What’s the most embarrassing way a European king died?

Though not embarrassing by today's standards, the secrecy about how King George V died indicated there was some concern for possible embarrassment. He was dying, and Lord Dawson, his personal physician, decided the king should go at a time when it could be reported first to the newspapers of higher quality—which were printed in the morning—and not leave this news to be read by the British people in "lesser publications of the afternoon." So, Dawson injected him with a lethal combination of, I believe, morphine and cocaine to end his misery sooner.

Today, many if not most of us would think it honorable for a doctor to ease the suffering of a man who is dying in his 70s. He was experiencing chronic breathing difficulties (he had been allowed to continue smoking despite several years of ill health). However, in 1936, the subject of death was not at all discussed in polite circles, and the idea of assisted dying was not either. What stands out as interesting today is that the timing of George V's death needed to be to "managed" so it could be reported in the respectable morning papers. It was indeed news that needed handled with care. This strikes me as dignified, practical, and British. That the king's death was hastened by his doctor was kept a secret until Lord Dawson's diaries were published 50 years later.

King George V, who died in 1936, was called "Grandpapa England" by his granddaughter, the future Queen Elizabeth II