Heredity and syphilis as possible causes of the mental disorders of Henry VIII

Could Syphilis Have Been the Cause of Henry VIII's Foul Temper?

By the age of fifty Henry VIII was almost immobile, though legends were still told of his former prowess and might. Standing 186 centimetres tall, by the end of his life the king weighed 180 kilograms and could move only with the aid of special contrivances. The people nicknamed him Fat Harry. Besides a multitude of physical ailments, minutely recorded by the court physicians, the sovereign evidently suffered from certain mental disorders too, which greatly complicated life for everyone around him, and especially for his wives and kin.

The nature of the mental aberrations of the second Tudor king has given rise to a multitude of theories, some of which are tied to bad heredity: he was a great-great-grandson of the mad French king Charles VI.

Henry's French forebear had been notorious from his youth for hysterical fits brought on by the slightest irritation. The illness progressed, and the afflicted king on campaign could fall upon his courtiers, suspecting treason; having cut down several men, he threatened his own brother with death and galloped in a frenzy through the forests in search of traitors. Charles was inclined to renounce his royal dignity, his duties as ruler and even his name, forgot the names of those around him and let no one come near him. The madness in which Charles lived out his days became a byword and was vividly described by many contemporaries.

As for the insanity of Charles VI, heredity is here likewise only one version, but the most plausible. One recalls his feeble-minded mother, Joanna of Bourbon, and her incestuous marriage to Charles V. The descendants of the royal madman were also marked by mental instability: his grandson Henry VI, in his madness, unleashed the Wars of the Roses.

Such manifestations over several generations lend weight to talk of hereditary schizophrenia or manic-depressive disorder, which, however, cannot be diagnosed with complete accuracy from the existing descriptions.

If we set aside the notion that Henry VIII's state of mind was connected with similar states in his ancestors, our attention is drawn to the theory that it may have been connected with syphilis.

According to a popular legend, Henry VIII accused Cardinal Thomas Wolsey of infecting him with syphilis by whispering indecencies in his ear.

Poor Wolsey spent half his life sorting out his master's dirty linen, carrying through awkward business and begging the Pope for a divorce, only to become the victim of an unpleasant slander. But today a number of scholars doubt that Henry VIII was a syphilitic, although the disease is named among the first of the possible causes of the king's mental disorders, as are head injuries sustained at tournaments.

The syphilitic hypothesis finds support in the serious problems surrounding the bearing of his children and their health. His first three marriages brought Henry ten children, of whom only three survived: Mary, Elizabeth and Edward. The last three royal marriages left no children. There is evidence of seven pregnancies for Catherine of Aragon, three of which ended prematurely and three of which produced non-viable infants. Anne Boleyn, after one successful pregnancy, suffered two miscarriages. Jane Seymour died of puerperal fever.

However, apart from the ulcers on his legs, no other symptoms of syphilis are known in Henry VIII, although the physicians would surely have noted in their records the mercury treatment customary at the time. Yet rumour persistently links the monarch with the unmentionable disease.