Charles II of Navarre - Death

Death

Charles's horrific death became famous all over Europe, and was often cited by moralists, and sometimes illustrated in illuminated manuscript chronicles. There are various contemporary versions that vary in detail: this is Francis Blagdon's English account, of 1801:

Charles the Bad, having fallen into such a state of decay that he could not make use of his limbs, consulted his physician, who ordered him to be wrapped up from head to foot, in a linen cloth impregnated with brandy, so that he might be inclosed in it to the very neck as in a sack. It was night when this remedy was administered. One of the female attendants of the palace, charged to sew up the cloth that contained the patient, having come to the neck, the fixed point where she was to finish her seam, made a knot according to custom; but as there was still remaining an end of thread, instead of cutting it as usual with scissors, she had recourse to the candle, which immediately set fire to the whole cloth. Being terrified, she ran away, and abandoned the king, who was thus burnt alive in his own palace.

Other versions have his bed set alight by a coal escaping from a metal warming-pan.