My most controversial king?

Yesterday was the death date of one of my more controversial characters, King John, who died on October 19, 1216, two months shy of his fiftieth birthday. By our standards, a man dying at fifty has been cheated, but John lived longer than all but one of Henry and Eleanor’s eight children. Only his sister Leonora lived longer and she died soon after her fifty-second birthday. None of them even lived as long as Henry did—fifty-six.
Here is John’s deathbed scene from Here be Dragons, pages 497-498
* * *
John awoke to blackness and burning pain, to panic. He could not see, and when he cried out, no one answered him. His mind clouded by sleep and the abbot’s draught, he could not remember where he was or why he was suffering, and he tried to rise from the bed but had not the strength, lay there helplessly in the dark until the door opened and the abbot entered.
He saw at once what had happened, began to offer profuse apologies. “The shutter blew open, my lord, and the candles guttered out. I went to fetch a lamp, did not think you’d awaken.”
The lamp was a crude one, no more than a wick floating in a bowl of fish oil, but its feeble light was the most welcome sight John had ever seen. For once he submitted willingly to the abbot’s ministrations, let the monk squeeze water onto his swollen lips, bathe the sweat from his forehead. “Fetch the bishop,” he whispered, saw the abbot look away in sudden distress.
“My liege, he…he’s gone. He and John Marshal left hours ago. They said it was urgent they reach my lords of Pembroke and Chester as soon as possible, in order to see to the safety of the young k---of your son.” He flushed, then added remorsefully, “You were so ill, my lord, and it seemed so unlikely you’d recover your wits….”
“I understand….” And John did. Peter des Roches was his friend. But when a king died, his power died with him. He mumbled something too low for the abbot to hear. He could not be sure but it sounded as if John had said, “Sic transit Gloria mundi.” Thus passes the glory of the world. He gave John a look of surprised approval, glad that John seemed to be focusing his thoughts now as he ought, upon the Hereafter. “Your Grace, I….I have a great favor to ask of you. Not for me, but for my abbey.”
That came as no surprise. How tired he was, so very tired. He roused himself with an effort, said, “Ask, then. Let yours be the last favor I grant.”
“My liege, if you only would….I know that you said you wanted to be buried in the Benedictine priory of St Mary at Worcester, before the shrine of St Wulfstan. But I wondered if….if you might consider….if we could have your heart and bowels for burial at Croxton?”
John’s eyes opened—wide. “What?”
“If you’d consent, my lord, it would be such an honor. We’d bury them at the High Altar and say Masses for your soul—“ He broke off, dismayed and bewildered, for John was laughing. His laughter was unsteady, rasping and harsh, but it was unmistakably laughter.
“IF only I’d known there’d be….be such a demand,” he gasped, “we could have auctioned off the…the choice parts….” The horrified look on the abbot’s face only made him laugh all the more, until he could not laugh and breathe at the same time, began to choke.
Thoroughly alarmed, the abbot propped him up with pillows, hastened to give him wine. As the spasm passed, he lay back, closed his eyes. “I think I always knew….”
“Knew what, my lord?”
John turned his head, looked at him for a long time without answering. “I always knew,” he said, “that I’d die alone…..”
* * *
Today we find it hard to understand the medieval custom of portioning out the organs of a dead king, but it was not that uncommon. John’s son, Henry III, was buried at Westminster Abbey but he requested that his heart be buried at Fontevrault Abbey, where his mother had been buried. According to one of my French histories of the abbey, it was eventually done, but not until after the death of Henry’s widow; she apparently was not willing to relinquish it during her lifetime. John’s brother Richard was buried at Fontevrault, but with typical Angevin snarkiness, he left his entrails to the treacherous lords of Poitou, one last insult from the grave. He bequeathed his heart to his loyal Normans and it somehow survived through the centuries at Rouen. A French forensic specialist was able to examine it while I was writing Ransom. Perfect timing for me, as he ruled out one of the many legends about Richard’s death—that he’d been hit by a poisoned arrow. He also eliminated septicemia as a cause of death, confirming that the Lionheart died of gangrene. John is believed to have died of dysentery, like his elder brother Hal; it was one of the great killers of the MA, also striking down Edward I, Henry V, and Amalric, King of Jerusalem.