In his later years , William became quite fat . In 1087 , when he was 60 years old , he heard that King Phillip of France had said that William looked as if he was pregnant . Angered by this insult , William marched his army against Phillip's territory and attacked the city of Mantes and burned it to the ground . During this attack , a burning building collapsed and startled William's horse which lunged about wildly and slammed his fat belly against the pommel , rupturing his intestines . William died a slow , painful death as peritonitis set in from his ruptured intestines , filling his body cavity with infection and pus . On his death bed William admitted that he had been a very bad person who had been involved in killing and grabbing power for his entire life .When he died , those who were in attendance of him stole literally everything in the room , including the bed and bedclothes upon which he had been lying and the nightgown he had been wearing . They left him lying nude on the floor in a completely bare room .When his funeral was held , his body lay in state in a very warm church and began to bloat even more because of all of the infection inside . When they tried to put him in his coffin, his body had blown up so much that it wouldn't fit . While they were trying to force his body into the coffin , it literally exploded , showering everyone around with extremely foul smelling pus . They all ran out of the church , covered with pus , retching and puking .
posted by Dirck
about 1 month ago
I had never heard the story before about his end . Here is a link
view link
posted by Dirck
about 1 month ago
Ewwwww poor William, how undignified. Thats what he got for stealing my country.
posted by Espirit
about 1 month ago
I think the moral of the story is: You can’t bury a fat man in a little coffin…LOL
Rad this story a long, long time ago...Still interesting...
Ah, well - He is one of the reasons our language is so messed up! Norman (French) did not mix well with the Saxon tongue. When I was a Saxon thrall in the Society for Creative Anachronism in the early 80s, we had a saying -"Die Norman Dog!"
funny it is one of the thing i think is so cool about english its lack of pedigree: the anglo saxon, latin, german brew plus a little immigrant flavoring. What i would like to know is who to blame for the rules of grammar?
posted by yichel
about 1 month ago
I heard even the spelling was not standardized for a long time! That is a good question Yichel, the verb/noun/adjective placement is so much different than anyone else's.
While most languages use tenses to show which is the subject and which is the objective. While English has these tenses where the word is much more important in English
For example if I said "Me hit Bob with a rock" We would still know that Bob was the victim. Even when the wrong tense is used. Another Example. Bob hit I with a rock. Now you know Bob was the aggressor. In most languages if the wrong tense is used the meaning changes. In English it just sounds funny but the meaning is still clear.
Funny how there are no pictures of our heroes picking their noses. But I'm sure it happened. The inspiring thing is, that they did what they did in spite of being absolutely human.
