9.
KING TUT
King Tutankhamun went down in history for his rise to power 3,000 years ago at the young
age of just nine years old.
The discovery of his tomb was one of the greatest finds in modern history!
But the young pharaoh died at 19 and suffered from a lot of health issues.
Many people don’t know that the young pharaoh spent his short life plagued by a host of
ailments, including a cleft palate, a clubfoot, a curved spine, issues with his immune system,
and inflammation.
He was sickly, frail, and most likely in a lot of pain most of the time.
He had a degenerative bone disease that made it impossible for him to walk normally and
so he was usually in a chariot or carried in a royal litter.
Researchers say King Tut’s health problems came from extensive inbreeding.
By the time he was born, Egypt’s pharaohs had been marrying their brothers and sisters
for generations, leading to the genetic deficiencies that often cause incest-related issues.
In fact, DNA tests indicate that King Tut’s mother and father were siblings.
And the legacy continued with King Tut himself, who likely married either his sister or half-sister.
8.
HABSBURG JAW
The Habsburgs rose to power during the 13th century and became one of Europe’s most
powerful families, ruling over Austria, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire.
Like many royal clans, they became plagued by the ill effects of severe inbreeding, which
was ironically seen as a way of keeping the bloodline pure.
Generations of incest led to serious health problems that ultimately ended the Habsburg
rule.
One of the most distinct features seen among family members was the Habsburg jaw.
Known under the medical name mandibular prognathism, the condition is characterized by an oversized
jawline and a large tongue.
Numerous family members had it, including Duchess Mary of Burgundy, Ferdinand I of Austria,
and Ferdinand II of Habsburg – just to name a few.
A 2019 study identified five family members who appeared to have the worst case: Maximilian
I, Margaret of Austria, Charles I of Spain, Philip IV of Spain, and Charles II of Spain.
By the time King Charles II was born, the Habsburgs had been inbreeding for 16 generations!
Things got quite confusing.
His grandmother was also his aunt, and the physical effects of these overlapping connections
had become worse over time.
Charles had such a severe case of the Habsburg Jaw that his top and bottom teeth did not
meet.
He couldn’t chew his food properly and he could barely speak because his tongue was
so huge!
The ailing king also suffered from other incest-related health problems.
He didn’t start walking until he was eight years old, and he was prone to falling because
his legs were weak and couldn’t support his weight.
Charles also failed to produce an heir by either of his two wives, and it’s likely
that his infertility resulted from hundreds of years of “keeping it in the family.”
He died in 1700 at the age of 39, bringing the Habsburg dynasty to an end.
7.
THE MADNESS OF JOANNA OF CASTILE
Joanna of Castile was the older sister of Catherine of Aragon and sister-in-law to Henry
VIII of England.
She descended from the extinct House of Trastámara, which had engaged in incest for centuries,
but was a highly intelligent and educated woman who spoke three languages.
At the age of 16, Joanna married Philip the Handsome, a member of the notoriously inbred
Habsburg family.
She fell head-over-heels for him, despite his constant cheating.
Joanna began to show signs of mental illness at the young age of 24, when her mother the
famous Catholic Queen Isabela became ill.
She went through periods of not sleeping or eating, and her stress was exacerbated by
her husband’s infidelity, which often sent her flying into an uncontrollable rage.
During an encounter with one of Philip’s mistresses, she supposedly stabbed the woman
in the face!
Yikes!
Joanna’s behavior took an even more disturbing turn after her husband died in 1506.
At the time, she was pregnant with the couple’s sixth child.
She refused to part with Philip’s remains for an unusually long time, and was rumored
to have opened his casket to embrace and kiss his corpse.
Three years later, in 1509, Joanna was placed in a convent, where her son forbade her from
having any visitors.
She remained there until she died in 1555 at the age of 75.
Mental illness ran deep in Joanna’s family.
Her maternal grandmother had gone mad and died in a convent, and several of Joanna’s
descendants also behaved symptomatically.
But her behavior took a noticeable turn for the worse at a time when she was struggling
with the death of her husband, as well as several of her family members, including her
mother, her siblings, and her nephew.
It’s impossible to say whether Joanna’s illness was genetic, triggered by grief, or
perhaps a combination of both.
6.
FERDINAND’S FEEBLENESS
Ferdinand I of Austria struggled with severe medical issues from the moment he was born
in 1793 to parents who were double first cousins.
He suffered from hydrocephaly, a build-up of fluid that puts pressure on the brain and
can cause lasting damage.
As a member of the heavily inbred Habsburg family, Ferdinand carried their infamous jawline
and had a speech impediment.
He was also epileptic and experienced up to 20 seizures a day!
