A new study by a Cambridge University criminologist reveals just how dangerous it was to be a monarch in Europe before the modern era.
On 30 January, 1649, Charles I was executed on a balcony overlooking Whitehall in central London.
A huge crowd, restrained by ranks of militia, gathered to witness his beheading.
An eye witness reported that his severed head was thrown down and his hair cut off while soldiers dipped their swords in his blood.
As a royal meeting a ghastly fate, Charles I was far from alone. The astonishing number of European kings who met a violent end has been documented for the first time by a Cambridge University criminologist.
Professor Manuel Eisner’s study reveals just how risky it was to be a monarch in an era when murdering those who stood in your way was a fast lane to power.
Killing Kings, a paper in the British Journal of Criminology, is a statistical study of the demise of 1,513 monarchs in 45 European monarchies over the period 600 to 1800.
It reveals that almost a quarter (22 per cent) of all royal deaths were bloody — accidents, battle deaths and killings — and that 15 per cent of all deaths were outright murder.
“The toll of 15 per cent corresponds to an average rate of 10 murders for every 1,000 years of life as a monarch — far higher than the homicide rate for even the most troubled areas of the world today,” said Eisner.
This rate is higher than the threshold for ‘major combat’ among soldiers engaged in a contemporary war. It demonstrates the intense violent rivalry for domination among historical European political elites,” said Eisner. As a criminologist, Eisner divides his gruesome statistics for kingly killings into four broad scenarios.
Top of the list is murder as a means of succession: at a stroke the reigning monarch is removed from power and a rival enthroned.