7 Little Known Royal Medieval Murders

Kings and politics were big during the Middle Ages. Politicians often died when their supporters were split, but sometimes it was just a jealous husband or a lover who had been dumped. During the Middle Ages, murder was just as likely to happen to royalty as to the rest of the population. In fact, they were often even more at risk because there was a lot to gain from overthrowing a king.

Many people found out, though, that they had a lot to lose as well. The two princes in the tower. The two kings are two of the most famous people who died in the Middle Ages. King Edward IVth, got sick and died in 1483. He was only 12 years old and his younger brother Richard was only 9 years old. Richard, Duke of Glouester, King Edward IVth’s brother, was made Lord Protector because of this.

There were plans for Edward V to be crowned king. But the event kept getting pushed back. Last but not least, Richard put off the crown forever and said he was the real king. It was said that both Edward V and his younger brother Richard were not rightful heirs. Because of the marriage contract between Edward IVth and Lady Elellanena Butler, the marriage between Edward IVth and Elizabeth Woodville was ruled illegal, which led to the claim of illegitimacy.

The marriage was not legitimate, so the boys were not allowed to take the throne. Both sons were locked up in the Tower of London after Richard took the throne and became Richard III. There were people who said they saw the boys playing before their uncle became king. But after the summer of 1483, no one saw the young kings again.

In July 1483, someone tried to get the boys out of the tower, but failed. The princes were never seen or heard from again, and no one knows what happened to them. There have been people over the years who said they were one of the lost princes, but these claims were never proven. Two groups of two unnamed children’s bodies have been found.

One set was found in the Tower of London under the stairs that lead to the Church of the White Tower. You could find the other set in the grave of Edward IVth and Queen Elizabeth Woodville. The bodies have not been checked to see if they belong to the kings. Most people think that the boys were killed by their uncle, and this was also what many people thought at the time.

James I of Scotland. It wasn’t easy for James I of Scotland to become king. King Robert III made him heir after his two older brothers died. He was the third son of the king. Because one of the deaths seemed odd, James was taken to France by boat to keep himself safe. By some strange turn of events, the English took James’ ship and held him as a hostage.

Robert III was already very sick at the time and he died soon after hearing that his son had been captured. After that, James’s uncle, Robert Stewart, the first Duke of Albany, took the throne. The Duke liked being king and wouldn’t pay the British the large amount of money they wanted to get the young ruler back.

James I was locked up by King Henry IV for 18 years. There were some good things about James’s life. He got a good education and lived like a king. Robert Stewart passed away in 1424 and James’ debt was paid. He could finally go back to Scotland. When James the Mum got home, he wanted to get back at the Albany Stewarts.

So, he put the family’s leaders to death. He wanted to stop the greed and corruption that had grown under his uncle’s rule and bring Scottish law up to date. At the same time, some people didn’t always like what he was doing, which made them look for a way to get rid of the king.

A group of Scottish lords attacked James I because they thought he wasn’t really king. There was a hole in the king’s flat floor that he used to get into the sewers. He got deep into the sewers, but luck would have it that James Thur had shut them off because he had lost too many tennis balls. They caught up to him in the tunnels and stabbed him to death.

Nice Forest II focus. In 953, Nice Forest II focus began his job as a military leader just like his father had done. People in Constantinople liked him because he beat the Arabs and the Bzantine Emperor Romanus II and his wife Empress Theophano were interested in him. Nice Forest I focus was known to be religious, ugly, and not interested in women.

But he showed himself over and over again as a military leader. When Emperor Romanus II died, his wife was put in charge of her kids who were only six and three years old when they were made co-emperors. She looked for someone to protect her kids and herself because she knew there were plans to hurt them. To do this, she called Nicerus to Constantinople and tried to get him to marry her.

He said he would take the crown and rule until her sons were old enough to do so themselves. They got married soon after Npherus was crowned king in August 963. People did not like Emperor Nepherus II. He cut money from the court, the church, and the monasteries while raising taxes to levels that had never been seen before.

