There’s another aspect.
Sometimes a defeated ruler was captured alive.
Sometimes they were held for a literal king’s ransom:
Sometimes they were executed, but not in the heat of battle:
James IV of Scotland was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, fighting in the front of the battle line.
James II was killed by the accidental bursting of a cannon during the siege of Roxburgh Castle in 1460.
It has been a while, but I think I remember reading that Alexander the Great would really mix it up in the front lines of his battles. Not sure how much of that was apocryphal, but I recall getting the impression that he put himself in harms way. I thought that was part of what inspired loyalty among his troops.
But - like I said - it has been a while.
Richard I (The Lionheart) was killed while besieging the small castle of Châlus-Chabrol in Limsouin, France. It was a hot day, he had taken off his chainmail coif and a lucky shot (well, unlucky for Richard) from a crossbow hit him in the shoulder. It rapidly became gangrenous and Richard died almost two weeks later.
One interesting note, Richard and his entourage were amused by one of the castle defenders who was deflecting arrows with a frying pan.
Notice that almost all the examples here are not a king leading his troops into battle.
And the definition of “battles” and of “troops” vary greatly over time and place.
The notion of a king running in front of armed men toward another group of armed men belongs to mythology more than sound battle strategy. The Hittites had this figured out 3500 years ago.
I’m sure there were times and places where small numbers of foot soldiers (or maybe a small cavalry) acted in this way, although whether the leaders were kings in any recognizable modern way is debatable. And nobody doubts that once battles start and the two sides mix like cream and coffee any individual is vulnerable.
But leading from the front isn’t a sound way to wield an army. And actual examples of kings being killed that way are incredibly few despite several zillion battles.
The Siege of Multan in 326 BCE. With the attack faltering Alexander grabbed a scaling ladder and led the way up onto the battlements where he was wounded.
Crown Prince Henry, later Henry V (Wikipedia), was shot in the face by an arrow while leading troops in 1403 and, amazingly, made a full recovery. This 10 minute clip reenacts the injury, surgery and brilliant tool design and manufacture. The video quality is so-so but the content is great.
One way to consider the odds is to look at the eight English kings (and one sorta Queen) who died violent deaths up until George II, the last British king to lead troops in battle:
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William II - died of an arrow while hunting; some suspicion of his brother Henry II;
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Richard I - as mentioned, died while beseiging a castle;
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Edward II - deposed and murdered by his wife and her lover;
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Richard II - deposed and murdered by his cousin, Henry IV;
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Henry VI - deposed and murdered on the orders of his Yorkist cousins, Edward IV and Richard of Gloucester;
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Edward V - deposed and murdered on the orders of (likely) his uncle Richard III (Gloucester), or (possibly) his distant cousin Henry VII (Tudor);
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Richard III - head sliced open in Battle of Bosworth, likely by one of Henry’s Welsh supporters;
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Lady Jane Grey - head chopped off on the command of her cousin, Mary I;
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Charles I - head chopped off by orders of Parliament, controlled by the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell
So, two in battle, and seven in dynastic or parliamentary disputes. Frankly, that record suggests a king’s castle was the most dangerous place for him, not the battlefield.
I’ve recently been immersed in some stuff about the climbing of Mt. Everest. The real studs of that operation are the Sherpas. These guys go ahead of the expedition, setting up the lines, putting up tents, summiting in advance and paving the way for others. One Sherpa had summited ten times; the tourists come in and think they’re big studs just for doing it once…with help in place before they even leave camp. It’s still a big deal but that provides some context.
I imagine kings riding into battle had subordinates protecting them, taking one for the team etc. Still, Harold at the Battle of Hastings took one to the eye. If you enter the field of battle you might not leave alive.
If you were a Yorkist, Richard of York claimed to be king, supplanting Henry VI, and was killed leading his troops against Lancastrian forces in the Battle of Wakefield in 1460.
Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Prussia, led an army group in WWI, though he followed out the instruction of his chief of staff in all military matters. If the German monarchy had survived, he would have been the next Kaiser.
