Most of the time securing the body of a dead monarch was of the utmost importance to confer legitimacy on the succeeding monarch, but there were scenarios when a monarch disappeared during a battle or was taken into captivity and never seen again.

For one example, the Roman Emperor, Valerian, was taken captive after the Battle of Edessa and disappeared into Persian captivity, never to be seen alive again. The same thing happened a little less than a thousand years later when Baudouin IX, count of Flanders and Hainaut and Latin emperor of Constantinople, was captured by the Bulgarians after the Battle of Adrianople in 1205 and disappeared into Bulgarian captivity, never to be seen alive again.

In both cases, the result was panic and confusion. Valerian's capture reignited the Crisis of the Third Century and caused the temporary breakup of the Roman Empire. Baudouin, on the other hand, was quickly replaced as emperor by his brother, Henri, while his young daughter, Jehanne, became countess of Flanders and Hainaut, though her rights were often challenged as there was more doubt that her father was actually dead. In 1225, a Burgundian serf named Bertrand took advantage of the confusion to claim that he was actually Baudouin and became involved in revolts of nobility and peasants alike against Jehanne. He was, however, eventually unmasked as an imposter by Jehanne's cousin, Louis VIII of France, and executed.

Earlier in history, even though there was a body, there were rumors that Roman emperor Nero wasn't actually dead and would return one day. There were no less than three Nero imposters, even as late as the 5th century.

More famously, the lack of a body allowed Perkin Warbeck to masquerade as Richard of Shrewsbury and earlier, during the Third Crusade, John of England tried to take advantage of his brother Richard's long disappearance to seize the throne, but he achieved little support and Richard later turned up as a prisoner in Germany.