Posted on 03/03/2011 12:38:11 PM PST by decimon
Could blood group anomaly explain Tudor king's reproductive problems and tyrannical behavior?
DALLAS (SMU) – Blood group incompatibility between Henry VIII and his wives could have driven the Tudor king's reproductive woes, and a genetic condition related to his suspected blood group could also explain Henry's dramatic mid-life transformation into a physically and mentally-impaired tyrant who executed two of his wives.
Research conducted by bioarchaeologist Catrina Banks Whitley while she was a graduate student at SMU (Southern Methodist University) and anthropologist Kyra Kramer shows that the numerous miscarriages suffered by Henry's wives could be explained if the king's blood carried the Kell antigen. A Kell negative woman who has multiple pregnancies with a Kell positive man can produce a healthy, Kell positive child in a first pregnancy; But the antibodies she produces during that first pregnancy will cross the placenta and attack a Kell positive fetus in subsequent pregnancies.
As published in The Historical Journal (Cambridge University Press), the pattern of Kell blood group incompatibility is consistent with the pregnancies of Henry's first two wives, Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. If Henry also suffered from McLeod syndrome, a genetic disorder specific to the Kell blood group, it would finally provide an explanation for his shift in both physical form and personality from a strong, athletic, generous individual in his first 40 years to the monstrous paranoiac he would become, virtually immobilized by massive weight gain and leg ailments.
"It is our assertion that we have identified the causal medical condition underlying Henry's reproductive problems and psychological deterioration," write Whitley and Kramer.
Henry married six women, two of whom he famously executed, and broke England's ties with the Catholic Church – all in pursuit of a marital union that would produce a male heir. Historians have long debated theories of illness and injury that might explain the physical deterioration and frightening, tyrannical behavior that he began to display after his 40th birthday. Less attention has been given to the unsuccessful pregnancies of his wives in an age of primitive medical care and poor nutrition and hygiene, and authors Whitley and Kramer argue against the persistent theory that syphilis may have been a factor.
A Kell positive father frequently is the cause behind the inability of his partner to bear a healthy infant after the first Kell negative pregnancy, which the authors note is precisely the circumstance experienced with women who had multiple pregnancies by Henry. The majority of individuals within the Kell blood group are Kell negative, so it is the rare Kell positive father that creates reproductive problems.
Further supporting the Kell theory, descriptions of Henry in mid-to-late life indicate he suffered many of the physical and cognitive symptoms associated with McLeod syndrome – a medical condition that can occur in members of the Kell positive blood group.
By middle age, the King suffered from chronic leg ulcers, fueling longstanding historical speculation that he suffered from type II diabetes. The ulcers also could have been caused by osteomyelitis, a chronic bone infection that would have made walking extremely painful. In the last years of his life, Henry's mobility had deteriorated to the point that he was carried about in a chair with poles. That immobility is consistent with a known McLeod syndrome case in which a patient began to notice weakness in his right leg when he was 37, and atrophy in both his legs by age 47, the report notes.
Whitley and Kramer argue that the Tudor king could have been suffering from medical conditions such as these in combination with McLeod syndrome, aggravated by his obesity. Records do not indicate whether Henry displayed other physical signs of McLeod syndrome, such as sustained muscle contractions (tics, cramps or spasms) or an abnormal increase in muscle activity such as twitching or hyperactivity. But the dramatic changes in his personality provide stronger evidence that Henry had McLeod syndrome, the authors point out: His mental and emotional instability increased in the dozen years before death to an extent that some have labeled his behavior psychotic.
McLeod syndrome resembles Huntington's disease, which affects muscle coordination and causes cognitive disorder. McLeod symptoms usually begin to develop when an individual is between 30 and 40 years old, often resulting in damage to the heart muscle, muscular disease, psychiatric abnormality and motor nerve damage. Henry VIII experienced most, if not all, of these symptoms, the authors found.
FETAL MORTALITY, NOT INFERTILITY IS THE KELL LEGACY
Henry was nearly 18 when he married 23-year-old Catherine of Aragon. Their first daughter, a girl, was stillborn. Their second child, a boy, lived only 52 days. Four other confirmed pregnancies followed during the marriage but three of the offspring were either stillborn or died shortly after birth. Their only surviving child was Mary, who would eventually be crowned the fourth Monarch in the Tudor dynasty.
The precise number of miscarriages endured by Henry's reproductive partners is difficult to determine, especially when various mistresses are factored in, but the king's partners had a total of at least 11 and possibly 13 or more pregnancies. Only four of the eleven known pregnancies survived infancy. Whitley and Kramer call the high rate of spontaneous late-term abortion, stillbirth, or rapid neonatal death suffered by Henry's first two queens "an atypical reproductive pattern" because, even in an age of high child mortality, most women carried their pregnancies to term, and their infants usually lived long enough to be christened.
The authors explain that if a Kell positive father impregnates a Kell negative mother, each pregnancy has a 50-50 chance of being Kell positive. The first pregnancy typically carries to term and produces a healthy infant, even if the infant is Kell positive and the mother is Kell negative. But the mother's subsequent Kell positive pregnancies are at risk because the mother's antibodies will attack the Kell positive fetus as a foreign body. Any baby that is Kell negative will not be attacked by the mother's antibodies and will carry to term if otherwise healthy.