People stopped liking him because he wouldn’t help the poor during several famines. She also turned against Npherus because she thought that his brothers were trying to take her son’s place as kings. After Npherus II fired Theophano from his military job, he went out with John Tumishes. They planned to kill Npherus together.

A group of people planning to kill the emperor hid in Theophano’s room as women until he went to sleep. Then she pushed them into the emperor’s room where they killed him by stabbing and beating him. John Simishes was made emperor right away, but the religious leaders demanded that he send Theophano into exile.

Even though she was sent into exile, her sons did become emperors in the end. King Eric V of Denmark. King Eric V never really held on to his throne. He was only 10 years old when his father was killed, and he took the throne. He ruled with the help of his mother, Queen Daajer Margaret Samberia, until he was old enough to do it on his own.

Making sure her son would stay in power meant she had to fight strong enemies. In 1259, the year her husband died, Chief Jarimar II put together an army and attacked Zealand to test the queen. She was beaten and later that same year, Chief Jarimar II would also steal from Copenhagen. In order to continue his mission, he got into a fight with a farmer’s wife, which made her angry and made his army run home.

The queen had to give up some of her holdings and areas because of other rebellions and attacks on the throne, but her son stayed on the throne as he became an adult. Some things are still not clear about how King Eric V died. It is said that there is a group of nobles who would do anything to make the king pay for hurting them or making policy choices they didn’t agree with.

Some of the main conspirators were Marshall Stig, Anderson Vidder, and Jacob Nielson. They paid one of the king’s closest friends to tell them where he was so that they could get payback. On November 22nd, 1286, King Eric V and his men came across a church barn in Finderup and took cover there after a long hunt.

Asalants dressed up as Franciscan monks and attacked the king while he was sleeping. They cut him up with knives and the bloody body was found. The next morning, the court put the blame on Marshall Stig Anderson Vida and Count Jacob Nielsen, but it’s still not clear who did it. Both guys were arrested, which made Stig turned to piracy.

Alboine. Albo was a trial warrior in the sixth century, but his pride and cruelty brought him down. In 560, he became king of the Lombards and became very powerful. People from the Lombards and the Gids often fought and it was during Alboine’s rule that he wanted to get rid of the Gepids for good.

In order to reach his goal, he made deals with the Avars and the Byzantine Empire. King Kunamund led the Gids in an attack on the Lombards in the year 567. They were able to beat the Gids with King Albboine’s help. That fight is where King Kunamund died. He was killed by either King Albine or the Ava King Bayern I.

King Kunamund was killed and King Alboine wore a wine cup made from his skull on his belt and drank from it all the time. As part of their deal to form an alliance with the Avars, the latter would take control of the Gid lands. This made the stronger Avars a threat to King Albne. He married Rosund, King Kuniman’s daughter, to try to get the Gids to side with him.

But the Gids were too far away to be of much help. So, King Albine had to send his people to Italy. Most of Italy was his between 569 and 572, and he set about making a kingdom for himself and his wife to rule. His murder would happen because he was mean to his wife. He was known to beat her and treat her badly.

But when he asked her to drink happily with her father and gave her wine from a cup made from her father’s skull, that was the last straw. From then on, she planned to kill him. They forced the king’s security to help them by threatening him with harm along with Alboine’s foster brother, Helmekis. Then, while the king slept one night, Helmekus and the guard killed King Alboine by beating him.

Canut I 4th of Denmark. During the 1200s, Canute IV was king of Denmark. He took over for his bigger brother Harold Hen. He was the son of King Swine II Streathson. He became king of Denmark in 1080 and worked to strengthen the throne. He was a devout Roman Catholic. It was during his rule that the church was given more power and people were required to honor church holidays.

