Seven Macabre Sword Deaths From History

History is full of heroic last stands, noble sacrifices and beautifully composed deathbed speeches. It is also full of people being stabbed in churches, skewered through bridge planks and beaten to death with pieces of their own anatomy.

Accounts of unusual historical deaths are especially vulnerable to embellishment. A spear becomes a sword, an uncertain anecdote becomes eyewitness testimony, and before long a medieval nobleman is delivering an improbably polished final remark while several organs are no longer where nature placed them.

The seven deaths below are macabre, consequential and reasonably well supported by historical evidence. Where the sources disagree, the uncertainty matters. A good story should never be allowed to bully the evidence into submission.

At a Glance

Victim	Date	Place	Cause of death	Historical certainty
Thomas Becket	1170	Canterbury, England	Killed with swords inside Canterbury Cathedral	Exceptionally well documented
Humphrey de Bohun	1322	Boroughbridge, England	Apparently impaled from beneath a bridge	Gruesome detail comes from chronicle tradition
John Comyn	1306	Dumfries, Scotland	Stabbed by Robert Bruce and killed by his companions	Killing certain, precise sequence disputed
Wat Tyler	1381	Smithfield, London	Cut down during negotiations with Richard II	Well attested, details vary
Władysław III of Poland and Hungary	1444	Varna, Bulgaria	Killed after charging the Ottoman line	Death certain, recovery of the head disputed
Sir Arthur Aston	1649	Drogheda, Ireland	Traditionally beaten with his wooden leg	Contemporary evidence supports the central story
Alexander of Greece	1920	Tatoi, Greece	Sepsis following monkey bites	Well documented, sword involvement doubtful

Thomas Becket: Cut Down in Canterbury Cathedral

Few sword killings have been recorded with the immediacy of Thomas Becket’s murder. On 29 December 1170, four knights entered Canterbury Cathedral and confronted the archbishop near the north transept.

Becket had once been Henry II’s close friend and royal chancellor. Their relationship collapsed after Becket became Archbishop of Canterbury and began defending the independence of the Church with a determination that Henry found infuriating. The dispute concerned royal authority, clerical privilege and the punishment of criminal clergy. It was political, personal and increasingly poisonous.

The four knights were:

Reginald FitzUrse
Hugh de Morville
William de Tracy
Richard le Breton

They apparently believed that they were acting in accordance with the king’s wishes, although Henry’s exact words and intentions remain debated. The famous outburst about being rid of a “turbulent priest” is probably a later refinement rather than a reliable verbatim quotation.

Becket refused to leave the cathedral. Edward Grim, a visiting cleric who witnessed the attack, described how the first sword blow wounded both Becket and Grim himself. Further strikes brought the archbishop down. According to Grim, one blow cut away the crown of Becket’s head and shattered the sword against the pavement.

A clerk accompanying the knights then scattered Becket’s brain and blood across the floor. The point was brutally clear: the archbishop was not merely dead, but publicly and irreversibly defeated.

Politically, the murder was a catastrophe for Henry II. Becket was rapidly transformed from a troublesome opponent into a martyr. Pilgrims travelled to his shrine, miracles were attributed to him, and Henry eventually performed public penance at Canterbury.

It is difficult to think of a political assassination that backfired more efficiently. Henry’s enemies could hardly have organised a better publicity campaign.

The murder is unusually well documented through accounts by Grim and other near-contemporary writers. Material culture also preserved its memory. Medieval manuscripts, reliquaries, stained glass and church art repeatedly depicted the raised swords and the collapsing archbishop. The British Museum’s account of Becket’s murder offers a useful introduction to this evidence.

John Comyn: Murder Before the Altar

On 10 February 1306, Robert Bruce met John Comyn of Badenoch inside the Greyfriars church at Dumfries. The meeting ended with Comyn bleeding before the altar and Bruce committed to a rebellion that would either make him king or see him destroyed.

Comyn was not a minor obstacle. He had served as Guardian of Scotland and possessed a serious claim to political leadership. His family was wealthy, influential and closely connected to the Balliol royal cause. Bruce could not pursue the Scottish throne without reckoning with him.

The two men quarrelled inside the church. Bruce stabbed Comyn, probably with a dagger, and left the building. His companions then entered and completed the killing with their weapons. Comyn’s uncle, Sir Robert Comyn, was also killed when he attempted to intervene.