"Although the fact that Henry and Katherine of Aragon's firstborn did not survive is somewhat atypical, it is possible that some cases of Kell sensitization affect even the first pregnancy," the report notes. The survival of Mary, the fifth pregnancy for Katherine of Aragon, fits the Kell scenario if Mary inherited the recessive Kell gene from Henry, resulting in a healthy infant. Anne Boleyn's pregnancies were a textbook example of Kell alloimmunization with a healthy first child and subsequent late-term miscarriages. Jane Seymour had only one child before her death, but that healthy firstborn also is consistent with a Kell positive father.
Several of Henry's male maternal relatives followed the Kell positive reproductive pattern.
"We have traced the possible transmission of the Kell positive gene from Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the king's maternal great-grandmother," the report explains. "The pattern of reproductive failure among Jacquetta's male descendants, while the females were generally reproductively successful, suggests the genetic presence of the Kell phenotype within the family."
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Catrina Banks Whitley is a research associate in the Office of Archaeological Studies at the Museum of New Mexico. Anthropologist Kyra Kramer is an independent researcher.
SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools.
I've read elsewhere what they expect to put together ~ that's about 35,000 during or nearly during Henry's reign. There are OTHERS of course.
Quite incendiary.
Elizabeth was no slouch when it came to state butchery. Sorry, I despise both of them. And if England had gone exstinct, it would not have been the end of the world.
It could have been physical, but I always thought it could have been pure mental also.
I’ve never known anyone to wake up from a coma without any change in their thought processes in some way or another. But it could have simply been the fear of God put in the man - at that time, a king had to be physically vigorous. It was still a time when kings fought on the battlefield.
He could have waken up, and said, geez, I’d better have a strong son or Spain is going to own my country.
My father had osteomyelitis most of his life. We were told that it began from a leg injury when he was a young boy. He lived to be 72, and worked for over 50 years for the New York Central Railroad. He never missed a day of work despite having a chronic abscess on the under-part of his upper arm that continually drained. My mother would clean the wound with peroxide every night, then replace the gauze bandage. The open wound would close from time to time, then would eventually fester and open again not far from the last drainage spot. I never heard him complain once about pain or discomfort though I'm sure there was some. He was a hard worker, a good husband and father, and he's dearly missed as much today as when he died 33 years ago.
“But it could have simply been the fear of God put in the man - at that time, a king had to be physically vigorous. It was still a time when kings fought on the battlefield.
He could have waken up, and said, geez, I’d better have a strong son or Spain is going to own my country.”
I think so too. Plus, the Tudor dynasty was the only one following the civil “Wars of the Roses” and it was etched into his memory as a kid. Then, go figure, Catherine of Aragon was barren and refused to let him divorce, which only intensified the actions he took to get married to someoen else.
Not with Henry, but she did have one child, a daughter named Mary, with her new husband Thomas Seymour. Catherine died six days later from the same disease that claimed Jane Seymour. Thomas Seymour executed not long after, and the child was shipped off to another household. It is believed she was dead by the time she was two.
No, there was no inbreeding. That came several centuries later.
She had only 2 pregnancies and one miscarriage.
This is very interesting to me. I am doing my geneology and found that Henry VIII is my 12th great-grand uncle. I am descended from Henry’s mother and one of her children of her first marriage to another man before she married King Edward, Henry’s father. She is my 13th great-grandmother.
The Cornish are English, like the Devonians, the Men of Kent etc.
Please don’t refer to them as if they were some backward tribe of aboriginals who Henry exterminated. That would be a bizarre mistake, a distortion of history with identity politics.
Cornish Lords rose up in rebellion on at least two occasions, seeking the help of other Englishmen to fight the King. Unfortunately they lost - and Henry carried out savage reprisals - but they weren’t some different race of people that the English somehow need to make reparations to.
Not all history is about race. Not all history needs to echo the identity preoccupations of the American Left
The Cornish are Celtic in origin ~ they are not Sassanach!
Henry VIII’s father was Henry VII, whose father was Edmund Tudor. Henry VII married Elizabeth, the daughter of King Edward IV.
The Cornish language was related to Welsh and to Breton (P-Celtic, unlike the Q-Celtic languages of Ireland, Man, and Scotland). It died out a couple of centuries ago but there are some people trying to revive it.
Uh-huh. Again with the instinctive identity-politics. Are you sure this is the right forum for you?
I lived in Cornwall for eight years. My parents met in Plymouth. The Cornish simply do not suffer from the insane identity hatreds that you would foist upon them.
Ping, for your interest.
No, Anne had a healthy child, then two miscarriages. That would be three pregnancies total.
Thanks! Fascinating!
In 2009 I went to London. At the Tower there was an *excellent* display about Henry. Almost all of his suits of armor, weapons, incredible amount of detail. You wouldn’t have wanted to mess with him hand to hand when he was in his 20’s or 30’s if you didn’t have to. The Brits know how to make their history interesting.
Yes I meant not with Henry...
Henry was old and sick and just liked to have a cheap full time nurse to change his stinky bandages on his feet...
When she did have a child with her next husband, she was suppose to have died in childbirth or not long after
but the rumour is she was poisoned right after the birth...
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