AUTOPSY ON 200 YEARS' DEAD KING

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 70, 15 December 1917, Page 12

AUTOPSY ON 200 YEARS' DEAD KING

TO DETERMINE A MURDER THEORY.

An autopsy ou King Charles XII, Sweden's warrior King, killed in battle almost two hundred years ago, to determine whether the shot through the temples which caused his death came from the enemy's linos or from an assassin among his own men, has just been made m btockholm in an effort to clear up one of the mysteries of, history, it the bullet entered the right temple it. would indicate that it came from Fralrikshald fortress, before winch the King's forces lay entrenched, while a shot from the opposite direction would show that it was fired by a traijor in liis own ranks. The scientists who are conducting the investigation have not yet announced their conclusions, and will not until they have made an effort to fit together the' pieces of bone taken from the wound, but the indications are that the bullet entered the right temple, and came, therefore, from the enemy, lne wound on the right side is comparatively small, as if made by an entering shot, while the left temple Mis blown entirely away, and the left side of the skull shattered, as would bo caused by the missile as it emerged. , . The King's body was examined in the old Knights' Church, where it lay in a simple coffin. It was covered with a linen shroud, with the arms at the sides, the fingers meeting across the waist, the hands encased in faded yellow gloves. On the head was a laurel wreath placed there in January, 1719, the day ho was buried. Inoso who viewed the dead King were struck by liis masterful countenance sti 1 bearing through all the years the look of a leader of men. The wound, covered by patches or linen, was found to consist of a c oft in the skull beginning at the left corner of the left eye and extending at an an"le of about forty-five degrees-up-ward to the right for about threo inches. A triangular piece of bone, loosened by the bullet, was still held in place by" the skin. It was marked by a deep* impression. 'According, to contemporary accounts of tlu> King's death, lie entered the troiichrs on the evening of December 11 1718, and wont to a point opposite wh-re the Danes had a battery. With him were the engineer who had planned tho trenches and Siquier, the Kings aide-de-camp. As Charles lay on tno parapet of the trench, his head and shoulders exposed, an enemy cannon fired n load of grape-shot, and the J King fell dead. . No question that a grape shoe was the caiise of his death ever arose until a year later, when Siqnicr, while, in a delirium of fever, said that ho had murdered the King. When ho recovered ho was horrified at his own ravings, and denied until his death that ho had killed the King. He died ini poverty. Voltaire, who investigated the all air, reached the conclusion that ■the fatal shot could not have been fired by Stmiicr, and must have been grape. Jno murder theory, however, once started, had persisted down to the present time.