Later Scottish tradition supplied wonderfully dramatic dialogue. Roger Kirkpatrick supposedly declared, “I mak siccar”, meaning “I make sure”, before finishing Comyn off. The phrase became associated with the Kirkpatrick family, but it belongs to later storytelling rather than secure contemporary testimony.

English and Scottish accounts present sharply different motives. English writers portrayed Bruce as a calculating murderer who had lured his rival into a sacred place. Later Scottish narratives accused Comyn of betraying Bruce and treated the killing as the violent climax of a political dispute.

The safest conclusion is less theatrical. Bruce and Comyn met amid a dangerous struggle for power, an argument became violent, and Bruce inflicted the first wound. His followers ensured that Comyn did not survive it.

Killing a political rival was hardly unknown in medieval Scotland. Killing one before an altar was another matter. Bruce faced excommunication and had placed himself beyond any easy reconciliation with Edward I. Within weeks, he was crowned King of Scots.

The murder did not simply remove a rival. It closed every available exit except open war.

Humphrey de Bohun: The Earl Killed Through a Bridge

Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, died at the Battle of Boroughbridge on 16 March 1322 while fighting the forces of Edward II. His death is among the most gruesome described in medieval English chronicle tradition.

Hereford had joined Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, in rebellion against the king and the powerful Despenser family. Their retreat was blocked at Boroughbridge by Sir Andrew Harclay, whose troops occupied a strong defensive position around the river crossing.

Hereford led an attempt to force a way across the wooden bridge. According to the traditional account, one of Harclay’s pikemen waited beneath the structure and thrust his weapon upwards through a gap in the planks as the earl advanced.

The weapon entered Hereford from below and inflicted catastrophic internal injuries. Some versions describe the pikeman twisting the spearhead inside his body before withdrawing it.

This detail should be treated carefully. Chronicle descriptions of the deaths of defeated rebels often carried a moral or punitive flavour. A prominent aristocrat brought low by an unseen common soldier made a satisfying lesson about pride, treason and divine judgement.

Even so, Hereford was certainly killed during the struggle for the bridge, and the tactical circumstances make an upward spear thrust plausible. Medieval bridges channelled attackers into a narrow killing ground where men at the front had little room to evade missiles or polearms.

His death helped shatter the rebel advance. Lancaster was captured shortly afterwards and executed at Pontefract. The rebellion collapsed, leaving Edward II and the Despensers temporarily dominant.

Hereford’s end is sometimes described as a sword death. It was almost certainly a spear or pike. Evidently, the authentic account was not horrible enough for everyone.

Wat Tyler: A Negotiation Settled with Steel

Wat Tyler emerged as the most prominent leader of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. By June, enormous rebel forces had entered London, attacked symbols of royal government and executed several senior officials.

On 15 June, Tyler met the fourteen-year-old Richard II at Smithfield. What followed is recorded differently by the chroniclers, most of whom were hostile to the rebels.

According to the fullest accounts, Tyler behaved aggressively towards members of the royal party. He may have drawn a dagger or attempted to strike one of the king’s attendants. William Walworth, the Mayor of London, moved against him and struck him with a sword.

Another member of the royal household then stabbed Tyler. Mortally wounded, he managed to ride a short distance before falling from his horse. He was taken to a nearby hospital, but royal supporters dragged him back into the street and beheaded him. His head was displayed on London Bridge.

The scene became the turning point of the revolt. With Tyler down and the crowd threatening to surge forward, Richard rode towards the rebels and declared that he would be their captain. His composure bought the authorities enough time to regain control.

Once the immediate danger had passed, the concessions made to the rebels were revoked. Royal forces suppressed the remaining resistance and executed many of its leaders.

Tyler’s death illustrates the danger of medieval negotiation. Meetings conducted under promises of safe passage could still include thousands of armed men, hostile officials and a mayor carrying a sword. The atmosphere was not conducive to patient disagreement.

The essential facts are secure, but the exact exchange at Smithfield cannot be reconstructed with certainty. Chroniclers shaped Tyler into the sort of insolent rebel whose violent death appeared both necessary and deserved. Fordham University’s Medieval London project preserves one important depiction of the encounter.