For King Canute IV, supporting the church was not only the right thing to do because of his faith, but it was also a good way to get a useful friend. He thought that having a strong connection to the church would help him fight the aristocracy by building a strong and organized monarchy. Several members of the elite were angry with him because he wanted to change things.

But he wasn’t just interested in Denmark. In 1085, he said that he was entitled to the English throne. He put together a big attack fleet so that he could take the English throne by force. But just as he was about to leave for England, the cops in his home country caught up with him. The nobles rose up against him because they didn’t like how he handled taxes.

King Kenut IV ran away from the rebels and hid at Odens’s St. Alburn’s Church. Here is where the rebels led by his own brother, Prince Olaf, caught up with him and killed him along with the rest of the royal party. He was buried at St. Alburn’s and many wonders were said to have happened at his grave.

He was made a saint and named the patron saint of Denmark in 1101. Queen Galwintha and King Chiler. Queen Galaswintha was a well-connected woman. The Visig Gothic king of Spain, Athena Guild, was her father. Brun Hilda, Queen of Australia, was her sister. She was married to Chil Perrick the first king of Nustria and had children of her own.

In 567, they got married. Fredigund, Chilperik’s lover, gets angry when Queen Galwinter does something bad. Because Fredagund wanted to be more than just a lover, he planned how to become Queen Galwintha. Fredagund was born into a poor family and worked as a helper for Chil Perrick’s first wife, Aldo Vera. At that point, Chil Pereik became interested in her and made her his wife.

He helped him get a divorce from his first wife. Fredigund was upset that Chiler didn’t marry her. He instead married Galwinter. Fredigund killed her by strangling her in 568, which probably ended Chelper’s plans to marry a third woman who wasn’t Fredagund. In this case, Fredagund married Chilperik for the third time and became queen.

Being in charge of Fredagund meant that many people died and she had Chilarik under her control. Brun Hilda could not accept that her sister had died and the two countries fought for 40 years. Chilpariku wouldn’t get away without getting hurt either. In 584, he was coming back from a hunting trip when he was killed by an unknown attacker.

Some people think that Fredagund also caused this death, but this isn’t certain because Chilperika was a very disliked king and many people would have liked to see him go.

Sigebert I of Austrasia.

The story of Queen Galwintha did not end with her death. In truth, her murder opened one of the darkest family wars of the early Middle Ages. Her sister Brunhilda could not sit quietly and pretend nothing had happened. In those days, queens were not just wives who stood beside kings at feasts. A queen could bring land, soldiers, family alliances, and political danger. When Galwintha was killed, Brunhilda saw it not only as the death of her sister, but as an insult to her bloodline and her kingdom.

Brunhilda was married to Sigebert I, king of Austrasia. Sigebert was the half-brother of Chilperic, which made the whole situation even more twisted. The brothers already had reasons to dislike each other. Their kingdoms were carved out of the old Frankish world, and every border, every city, every marriage could become a reason for war. But now the hatred became personal. Brunhilda wanted revenge. Sigebert had to defend his wife’s honor, and he also saw a chance to weaken Chilperic.

War soon followed. Sigebert looked like the stronger man for a while. He marched against Chilperic, and many nobles who had once supported Chilperic began to change sides. That happened often in the Middle Ages. Loyalty was usually loudest when the king was winning. When he started losing, men suddenly remembered old arguments, old promises, and old reasons to kneel before someone else.

Sigebert was close to victory. Chilperic’s position looked weak, and some people believed Sigebert might take control of Neustria too. But Fredegund was not the kind of woman who waited for defeat. She had risen from a low position to become queen, and she understood something that many kings forgot: one knife in the right place could do what an army could not.

In 575, Sigebert was assassinated. Later accounts said that killers sent by Fredegund attacked him with poisoned blades when he was at the height of his success. Whether every detail is true or not, the result was clear. One moment Sigebert was a victorious king. The next, his dream of ruling over his brother’s lands was gone. His army lost its center. His supporters scattered. Brunhilda, who had wanted revenge for her sister, was suddenly a widow herself.

