I hear that drowning be an easy death.

[Ikonopeiston]

All the controversy surrounding 'water-boarding' has made me think about this comment by Bishop Stillington (via SKP). Is this true? Has anyone here had a near death experience involving drowning?

[Ikonopeiston]

Fascinating. I should think that once the higher brain centers start shutting down and the fear is past, drowning would be as easy as any other death. Poor old Clarence. Do you suppose it really was wine which stopped his breathing?

[Misfit]

Ikon, we'll never know but I like the butt of malmsey (sp?) story the best :)

Hi Alice, nice to see you stopped by.

[Ikonopeiston]

I am torn between the actual upending in the barrel and the symbolic alcoholism schools. Sometimes I lean toward one and then tilt toward the other. There is something inherently ludicrous about a man's legs waving frantically then more and more slowly as they stick out of a large container of wine. And what a waste of wine - although I cannot regret too much the loss of a drink so repugnant to my mind. (I like my wine white and dry.) ;)

[Misfit]

I don't know, I kind of like red myself :)

Like the image of the legs waving frantically.....

[MAP]

A friend of mine committed suicide by drowning over Thanksgiving, and the reaction of everyone told was always just the opposite:

"Drowning is a horrible way to die." (Thanks guys, makes me feel better about my friend. *eye roll*)

I'm actually pretty sure this is true. It's not quick, it's not painless, anyone who's struggled to get from the bottom of the deep end up for air as a kid knows how your lungs start burning even after just a few seconds.

However, people often don't know what's a horrible way to die and what isn't (duhh) from personal experience, and probably decide based on how peaceful a person looks after dying. I know my friend had his eyes clothes and his mouth slightly open and just looked asleep, (if blue, bloated, and soggy) and that was a great comfort to his parents that he didn't die LOOKING like he was in pain. When really, it's probably because he passed out before he died, and so his body relaxed in his final moments.

Whee, happy topic. :( Sorry, drowning hits kind of close to home at the moment.

[Ikonopeiston]

Sorry, MAP. It was not my intent to stir unhappy memories in anyone. Actually, aside from the horror of contemplating it, George would probably have been better off choosing the block. That would be quick if the headsman was skillful and the victim did not flinch.

[Brian]

Has everyone seen that portrait of Margaret Pole, Clarence's daughter? She wears a little barrel on a chain at her right wrist. Sort of suggests to me that it was a reminder of how her father died.

http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/sea...

However the write up suggests it may not be her, so that's my theory smashed!

[Susan]

There's also a letter that reports a rumor that Clarence was "dead in a vat for hys bathying."

http://unromanticrichardiii.blogspot....

Incidentally, Hazel Pierce's biography of Margaret Pole is being reissued this year (with the barrel picture on the cover). I read somewhere that there's a theory that the portrait might have been altered to add the barrel--can't remember where, though, or whether it was from a reliable source.

[[deleted user]]

Misfit wrote: "I don't know, I kind of like red myself :)

Like the image of the legs waving frantically....."

LOL! so do I and on both images!