The Medical Problems of Henry Viii

Abstract

it shall be so : Hamlet. madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.When Henry Tudor won the battle of Bosworth in 1485, he put an end to the wars which had troubled England for more than one hundred and fifty years. A few months later he married Elizabeth of York, in this way uniting the rival dynasties of Lancaster and York. According to canon law they were too closely related to marry, but the Pope granted a dispensation a few days after the wedding had taken place. With the birth of two sons to the royal couple, the danger of the revival of the War of the Roses soon vanished, and England relaxed into a deeply needed state of internal peace.The first of the Tudor kings was shrewd and calculating. He was able to rule as an absolute monarch, since Parliament had not yet grown so powerful and so opposed to absolutism as under the future Stuart dynasty. Fines, taxes, and "voluntary gifts', made the frugal and avaricious king enormously rich.His eldest son, the fifteen-year-old Arthur, married the Spanish Princess Catharine of Aragon in 1501. She was rather untalented and no great beauty, but the young lady had a strong will and a violent temperament combined with proud self-esteem and stubbornness. It is doubtful whether the marriage was ever consummated ; Arthur was a weakly boy who died a few months 'after the wedding. The fifteen-year-old widow remained in England, and Henry VII, who was a widower now, wanted to marry

Inter-individual variability in disease expression: the Tudor-Churchill spectrum

“…Henry VIII’s failings as a leader were mirrored by his own physical failings. Over the centuries, many attempts have been made to ascribe Henry’s decline into debauchery to a range of medical conditions, including syphilis, malaria, Cushing’s disease and a variety of other maladies [ 22 , 23 ]. However, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) emerges as the most viable contender [ 4 , 24 ].…”

A hypothesis: King Henry VIII’s (1491–1547) personality change: A case of lead poisoning?

“…As Brinch says:‘The difficulty of estimating the psychical and mental illness of Henry VIII is due not only to the scantiness of available evidence, but also to the very different outlook and attitude towards life that prevailed as compared with modern times’. 57 Medical science at that time was not sufficiently advanced to permit identification of some conditions. Contemporary letters that are still available were not usually written by, or to, physicians, but to ambassadors and other non-medical correspondents so any details of diseases are vague and unspecific.…”

“…‘The difficulty of estimating the psychical and mental illness of Henry VIII is due not only to the scantiness of available evidence, but also to the very different outlook and attitude towards life that prevailed as compared with modern times’. 57…”