This is one of the clearest lessons of medieval politics. A ruler could spend years building alliances, buying loyalty, arranging marriages, and commanding armies. But all of that could collapse in one evening if someone close enough had the courage, anger, or money to strike. Sigebert’s murder did not bring peace. It only deepened the hatred between Brunhilda and Fredegund.

The feud between these two women became almost legendary. It was not just a quarrel between queens. It shaped kingdoms. Men died for it. Children were used as political tools. Nobles took sides, then changed sides, then paid for choosing wrong. Fredegund survived, ruled as regent for her young son Chlothar II, and remained feared until the end of her life. Brunhilda lived longer, but her end would be even more terrible. Their rivalry showed that medieval power was not always decided by the man wearing the crown. Sometimes the most dangerous person in the palace was the woman everyone underestimated.

Edward the Martyr.

Long before the famous Norman kings, England had another young ruler whose death shocked the country. His name was Edward, later remembered as Edward the Martyr. He became king after the death of his father, King Edgar. Edward was still very young, and his half-brother Æthelred was also a child. That made the throne dangerous. Children could inherit crowns, but they could not always control the powerful adults around them.

Edward had supporters among churchmen and nobles, but Æthelred also had a strong faction behind him. Æthelred’s mother, Queen Ælfthryth, wanted her son to be king. In a calmer world, Edward might have ruled for many years and Æthelred might have waited his turn. But the Middle Ages were not calm. When a king died and left behind young sons from different mothers, every noble knew there was a chance to gain influence. The question was simple: which boy would be easier to control?

Edward was chosen as king, but his position was never completely safe. His reign was short, tense, and surrounded by political rivalry. He was not murdered on a battlefield. He was not killed by foreign invaders. He was killed in a place where he should have been welcomed.

In 978, Edward rode to Corfe in Dorset, where his stepmother and half-brother were staying. The exact details are still debated, but the basic story became famous. Edward arrived on horseback, perhaps expecting hospitality. Instead, he was attacked. The official royal website says he was murdered by supporters of his seven-year-old half-brother Æthelred.

The murder had all the ingredients of a medieval nightmare: a young king, a rival child heir, a stepmother surrounded by suspicion, and a castle gate where welcome turned into betrayal. After Edward’s death, Æthelred became king. History would remember him as Æthelred the Unready, though the name did not mean foolish in the modern sense. It meant badly advised. Still, it is hard not to see a shadow over his reign from the beginning.

Edward’s body was first buried quickly, without the honor people expected for a king. But stories soon grew around him. He was remembered as a martyr, not because he died for a great military cause, but because people believed he had been innocent, young, and betrayed. In medieval thinking, a murdered king could become more powerful in death than he had ever been in life. His grave could become a place of devotion. His memory could become a weapon against those who benefited from his death.

The strangest part is that Edward’s murder may have helped Æthelred take the throne, but it did not give England stability. Æthelred’s reign was troubled by Viking attacks, heavy taxes, fear, and bad decisions. A crown taken through blood rarely sits lightly on the head. Even if Æthelred himself had no part in the killing, the people around him had made sure his kingship began with suspicion. That suspicion never truly disappeared.

William II Rufus.

King William II of England, also called William Rufus, was not a man who inspired gentle feelings. He was the son of William the Conqueror, and he inherited England after his father’s death. He was strong, forceful, and often unpopular. He argued with the church, demanded money, and ruled with a hard hand. Some men respected him. Many feared him. Few seemed to love him.

His death came in the New Forest in 1100, during a royal hunting trip. Hunting was not just entertainment for medieval kings. It was a symbol of power. Royal forests were protected lands, and ordinary people could be punished harshly for taking animals from them. When a king rode into the forest with nobles around him, it was not simply sport. It was a moving display of rank.