By the time he was nine years old, Ferdinand was incapable of pouring a glass of water,
opening a door, or climbing stairs on his own.
It’s hard to speculate on the extent of his intellectual setbacks – some of the
king’s biographers depict him as a feebleminded disaster, while others note that he was fluent
in five languages and artistically talented but eccentric and naive.
Regardless of his intelligence level, there’s no doubt that the man was strange.
One of his favorite activities reportedly included sitting in a wastebasket and rolling
around in it.
Hmm..
Ferdinand nevertheless inherited the throne and ruled with the help of several advisers.
He was unable to consummate his marriage to Maria Anna of Savoy due to his seizures and
never had any children.
There’s a good chance that at least some of the monarch’s many ailments were caused
by the incest that had been going on in his family for hundreds of years by the time he
was born.
He ruled for 13 years despite his health issues and was succeeded by his nephew.
5.
THE “ROYAL DISEASE”
Queen Victoria’s reign over the United Kingdom and Ireland began in 1837 and lasted until
her death in 1901.
She had nine children with her husband and first cousin, Prince Albert, meaning they
were all inbred.
Victoria also suffered from a relatively rare blood clotting disorder known as hemophilia
B. She passed it down to two of her five daughters and her youngest son.
The queen herself didn’t suffer majorly from the disease which, by then, had a well-known
presence among European royal families, earning it the nickname of the “royal disease.”
But some of the family members she passed it onto were less lucky.
Victoria’s son, Leopold, died from a hemorrhage after falling at age 30.
Daughters Alice and Beatrice were carriers who passed the condition onto several of their
children, and five of Victoria’s grandchildren died from hemophilia related complications.
Starting with Victoria, the disorder was passed down for three generations before it disappeared
from the bloodline.
Even though she married her first cousin, the disease’s presence in the family genes
most likely did not result from incest.
Hemophilia is typically passed down through a recessive gene carried by both parents and
primarily affects women.
But it’s rare for it to have such a prevalent presence in a family, suggesting that perhaps
the queen herself was inbred, which could help to explain the unusually high occurrence
among her descendants.
Do you think royal inbreeding would continue today if not for the diseases that came with
it?
Let me know what you think in the comments and click subscribe while you’re at it!
:)
4.
KING GEORGE III’S MADNESS
King George III of England went down in history as the ruler who lost the American Revolution.
But he was also known for his erratic behavior, which began during the 1780s with bouts of
mania.
He sought treatment, but the condition worsened.
During these episodes, George spoke for hours without stopping, to the point where he foamed
at the mouth and his voice became hoarse.
He frequently repeated himself and wrote sentences that were sometimes over 400 words long.
Sometimes, his vocabulary was noticeably complex and creative.
But there were also times when his expressions were less rich and markedly more basic.
George became so incapacitated, Parliament began considering its options for a new ruler.
A bill was in the works to authorize the Prince of Wales as acting regent when the king recovered
in 1789 and resumed his duties.
But the episodes continued, and in 1810, his son stepped into his place.
Researchers long speculated that King George may have suffered from porphyria, a genetic
blood disorder that causes bouts of madness and blueish-purple urine.
But many experts have their doubts, and there’s a growing body of evidence that suggests that
the monarch may have suffered from a mental illness.
A 2019 study analyzed thousands of letters written by the king and found striking differences
between his writing styles when he was symptomatic versus times when he seemed fine.
During his “mad episodes,” he used more complex and colorful words and frequently
repeated himself.
These tendencies are characteristic of the manic phase of some psychiatric illnesses,
including bipolar disorder.
King George was the last ruler from the House of Hanover, a family notorious for its inbreeding
and incest-related defects.
Research has suggested that inbreeding can increase the chances of bipolar disorder among
offspring, indicating that King George may have been especially predisposed to it.
3.
THE DEPRESSED & ANOREXIC EMPRESS
Empress Elisabeth of Austria was 16 when she married 23-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph in
1854.
She was overwhelmed by the new life ahead of her and wept during the ride to her new
home.
Sadly, things never seemed to get better for the troubled woman, who was famous for her
captivating beauty and unnaturally thin waistline.
Franz Joseph was smitten with his young bride, affectionately known as Sissi.
She apparently was less enthused about the marriage.
She struggled with shyness and kept to herself as she adjusted to the strict ways of the
royal court.
Sissi's husband and mother-in-law criticized her avoidance of public life and interfered
with the raising of her children.
After bearing three children for her husband, the empress became preoccupied with her figure.
She reduced her waist size to just 16 inches (40 cm), weighed herself multiple times daily,
and exercised obsessively, on a level that might be taken as a sign of anorexia today.