Alexander the Great very much led from the front all the time. The example given by DinoR wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for him. For example, at Gaugamela (331 BCE)
During the battle Alexander employed an unusual strategy which has been duplicated only a few times. While the infantry battled the Persian troops in the centre, Alexander began to ride all the way to the edge of the right flank, accompanied by his Companion Cavalry. His plan was to draw as much of the Persian cavalry as possible to the flanks, to create a gap within the enemy line where a decisive blow could then be struck at Darius in the centre.
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Darius now launched his chariots at those troops under Alexander’s personal command; many of the chariots were intercepted by the Agrianians and other javelin-throwers posted in front of the Companion cavalry. Those chariots who made it through the barrage of javelins charged the Macedonian lines, which responded by opening up their ranks, creating alleys through which the chariots passed harmlessly. The Hypaspists and the armed grooms of the cavalry then attacked and eliminated these survivors.
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As the Persians advanced farther and farther to the Greek flanks in their attack, Alexander slowly filtered in his rear guard. He disengaged his Companions and prepared for the decisive attack. Behind them were the guard’s brigade along with any phalanx battalions he could withdraw from the battle. He formed his units into a giant wedge, with him leading the charge. The Persian infantry at the center was still fighting the phalanxes, hindering any attempts to counter Alexander’s charge. This large wedge then smashed into the weakened Persian center, taking out Darius’ royal guard and the Greek mercenaries. Darius was in danger of being cut off, and the widely held modern view is that he now broke and ran, with the rest of his army following him.
This again was nothing out of the ordinary for him. He was wounded 10 times in 8 different battles by “catapult projectile, darts, arrows, spears and sword and mallet.” In The Mask of Command, his seminal work on the evolution of military leadership throughout history, John Keegan unsurprisingly opens his study with Alexander the Great and heroic leadership.
And he still died in his bed…
Bit of a stretch, but Napoleon IV, recognised by some as the Emperor of France, was killed while leading a British patrol in South Africa in 1879 during the Zulu War.
That Wiki quote is a good example of a king using battle strategy that was utterly different from leading the troops into a charge.
Well, yeah.
There’s a fair suggestion that Harold is actually the guy just to the right there getting the chop from a sword.
It’s not even a tapestry.
There is a US Civil War story, a gunner was chided for being told to fire near to an enemy officer, and hitting him.
John Sedgwick, a Union officer supposedly never finished the sentence, “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dis”.
Did opposing forces avoid shooting at officers during the Civil War?
From Cryptonomicon
“Ronald Reagan has a stack of three-by-five cards in his lap. He skids up a new one: “What advice do you, as the youngest American fighting man ever to win both the Navy Cross and the Silver Star, have for any young marines on their way to Guadalcanal?”
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“Just kill the one with the sword first.”“Ah,” Reagan says, raising his waxed and penciled eyebrows, and cocking his pompadour in Shaftoe’s direction. “Smarrrt–you target them because they’re the officers, right?”
“No, fuckhead!” Shaftoe yells. "You kill 'em because they’ve got fucking swords! You ever had anyone running at you waving a fucking sword?”
Some say they are both depictions of Harold, at different points (which is consistent with the entire tapestry), I’m going with that. And regarding the manufacturing method (tapestry or embroidery?), they call it a tapestry, so I leave it to you to get up in their grill about that.
Seriously? Try reading it again, particularly this sentence:
He formed his units into a giant wedge, with him leading the charge.
We’re talking past one another. The entire paragraph gives more context.
As the Persians advanced farther and farther to the Greek flanks in their attack, Alexander slowly filtered in his rear guard. He disengaged his Companions and prepared for the decisive attack. Behind them were the guard’s brigade along with any phalanx battalions he could withdraw from the battle. He formed his units into a giant wedge, with him leading the charge. The Persian infantry at the center was still fighting the phalanxes, hindering any attempts to counter Alexander’s charge. This large wedge then smashed into the weakened Persian center, taking out Darius’ royal guard and the Greek mercenaries. Darius was in danger of being cut off, and the widely held modern view is that he now broke and ran, with the rest of his army following him.
As you see by the accompanying picture, he did lead an attack, but not by running in front of a bunch of troops against another bunch of troops to start a battle, which is the historic cliche being referred to.
Again, I absolutely did not say a king leading troops never happened. But Alexander’s actions were not the cliche and more importantly he didn’t die.