Owners of estates and titles in the peerages of England, Scotland and Ireland were more, rather than less, likely than ordinary people to experience dramatic and gruesome deaths, and certainly more likely to have them recorded.
This study, drawing on the pages of The Complete Peerage, describes some 7,000 such deaths, revealing when, where and how they occurred and how they were commemorated.
In the Middle Ages, war, execution, imprisonment, plague, poison and sheer misfortune brought an end to many noble lives. In the sixteenth century, wars, executions and murders continued to take their toll alongside ‘affrays’ or ‘skirmishes’, so often blamed for deaths in Scotland and Ireland, and ill-health in amazing variety.
Wars at home, at sea and abroad were fatal for many in the seventeenth century. However, in the eighteenth century, death from too much food or drink was much more common.
Also, death was more likely to be encountered in fashionable mansions in London’s West End than in ancestral castles.
And in the nineteenth century, death came in remarkable places and sometimes in the most suspicious circumstances...
BOOK ISBN | 9781781557136 |
FORMAT | 234 x 156 mm |
BINDING | Paperback |
PAGES | 144 pages |
PUBLICATION DATE | 02 March 2020 |
TERRITORY | World |
ILLUSTRATIONS | 32 colour illustrations |