Percy Shelley: Death
Percy Shelley’s death was by very few, considered to be an accident. Because of certain details of the boat’s condition before it sank, many believe that the cause of its sinking was because another boat had rammed it. Many years later, an old fisherman confessed on his death bed that it had been he who had rammed the boat with his own vessel. Others persist that the enemies Percy had made in the British government had been the method of his demise; agents from British politicians came and assassinated him somehow, while he was out boating with a young boat boy, and his friend, Edward Ellerker Williams; who was a retired navy officer. Both should have known how to navigate, so the theory of mis-navigation is greatly flawed, as a cause for accidental death.
Furthermore, there were also two attempts on Shelley’s life on the days before his drowning; both by men with connections to the British government, and both men were never convicted or jailed for their crimes. Mary Shelley claimed that the boat built custom for Percy had a defect in its design, and was never actually sea worthy.
Whatever the reason, Percy Shelley died of drowning on July 8, 1822, in a sudden storm. He wasn’t even thirty years old. It was custom at the time, that women did not attend funerals for health reasons, so Mary was unable to attending the cremation of Percy, that took place on the shore of Lake Geneva. Byron was unable to attend; both from intense grief, and from the unpleasant state of Percy’s body. Later, he withdrew entirely into seclusion. Edward John Trelawny, a close member of their circle of friends, however, snatched Percy’s heart from the pyre, and gave it to Mary. She carried it with her until she died, and it was interred in a plot beside her, since she was unable to be buried beside Percy.
