Unbelievable Facts - Strange Facts - Dead

Dearly Departed - Dead

Keen to be buried in style, the tenth Duke of Hamilton spent £11,000 on purchasing a genuine Ancient Egyptian coffin. Alas when he died in 1852, he was found to be too long for the coffin and so his legs had to be cut off before he would fit inside.

When George V’s body was carried through the street of London, the crown fell from the top of the coffin and rolled into the gutter. Onlookers said it was a bad omen – and they were right. For although the crown was repaired, George’s successor, Edward VIII, never got to wear it.

Anne Boleyn was buried in an ordinary box that had been used for storing arrows. She wasn’t thought worthy of a coffin.

William the Conqueror was too big for his coffin. Two soldiers tried to force the body in by compressing it with their feet, but they jumped up and down with such vigour that they broke the king’s back. This caused his stomach to explode.

The famous clown, Giuseppe Grimaldi, was so frightened of being buried alive that he insisted that his head be cut off before he was buried.

Richard I’s heart was buried in a different place from the rest of his body.

After his death in 896, the body of Pope Formosus was dug up and tried for a number of crimes.

John F. Kennedy was buried without his brain. It was somehow lost during the autopsy.

Following sloppy work by the embalmers, George IV’s body became badly swollen in the coffin. Amidst fears that it would explode through the lining, attendants hurriedly drilled holes in his casket to let out some of the rotten air.

After the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson’s body was brought back to England pickled in a barrel of rum to stop it decomposing on the way home.

Nelson chose to be buried in St Paul’s Cathedral rather than the national shrine of Westminster Abbey because he’d heard that Westminster was slowly sinking into the Thames.

Following his execution, Charles I’s head was sewn back on to his body so that his family could pay their last respects. His neck bone was later stolen from the tomb by royal physician Sir Henry Halford who used it as a salt cellar.

Composer Joseph Haydn’s head was stored in a Vienna cupboard for 60 years after his death. He was buried without it after two if his friends bribed the gravedigger to let them keep it. The missing head was eventually discovered after the world’s longest game of Haydn seek.