The sickly Stuarts Book

This is interesting. The author is a medical doctor who went back and got a Master’s degree in History, and he wrote his thesis on the theory that Parliament’s rise in power during the 17th century was largely due to the health problems and “medical misadventures” of the Stuart monarchs. This book is an expansion of that thesis - and a little bloated, with a lot of repetition.

There’s a brief biographical sketch of the doctors who attended the Stuarts. I must say that this author has more positive things to say about 17th century doctors than most historians I have read, who only speak of them hastening, if not outright causing, the deaths of their patients with brutal treatments such as bleeding and purging.

The book addresses each significant Stuart, first relating their medical issues as described by contemporary doctors, especially their autopsy reports. Then the author gives his modern medical diagnosis, offered with varying degrees of certainty. He explains how their various diseases and illnesses affected their ability to rule effectively and carry on the dynasty, and how parliament “stepped up to fill the gap” when a Stuart was left infirm or incompetent.

The author’s summary:
“Vascular dementia in James I and then disabling delusion in Charles I [the author admits this is a stretch] brought the Stuart dynasty to its first, sudden end in 1649, with the surgical death of Charles I by beheading. The mild hereditary neuromuscular disease that afflicted James and Charles proved to be of little importance to them and did not affect subsequent Stuarts. Prince Henry Frederick [James I’s oldest son], who would have made a strong Stuart monarch, died of typhoid fever in 1612 without ever seeing the throne of England. Charles II’s untimely death from acute mercury poisoning [he dabbled in alchemy] left James II with a throne he was incapable of holding. His inability to manage events as simple as the birth and acceptance of his Roman Catholic male heir led to his abandonment of the throne and the second ending of the Stuart dynasty in 1688. The death of Mary II from acute haemorrhagic smallpox gave the Stuart throne to her husband, William of Orange, in 1694, ending the dynasty for a third time. Mary’s sister, Queen Anne, succeeded William as monarch upon his death. She had seventeen pregnancies but the only child to survive infancy, William, Duke of Gloucester, died of pneumonia at eleven years of age. Lupus erythematosus and the antiphospholipid antibody syndrome physically weakened Queen Anne, the last English Stuart. Having severely compromised her ability to produce an heir, lupus erythematosus took her life in 1714, ending the Stuart dynasty for a fourth and final time. ...There was no important hereditary disease in this family nor was there any single disease that exacted significant mortality, except for smallpox, which killed one reigning monarch, a princess royal and one prince second in line to the throne.”