Her fixation with being thin only worsened over time as she ate less and less, eventually
reducing her diet to raw milk, oranges, and eggs.
Sissi also had a rigorous beauty routine that took up a good portion of her day.
It took three hours just to style her hair that went all the way to her ankles.
It seemed like she had everything but a series of traumatic events would lead to her downward
spiral.
Her first daughter died from scarlet fever at a young age so her controlling mother in
law took the other two children away from her.
Her cousin, Ludwig II of Bavaria was found dead under mysterious circumstances.
Famous for his love of poetry and his fairytale castles, Sissi apparently was close to him.
But he was disliked by his advisors who thought he was odd and he was prone to bouts of depression
and insanity.
Her only son Prince Rudolf was found dead at his hunting lodge.
The cause was a murder suicide where he killed his 17-year-old mistress and then shot himself.
Most of the evidence was destroyed but it's believed Rudolf was severely depressed.
After all this Sissi just couldn't take it anymore and descended into darkness.
She often said she wanted to die herself.
Plagued by melancholy, she often spoke of suicide and turned to psychics and mediums
to try curing her anguish by talking to her dead son.
She mentally and physically checked out and spent much of her remaining years traveling
and praying.
Elisabeth was stabbed to death by an anarchist while visiting Switzerland in 1898.
Her son’s murder suicide indicates that depression and other mental illnesses may
have run in the family.
2.
KING LUDWIG II’S FANTASY WORLD
From childhood on, it was clear that Ludwig II of Bavaria was different.
He wasn’t close with his parents and used his wild imagination to escape reality.
Ludwig, Sissi's Cousin like I was telling you about, took the throne at age 18 in 1864
but suffered a crushing blow to his power when Prussia conquered Bavaria.
He retained his leadership role over Bavaria but was now a mere vassal under his Prussian
uncle.
He turned his attention to his passion for music and generously supported the work of
composer Richard Wagner.
A pattern of arguably reckless spending followed as Ludwig sought to create a fantasy world
around him that made him feel like a real king.
He spent copious amounts of money building lavish castles and palaces, including the
famous Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany.
Ludwig didn’t use state funds for his projects, but he squandered all his own money and borrowed
extensively.
During this period, he became nocturnal, traveling at night in his elaborate coaches, often in
historic costumes.
The eccentric royal became increasingly withdrawn from society, holing up at his remote homes
in the mountains and commissioning private opera and play performances for a one-man
audience.
He increasingly identified with the fictional character Parzival, a medieval hero who went
on a quest to find the Holy Grail.
But Ludwig’s detachment from reality came at a price.
He was living far beyond his means and failing to keep up with his duties as head of state.
Foreign banks began threatening to seize his property in 1885, but he failed to wake up
and realize that there was no way he could maintain his lifestyle.
The Bavarian government declared Ludwig insane and deposed him in 1886.
He died shortly thereafter under mysterious circumstances while in the company of his
treating psychiatrist.
Many modern researchers have challenged Ludwig’s insanity diagnosis, but it’s clear that
he struggled with mental illness on some level.
By the time he was born, his family had been intermarrying for generations.
The limited gene pool that centuries of incest leads to is known to increase the chances
of mental illness in families, suggesting that Ludwig’s afflictions were something
he was born with.
1.
PORTUGAL’S MAD QUEEN
Also known as Maria the Pious or Maria the Mad, Maria I was the first undisputed queen
regent of Portugal.
By the time she rose to power in 1777, she had been married for several years to her
uncle Pedro, who later became known as King Dom Pedro III.
Maria saw many successes and was well-liked during the first ten years of her rule.
Her mental state began to deteriorate noticeably in 1786, when she had to be carried to her
home in a state of delirium.
These episodes worsened, and it became customary for the queen to shriek, howl, and throw raging
tantrums.
She spent most of her time in seclusion as she suffered from delusions and a religious
obsession.
The family fled to Portugal in 1794 during the Napoleonic Wars.
By then, Maria was in a constant state of incapacitation.
She could be heard screaming throughout the entire move, fearing that someone was going
to torture or rob her.
Her son, Prince Joao, unofficially took over her duties in 1799.
Maria died at a convent in 1816 at the age of 81.
The exact nature and cause of her illness is unknown, but experts speculate that Maria
suffered from bipolar disorder.
Her two sisters struggled with similar afflictions, suggesting that the condition had been passed
down genetically.
The Portuguese royal family had a centuries-long history of inbreeding, which most likely contributed
to their mental health issues.
Thanks for watching!
Were you surprised to learn about any of these royals and the diseases they carried?
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like these!
See you next time, bye! :)