they have said in the health and safety assessment?

9. A quick shower after work wouldn't usually be a matter of life and death. But the Tudor post-work scrub meant taking advantage of nature's washtub in the nearest pond or river. It tells historians that working people liked to keep themselves clean. Clean, but unlucky.

 
Looks so simple Thomas Staple, a labourer of Biddenden, Kent, went into Mr Mayne's pond to wash and cool down on 2 June 1558, then suddenly fell into the deepest part and drowned.

In the same summer, John Joplyn and George Lee drowned while washing in rivers at Cambridge and Leicester, one getting trapped by bushes and the other falling into a whirlpool.

10. The occupation of "gong farmer" sounds quite cheerful until you realise it was what the Tudors called people who were paid to clear out the sewage from cesspits.

So what can be said about the drunken Cambridge baker who, while relieving himself, fell backwards into a cesspit on 2 June 1523? He died horribly. What a way to go.

[nobby]

lol!!! reminds me of stupid death from horible histories

[rjm]

We get some odd deaths these days too.

Try these.............


King Edmund died on the crapper. An assassin was hiding in the toilet and as Edmund strained away he shoved his longsword twice up his arse, killing him instantly.

In 1994 the Argentine police found a set of bones belonging to a missing 19 year old beneath a Buenos Aires building which was used by devil worshippers. The occupants explained that they had ordered pizzas, but it took so long to deliver that they decided to eat the pizza delivery boy instead.

In September 1992, a homeless couple were injured when a train hit them as they were shagging on a mattress on the tracks at a New York subway station. The couple then had the nerve to file a lawsuit against the Transit Authority for "carelessness, recklessness and negligence". Their laywer told a newspaper that, "homeless people are allowed to have sex too." .

Debby Mills-Newbroughton, 99 years old, was killed as she crossed the road. She was to turn 100 the next day but, crossing the road with her daughter to go to her own birthday party, her wheel chair was hit by the truck delivering her birthday cake.

Peter Stone, 42 years old, was murdered by his eight year old daughter, who he had just sent to her room with no dinner. Young Samantha Stone felt that if she couldn't have dinner no one should, and she promptly inserted 72 rat poison tablets into her father's coffee as he prepared dinner. The victim took one slip and promptly collapsed (Samantha Stone was given a suspended sentence as the judge felt she didn't realize what she was doing, until she tried to poison her mother using the same method one month later).

David Danil, 17 years old, was killed by his girlfriend Charla after he attempted to "have his way with her". His unwelcome advances were met with a prompt kick in the chest and then two shots from a doubled barrelled shot gun Charla's father had given to her an hour before the date started, just in case.

Megan Fri, 44 years old, was killed by 14 state troopers after she wandered onto a live firing, fake town simulation. Seeing the troopers all walking slow down the street, Megan jumped out in front of them and yelled, "Boo!" The troopers, thinking she was a pop up target, fired 67 shots between them, over 40 of them hitting their target. "She just looked like a very real looking target," one of the troopers stated in his report

Mahmood Foli, 22 years old, was killed by an unknown member of the Russian Mafia after he accidentally took away the gangster's drink too soon at the nightclub he worked in. The gangster was so upset that he forced the waiter to drink over 27 litres of Coca Cola (the drink he had taken away) until Mahmood drowned.

Helena Simms, wife of the famous American Nuclear Scientist Harold Simms, was killed by her husband after she had an affair with the neighbour. Over a period of three months, Harold substituted Helena's eye shadow with a uranium composite that was highly radioactive, until she died of radiation poisoning. Although she suffered many symptoms, including total hair loss,skin welts, blindness, extreme nausea and even had an ear lobe drop off, the victim never attended a doctor's surgery or hospital for a check up.

Military Sergeant John Joe Winter killed his "two timing wife" by loading her car with Trintynitrate explosive (similar to C4). The Ford Taurus she was driving was filled with 750 kilograms of explosive, forming a force twice as powerful as the Oklahoma Bombing. The explosion was witnessed by several persons, some up to 14 kilometres away. No trace of the car or the victim were ever found, only a 55 metre deep crater and 500 metres of missing road.

Patty Winter, 35 years old, was killed by her neighbour in the early hours of a Sunday morning. Her neighbour, Falt Hame, for years had a mounted F6 phantom jet engine in his rear yard. He would fire the jet engine, aimed at a empty building at the back of his property. Patty Winter would constantly complain to the local police about the noise and the potential risk of fire. Mr Hame was served with a notice to remove the engine immediately. Not liking this, he invited Miss Winter over "for a cup of coffee and a chat" about the whole situation. What Winter didn't know was that he had changed the position of the engine. As she walked into the yard, he activated it, hitting her with a blast of 5000 degrees, killing her instantly, and forever burning her outline into the driveway.

Gail Queens, 23 years old, was killed by her zoo keeper boyfriend Matthew Kellaway after she refused sex. He 'invited her' to the zoo to see the lions feeding, and at feeding time led her into a room that had a large slide away panel. He explained to her that it was a large glass viewing window to watch the lions devour their prey. He 'ducked out for a quick smoke' and locked her in the room. Suddenly the slide away panel opened to reveal many people staring at her. She was just about to yell and tell them that they were on the wrong side of the glass when she realized that it was her on the wrong side. Another panel opened and three hungry lions were let into the pen. Gail survived for two days in hospital before dying of massive internal injuries.

A bad diet and a room with no ventilation are blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but an autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been fatal, but the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.

[tyna]

Oh Bob - poor King Edmund 

[dances with badgers]

oooh edmondo what a pain in the aaaaarrrrsse

[rjm]

oooh edmondo what a pain in the aaaaarrrrsse

What about Edward 2nd who died with a red hot poker up his backside.....murdered at Berkley Castle,
Gloucester.....


King Edward II

King Edward IIAKA Edward

Born: 25-Apr-1284
Birthplace: Caernarfon Castle
Died: 11-Oct-1327
Cause of death: Murder
Remains: Buried, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Bisexual
Occupation: Royalty

Nationality: England
Executive summary: King of England, 1307-27



    On the night of October 11 (1327 AD) while lying in on a bed (the king) was suddenly seized and, while a great mattress... weighed him down and suffocated him, a plumber's iron, heated intensely hot, was introduced through a tube into his secret parts so that it burned the inner portions beyond the intestines.



Father: King Edward I (d. 7-Jul-1307)
Mother: Eleanor of Castile
Brother: Alfonso
Wife: Isabella of France (m. 25-Jan-1308)
Son: King Edward III
Son: John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall (b. 1316, d. 1336)
Daughter: Eleanor (b. 1318)
Daughter: Joanna (b. 1321, d. 1362)
Son: Adam FitzRoy
Boyfriend: Piers Gaveston (d. 19-Jun-1312 beheaded)

    UK Monarch 1307 to 11-Oct-1327