In 1087, William the Conqueror's corpse exploded at his own funeral. The monarchy survived.

This should not have been possible. But over the next thousand years, the English crown would pass through the hands of kings who spoke no English, rulers who couldn't attend their own weddings, and at least one monarch whose final wish was to have his skeleton lead armies into Scotland. There would be deaths by lamprey, murders filed under "probably fine," and a king who talked continuously for fifty-eight hours during a mental breakdown.

The Institution That Refused to Die traces the improbable survival of the British monarchy through forty-two rulers who tested it to destruction—and discovered it was indestructible.

From the medieval war-leaders who communicated primarily through burning things to the modern media celebrities who communicate primarily through carefully vetted statements, this book examines how an institution built on conquest became one built on continuity, transforming itself completely while insisting it had changed nothing at all.

You'll meet Henry I, who died from eating too many lampreys. Richard III, whose parking spot was recently discovered under Leicester. George IV, who needed considerable brandy to survive meeting his future wife. And Victoria, who had fresh water brought to her dead husband's room every morning for forty years.

The facts are all real. History, it turns out, provides absurdities no comedy writer would dare invent.

Part history, part institutional autopsy, part extended meditation on how systems survive their own worst members, The Institution That Refused to Die offers a thousand years of royal disasters—and the remarkable persistence of the crown that outlasted them all.