William The Conqueror
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Being a celebrity isn’t always the same, of course, as being beloved. And likewise, embarrassing celebrity deaths in the cases of those who aren’t exactly beloved are sometimes remembered as fitting examples of karma at work.
The first Norman King of England, William the Conqueror reigned from 1066 until his death. And more so than his death, it’s what immediately followed it that was truly embarrassing.
When William was eight years old, his father died. Afterward, he took on his father’s titles and in 1035 he became the Duke of Normandy. This threw the region into anarchy as citizens who were unhappy with the young leader rebelled. As a response, William burned down villages and crops and slaughtered herd animals, leaving people starving and poverty-stricken. His callous behavior earned him the title William the Bastard.
Being a ruler, William was free to indulge in as much fine French food as he wanted — whether or not the common people were starving. His glutinousness caused him to grow fatter and fatter, which ultimately led to his demise.
In 1087, Willaim was injured when a horse he was riding unexpectedly reared up. Due to his large size, the saddle pushed into William’s abdomen and punctured his intestines.
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Doctors spent six weeks attempting to save him. But his weight made the surgery unsuccessful and William wound up dying from his injuries. Normally, a funeral and burial service was arranged by the people closest to the deceased. However, William’s unpopularity during his life wasn’t forgotten when he died.
And so William’s half-naked body lay forgotten about in a Rouen, France medical facility until a traveling knight called Herluin came by. The tissue had already begun to decompose, but Herluin still embalmed the body. He then had to make the 70-mile journey by boat to Caen, where the church by which William’s body was supposed to be buried was located.
Over the course of the slow trip, the bacteria in the late king’s intestines had grown so much that it started leaking out into the rest of his body. This caused the tissue to decompose at an alarming rate, filling him with putrid gas.
Once the knight and the dead king arrived in Caen, the funeral was delayed even further when a fire happened to break out in the city. When it was finally time to bury the body, it had been weeks since William’s death.
Unfortunately, there was another issue. The residual heat from the fire plus the delay inflated William’s bowels to even larger sizes. And when the gravediggers began lowering him into the ground, they realized that the hole wasn’t big enough for his over-inflated body to fit in. They tried to squeeze him in, and that’s when he burst.
According to the English chronicler Orderic Vitalis, his “swollen bowels burst, and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the bystanders and the whole crowd.” The mourners, overwhelmed by the smell of decomposing flesh and covered in putrified innards, finished the funeral as quickly as they could.
On the plus side, William was finally now able to fit inside his grave. And the mistreatment of his body provided a sense of cathartic karma to the people, who felt that they had been deeply mistreated by the now dead and exploded, gluttonous king.
