Killing Kings

The results of Cambridge University criminologist, Professor Manuel Eisner’s, recent study of the demise of 1,513 monarchs in 45 European monarchies, entitled Killing Kings, were published this week on the website of The British Journal of Criminology. His statistics are shocking: between AD 600 and 1800, 22% of royal deaths in Europe were bloody – accidents, battle deaths and killings. Murder was by far the most important violent cause of death, accounting to about 15% of all deaths.

‘The toll of 15 per cent corresponds to an average rate of 10 murders for every 1000 years of life as a monarch – far higher than the homicide rate for even the most troubled areas of the world today. 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.’

Eisner divides the motives for murdering kings in the period into four broad scenarios. A common cause for killing kings was murder as a means of succession when the reigning monarch was removed from power and immediately replaced by a rival. In 969, for example, the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II was slain in his bedroom by his wife Theophano. His chief general John Tzimiskes was thereafter crowned emperor after agreeing to do penance for murder and to separate from his lover. A second common scenario was murder by a neighbouring ruler and competitor attempting to gain territory or seal military victory. The Sultan of Granada Muhammed VI was thus murdered near Seville, in 1362, whilst travelling to attend peace talks with the King of Castile Peter I. A third motive for killing kings was personal grievance and revenge fuelled by rape, murder or insult committed by the ruler. Albert I of Germany was murdered, for example, by his nephew Johann of Swabia, in 1308, whilst riding home from a banquet at which he had personally insulted Johann. Lastly, monarchs were sometimes killed by outsiders – in the case of Yusuf I of Granada, for example, who was assassinated in 1354 by a maniac whilst praying in the mosque.

General trends emerged from Eisner’s statistical study. On the whole, young monarchs whose power was not wholly consolidated, such as Prince Edward V of England and his younger brother Richard the Duke of York, were most likely to be murdered. Whilst European regicides were most frequent in the Early Middle Ages, they gradually became less common. According to Eisner, after the 16^th century ‘it became very uncommon to organise power transfer through the murder of a monarch’. Laws regulating issues of succession were developed and, in Britain, from James I onwards kings were protected by the doctrine of the divine right of kings gaining an almost godly status.

Some of Eisner’s findings are particularly surprisingly; for example, regicides were particularly widespread in cold climates. In Scotland, for example, between 889 and 1094, 15 out of 17 monarchs died in battle or were victims of regicide. In Norway, all seven kings between 1103 and 1162 were assassinated or killed in battle.

Eisner’s paper Killing Kings will also be published in the May issue of The British Journal of Criminology which will focus on ‘Evolutionary and Historical Approaches to Violence’.