Władysław III: The King Whose Body Was Never Identified

Władysław III ruled Poland and Hungary before dying at the Battle of Varna on 10 November 1444. He was around twenty years old.

A Christian coalition under Władysław and the experienced commander John Hunyadi confronted the Ottoman army of Sultan Murad II near the Black Sea. The battle initially offered the crusaders some hope, but their position remained precarious.

At the critical moment, Władysław led his household cavalry in a direct charge against the Ottoman centre. The attack reached the Janissary positions but failed to break them. The king’s horse fell, and Władysław was killed amid the fighting.

Ottoman accounts report that a Janissary named Koca Hızır cut off the king’s head and presented it to Murad. The head was allegedly displayed as proof of victory. Whether the preserved trophy was genuinely Władysław’s cannot be established.

His body was never securely identified. This encouraged rumours that he had survived the battle and escaped into exile. In later years, claimants and stories appeared, including the suggestion that he had lived as a hermit in Portugal. None rests on convincing evidence.

The practical explanation is less romantic. His corpse disappeared during a chaotic defeat in which fallen men were stripped, mutilated or buried without reliable identification.

Władysław’s death broke the momentum of the crusading army. The defeat at Varna strengthened Ottoman power in the Balkans and contributed to the isolation of Constantinople, which fell nine years later.

The young king’s decision to charge the Ottoman centre has often been condemned as reckless. That judgement is understandable, although perhaps too comfortable. Battlefield commanders make choices through dust, noise and partial information. Historians make theirs while seated, warm and in possession of the ending.

Sir Arthur Aston: Beaten with His Own Wooden Leg

Sir Arthur Aston was a professional soldier and Royalist commander who had served in continental Europe before fighting for Charles I during the English Civil Wars.

A cannonball shattered one of his legs during the conflict. The limb was amputated and replaced with a substantial wooden prosthesis. In September 1649, Aston commanded the garrison at Drogheda when Oliver Cromwell’s army assaulted the town.

After the Parliamentarian soldiers broke through, Aston withdrew with part of the garrison to the Millmount fortification. He was captured and killed during the violence that followed.

The best-known account states that soldiers tore away his wooden leg because they believed it concealed gold coins. Finding no treasure inside, they beat Aston to death with it.

The story appears in early historical accounts and is not merely a Victorian invention, although its precise details cannot be checked against neutral eyewitness testimony. The central claim is accepted by several modern biographies, including the Dictionary of Irish Biography.

Aston’s death formed part of the much larger killing at Drogheda. Royalist soldiers, Irish Confederates, clergy and civilians died after the town was stormed. The scale and character of the massacre remain fiercely debated, particularly when historians try to distinguish contemporary military practice from deliberate atrocity.

The wooden leg story can easily distract from that wider horror. It is grotesquely memorable, but Aston was only one victim among many.

There is no reliable evidence that his amputated natural leg was later found preserved in alcohol, as some modern retellings claim. That embellishment appears to have attached itself to the story because history occasionally attracts details in the manner of an unattended coat collecting burrs.

Alexander of Greece: The Monkey, the Dog and the Infection

King Alexander of Greece died on 25 October 1920 after being bitten by monkeys in the grounds of the royal estate at Tatoi.

Alexander had become king in 1917 after his father, Constantine I, was forced into exile. Although he wore the crown, he possessed limited political power and was separated from much of his family.

On 2 October 1920, Alexander was walking with his dog when the animal became involved in a fight with a Barbary macaque belonging to a palace employee. As Alexander tried to intervene, another monkey attacked and bit him deeply.

His wounds were treated, but infection developed. He suffered from fever, sepsis and worsening inflammation for more than three weeks. Doctors discussed amputation, although none wished to accept responsibility for so drastic an operation on the king. Alexander eventually died aged twenty-seven.

Some versions of the story place a sword in his hand, usually a ceremonial blade drawn to defend the dog. Firm evidence for this detail is elusive. The sword may be a later addition intended to connect royal dignity with a death that contemporaries found embarrassingly random.

The monkeys were not Alexander’s own pets, another detail frequently muddled in popular versions. Nor did a single monkey neatly attack the king after he struck it. The incident involved his dog and at least two macaques.