On August 2, 1100, William went hunting. By the end of the day, he was dead. The accepted story is that he was struck by an arrow while hunting, and the man often named as the shooter was Walter Tirel. The circumstances, however, were unclear from the beginning. The king’s body was left in the forest. His brother Henry moved quickly to secure the royal treasury and have himself crowned king. That speed made later generations wonder whether William’s death was an accident or something darker.

There is no proof that Henry arranged his brother’s death. Medieval hunting could be dangerous, and accidents happened. Men rode through thick woods with weapons, horses, dogs, and noise all around them. A bad shot could kill. A ricochet could kill. A moment of confusion could kill a king just as easily as it could kill a servant.

But politics made the accident look suspicious. Henry gained everything. His older brother Robert was away on crusade, so Henry had the perfect chance to take the throne before anyone could stop him. He did not spend long weeping in the forest. He went straight for power.

That is why William Rufus remains one of England’s great royal mysteries. If he was murdered, the killer chose the perfect setting. A forest could swallow evidence. A hunting accident could explain everything. The man accused could flee. The brother who benefited could claim destiny. And with the crown already on Henry’s head, few men had the strength to ask too many questions.

The death of William Rufus shows how thin the line could be between accident and assassination. Medieval people often explained sudden royal deaths through divine judgment. If a king was disliked, people said God had punished him. If his brother profited, people whispered that man had helped God along. William’s enemies did not need to prove murder. The suspicion itself became part of his legacy.

Charles the Good of Flanders.

Charles the Good, Count of Flanders, had a very different reputation from many rulers on this list. He was remembered as just, generous, and serious about his duties. During a famine, he tried to protect the poor and control the greed of those who were hoarding food. That made ordinary people love him, but it made some powerful families hate him.

In Flanders, power did not belong to the count alone. Wealthy clans, local officials, and ambitious families all wanted influence. One of these groups, connected to the Erembald family, became involved in a conflict with Charles. The issue was not only politics. It was also status. In medieval society, birth mattered deeply. If a family’s social standing was questioned, that question could become deadly. Men would kill to protect honor, land, and privilege.

Charles had enemies who believed he threatened their position. So they chose a moment that was shocking even by medieval standards. On March 2, 1127, Charles was murdered while praying in the church of St. Donatian in Bruges. History Today describes him as being killed by his own vassals while kneeling in prayer.

That detail mattered. Killing a ruler was already dangerous. Killing him inside a church, while he prayed, turned the act into something more than political murder. It became sacrilege. To his supporters, Charles was not just a dead count. He was a righteous man cut down in a holy place.

The aftermath was chaotic. Bruges did not simply move on. The murder set off investigations, punishments, street violence, and political struggle. The killers may have thought removing Charles would solve their problem. Instead, they unleashed a crisis. When a ruler died violently, everyone had to choose a side. Silence could be read as guilt. Friendship could become evidence. Old rivals could use the murder to settle unrelated scores.

Charles’s death also reminds us that being loved by the people did not always protect a ruler from elite anger. In fact, it could make the elite more afraid. A count who defended the poor against the powerful might be praised in sermons, but in private rooms, the rich could call him dangerous. Medieval rulers often had to balance mercy and control. Charles leaned toward justice. His enemies answered with murder.

Later, Charles was beatified, and his memory became tied to holiness. The British Museum notes that Charles became Count of Flanders in 1119, was murdered in Bruges in 1127, and was beatified centuries later. His killers wanted to end his influence. Instead, they helped turn him into a moral symbol. That is one of the strange patterns of medieval murder. A ruler could lose his life and still win the story.

Philip of Swabia.

Philip of Swabia was not killed because he was weak. He was killed when he was becoming stronger. That made his death even more shocking.

Philip was a member of the powerful Hohenstaufen dynasty and a son of Frederick Barbarossa. After the death of Emperor Henry VI, the German throne became the center of a bitter struggle. Philip was chosen by one faction, while Otto IV was supported by another. For years, the empire was divided between rival kings, rival loyalties, and rival promises.

