Would you be a good monarch?

[Agelastus]

They'd come at you in numbers, and make it look as if you'd died in your sleep. I suspect a red hot poker up your arse is not a particularly pleasant way to die.

I don't know a lot of people who died in their sleep from a red hot poker up the arse, do you?

Edward II, if I recall correctly. The theory is that it will leave no external marks of violence; I believe the procedure to be the insertion of a metallic outer tube, then the poker is shoved in and wiggled around.

Of course, a secret is only a secret as long as only one person knows about it, and I figure that this method of removing a troublesome king is a five man job.

[ulmont]

Edward II, if I recall correctly. The theory is that it will leave no external marks of violence; I believe the procedure to be the insertion of a metallic outer tube, then the poker is shoved in and wiggled around.

Of course, a secret is only a secret as long as only one person knows about it, and I figure that this method of removing a troublesome king is a five man job.

If you have five people, I'm thinking you can do a smothering with a lot less effort, and the red hot poker was not a contemporary theory.

[Queequeg]

Edward II, if I recall correctly. The theory is that it will leave no external marks of violence; I believe the procedure to be the insertion of a metallic outer tube, then the poker is shoved in and wiggled around.

Jesus.  I thought it was because he was a famous sodomite?  And didn't people know about smothering back then? 

[Barrister]

Can we pick the era? Best would be one where monarch weren't getting killed/deposed even if they were incompetent imbeciles.
So... 17th/18th century Europe? 

I dunno - it seems like the post-1945 world is a good time to be a monarch.  Limited responsibility, maximum public adulation, plus running water.   

[garbon]

plus running water.  

Water doesn't have feet.

[Razgovory]

Edward II, if I recall correctly. The theory is that it will leave no external marks of violence; I believe the procedure to be the insertion of a metallic outer tube, then the poker is shoved in and wiggled around.

Jesus.  I thought it was because he was a famous sodomite?  And didn't people know about smothering back then?

That's what I thought as well.

[Razgovory]

a 3rd grader would get to Spellus.

Yeah that would be a problem.

[Agelastus]

Edward II, if I recall correctly. The theory is that it will leave no external marks of violence; I believe the procedure to be the insertion of a metallic outer tube, then the poker is shoved in and wiggled around.

Of course, a secret is only a secret as long as only one person knows about it, and I figure that this method of removing a troublesome king is a five man job.

If you have five people, I'm thinking you can do a smothering with a lot less effort, and the red hot poker was not a contemporary theory.

He may be biased, but he is still a contemporary source, having been a member of parliament in 1327 and present at Edward II's abdication. The major problem with it is he did not make this statement until at least two decades after Edward's death. Given Edward III's attitude to his father's murder, one would have thought that the story could have been circulated earlier.

On the night of 11 October while lying in on a bed [the king] was suddenly seized and, while a great mattress... weighed him down and suffocated him, a plumber's iron, heated intensely hot, was introduced through a tube into his anus so that it burned the inner portions beyond the intestines. — Thomas de la Moore.

It is a myth that smothering leaves no evidence (at the least, it leaves highly bloodshot eyes.) However, I agree that it is unlikely that this would be recognised in the fourteenth century

[Admiral Yi]

I dunno - it seems like the post-1945 world is a good time to be a monarch.  Limited responsibility, maximum public adulation, plus running water.   

Would you really opt for being a well paid prop over having real power?

[Habbaku]

Would you really opt for being a well paid prop over having real power?

I know I sure as hell would.

[Agelastus]

I dunno - it seems like the post-1945 world is a good time to be a monarch.  Limited responsibility, maximum public adulation, plus running water.   

Would you really opt for being a well paid prop over having real power?

The "well paid" part is the key...I love the easy life.

[Razgovory]

Would you really opt for being a well paid prop over having real power?

I know I sure as hell would.

Me too.  If I could be a monarch I'd like to be like Ed 8.  A little bit of influence but mostly a useful tool for the country.  Also be fashionable and have women throw themselves at me.  And rich.

[Agelastus]

Would you really opt for being a well paid prop over having real power?

I know I sure as hell would.

Me too.  If I could be a monarch I'd like to be like Ed 8.  A little bit of influence but mostly a useful tool for the country.  Also be fashionable and have women throw themselves at me.  And rich.

You do recall he was effectively exiled to the Bahamas as it was feared that if he remained in Britain, if there was an invasion, and if he fell in to German hands that he would be a willing puppet monarch for Hitler, don't you?

[DisturbedPervert]

I'd be an awful monarch.  Unfortunately reloading and typing montezuma doesn't work in real life.

[Caliga]

I would sit perched atop a throne made of the skulls of my enemies, drinking their blood from a bejeweled goblet.  On either side I would be flanked by giant breasted harem girls who would continually fan me with giant fans made from ostrich feathers with solid gold handles.

My court would be made of sniveling sycophants who would be permitted to engage in any cruel and savage acts they desired, so long as they were devotedly loyal to me and enforced absolute obedience to my rule upon the populace.

The court itself would be ringed with spikes upon which citizens accused of even the most minor infraction would be impaled, writhing in agony as they suffered the most painful, slow death imaginable.  I would periodically taunt and laugh at these hapless souls and my court would ape my every insult or risk impalement themselves.

Every hamlet, town, and city in the realm would feature an enormous shrine devoted to me that all of my kingdom's wretched citizens would be required to worship at no less than a dozen times daily, and no less than one hundred times during the monthly celebratory feasts devoted to various aspects of my life (my birthday, the anniversary of one of my dozens of marriages, the beginning of my rule, my various conquests, and the like).  Those that failed to pay the proper homage for whatever reason would have their eyes gouged out by robber crabs, and then fed to packs of wild dogs.

Whenever I deigned to walk among these hideous wretches, they would be compelled to drop to their knees and worship me in prostrate, repeating the "ZEBUN-ZEBUN, ZEBUN-ZEBUN HOBBIT" mantra or whatever it was from Young Sherlock Holmes.  If they failed to do vigorously enough, they would be burned alive and their very existence erased from the annals of history.  Those who dared to speak of them in future would be exiled to the Kerguelen Isles.

Oh, and also, free implants for all and Spellus's tongue would be cut out.