Alexander’s death had serious political consequences. His father returned to the throne following the electoral defeat of Eleftherios Venizelos. Greece’s position in the continuing conflict with Turkish nationalist forces deteriorated, although it would be misleading to treat one monkey bite as the sole cause of the subsequent Greek disaster in Asia Minor.

Winston Churchill later wrote that “a quarter of a million persons died of this monkey’s bite”. It was a memorable line, but not a sensible casualty calculation. Wars have governments, armies, disputed territories and strategic failures behind them. Blaming the monkey is tidier, which is usually why such explanations endure.

Which Stories From History Are False?

Several tales commonly repeated in lists of bizarre historical deaths do not survive basic scrutiny.

Julian the Apostate was not killed by his rebounding sword

The Roman emperor Julian was mortally wounded during his Persian campaign in June 363. Ammianus Marcellinus, who participated in the campaign, describes Julian rushing into danger without his breastplate and being struck in the side by a spear.

Different traditions blamed a Persian cavalryman, an Arab auxiliary or even a Christian soldier from Julian’s own army. There is no credible ancient account in which Julian threw his sword, watched it rebound from a shield and was impaled by it.

The supposed declaration, “The purple makes a better shroud”, is also not securely associated with his death. Julian’s final hours attracted religious propaganda almost immediately, including the famous but historically doubtful cry, “You have conquered, Galilean.”

Anawrahta was not stabbed by a sword-carrying elephant

Burmese chronicle tradition states that King Anawrahta died after being gored by a wild buffalo, sometimes described as a supernatural being or nat in animal form. Other interpretations suggest assassination.

The account of a palace elephant carrying a loose ceremonial sword appears to be a modern invention. It combines several recognisably royal objects but lacks recognisable evidence.

Richard of Conisburgh was not hacked apart with a rusty sword

Richard, Earl of Cambridge, was executed at Southampton in August 1415 for his part in the Southampton Plot against Henry V. Contemporary evidence supports execution by beheading, but not the claim that a misplaced axe forced an executioner to use a rusty sword through five attempts.

The execution was politically important because Richard’s son became Richard, Duke of York, father of Edward IV and Richard III. The invented rusty blade adds colour but no understanding.

Francesco Berni did not impale himself during a duel

The Florentine poet Francesco Berni died in 1535, probably after being poisoned during factional intrigue involving Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici and Alessandro de’ Medici.

There is no sound evidence that Berni was a notorious duel cheat who tripped over his dropped sword in 1547. He had already been dead for twelve years, which generally limits participation in fencing matches.

Sir Thomas Urquhart probably died laughing, but no sword was involved

The Scottish writer and translator Sir Thomas Urquhart was said to have died in a fit of laughter after hearing of the restoration of Charles II. The story appeared in later biographical tradition and may conceal a stroke or another sudden medical event.

Urquhart had military experience, but his death does not meaningfully involve a sword. Surviving dangerous events and later dying without one does not turn the final incident into a weapon-related death.

Why Macabre Death Stories Grow in the Retelling

Unusual deaths tend to acquire details because those details give the story shape. A random death becomes ironic. A political murder becomes divine judgement. A confused battlefield death gains a named killer and a perfectly timed final sentence.

Several forces encourage this process:

Chroniclers wrote with political and religious loyalties.
Later families wanted heroic or memorable ancestral stories.
Artists turned complicated events into readable visual scenes.
Popular histories compressed uncertainty into certainty.
Modern websites copied one another without checking the earliest sources.

Weapons are especially useful narrative objects. A sword can symbolise authority, betrayal, martyrdom or failed courage. Once placed in a story, it often remains there even when the evidence quietly leaves by another door.

Takeaway

These deaths reveal something more interesting than the simple fact that historical weapons were dangerous. They show how violence could transform political events almost instantly.

Becket’s murder created a saint. Comyn’s death forced Bruce towards the crown. Tyler’s killing allowed royal authority to recover at Smithfield. Władysław’s fall helped decide a battle with consequences across south-eastern Europe. Aston’s death became the most personal horror within a much larger massacre.

I find the uncertain details as revealing as the proven ones. A chronicler’s exaggeration, a family legend or a later invented flourish tells us what people wanted a death to mean. That does not make every story true, but it does make the mythology worth examining.

History is quite capable of being macabre without our assistance. The least we can do is let it be macabre accurately.