At first, Philip’s position was not secure. But slowly, his luck improved. He gained support. He won over enemies. By 1208, he seemed close to victory. Men who once doubted him began to accept him. The long civil conflict appeared to be turning in his favor.

Then came the murder.

On June 21, 1208, Philip was in Bamberg for a wedding celebration. A royal wedding should have been a moment of display, music, politics, and alliance. Instead, it became the setting for one of the most surprising assassinations in medieval Germany. Philip withdrew to his private apartments, and there he was murdered by Otto VIII of Wittelsbach. The British Museum identifies Philip as a German king of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, murdered by Otto of Wittelsbach.

The motive seems to have been personal as much as political. Some medieval sources connected the killing to a broken marriage arrangement. Otto of Wittelsbach had expected a marriage alliance that would improve his status. When that promise collapsed, anger turned into violence. In a world where marriages were political contracts, a broken betrothal could feel like public humiliation. For a proud nobleman, humiliation could become a reason to kill.

Philip’s murder changed the empire. Otto IV, his rival, suddenly had a much clearer path. That does not prove Otto IV ordered the killing. In fact, rulers often benefited from crimes they did not plan. But once Philip was dead, the political balance shifted. Supporters had to adapt quickly. A dead king could not reward loyalty or punish betrayal.

Philip’s assassination is important because it shows that medieval murder did not always come from a grand conspiracy. Sometimes it came from one furious man. A dynasty could be shaken because a noble felt insulted. A kingdom could change direction because a private grievance entered a royal chamber with a weapon.

This is what made medieval courts so dangerous. People imagine kings surrounded by protection, but protection depended on trust. Weddings, feasts, hunts, and private meetings all created moments when guards relaxed and enemies came close. The danger was not always outside the castle wall. Sometimes it was a guest who had smiled at dinner.

Conrad of Montferrat.

Conrad of Montferrat lived in the dangerous world of crusader politics, where European ambition, local alliances, and religious war collided. He was brave, experienced, and politically skilled. During the Third Crusade, he became one of the most important figures in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Many barons supported him over Guy of Lusignan, whose leadership had been deeply damaged by earlier disasters.

In 1192, Conrad was elected king of Jerusalem. It should have been the peak of his career. He had survived wars, sieges, rivalries, and the brutal politics of the crusader states. But he never had the chance to be crowned.

On April 28, 1192, Conrad was attacked in the streets and stabbed by members of the group often called the Assassins, a Nizari Isma’ili sect. The identity of the person who ordered the killing has been debated for centuries. Some blamed Richard the Lionheart. Others blamed Saladin. Others suspected local enemies. The fact that so many powerful people might have wanted Conrad gone tells us everything about his position.

Conrad’s death was perfectly timed to create maximum confusion. He had just been chosen as king. His pregnant wife Isabella was tied to the legitimacy of the Jerusalem crown. His enemies knew that the moment between election and coronation was delicate. He had the title, but his rule had not yet hardened into fact.

The killers struck in public, but the truth remained hidden. That is another common feature of medieval assassinations. Everyone could see the body. Almost no one could prove the command behind the knife. The hired killers might be caught, but the mind that sent them could remain in shadow.

Conrad’s death opened the way for another political arrangement. Isabella was quickly married to Henry of Champagne, helping stabilize the royal succession. In medieval politics, mourning often had to move quickly. A queen could not stay a widow for long if her marriage carried the legal claim to a kingdom. Personal grief mattered, but political survival mattered more.

The murder of Conrad stands out because it belonged to an international world. This was not just a family feud inside one castle. Crusaders from Europe, Muslim rulers, local nobles, military orders, merchants, and religious factions all had interests in the eastern Mediterranean. One assassination could send rumors across continents.

Conrad had fought hard to reach the crown. But in the end, he became another example of a ruler who won the political game one day too late. His enemies did