0:00:02 > 0:00:04I'm historian Lucy Worsley.
0:00:04 > 0:00:06In these short films,
0:00:06 > 0:00:08I'll be investigating the physical and mental health
0:00:08 > 0:00:10of our past kings and queens
0:00:10 > 0:00:14and the impact it's had on our history.
0:00:14 > 0:00:16I'll be reading their private letters,
0:00:16 > 0:00:18studying their doctor's reports
0:00:18 > 0:00:21and even examining their clothes
0:00:21 > 0:00:24to help me understand the problems they faced.
0:00:31 > 0:00:32In 1509,
0:00:32 > 0:00:34Henry VIII came to the throne.
0:00:34 > 0:00:36He looked like the ideal king -
0:00:36 > 0:00:40he was young, intelligent and physically fit.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42Henry was the perfect product
0:00:42 > 0:00:44of the hereditary system.
0:00:44 > 0:00:47His inheritance gave him great power,
0:00:47 > 0:00:50but it also placed him under intolerable pressure,
0:00:50 > 0:00:55because, to continue the Tudor dynasty, he had to produce an heir,
0:00:55 > 0:01:00a successor who would be just as perfect and potent as Henry was.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03Henry's health was of national importance,
0:01:03 > 0:01:07so his doctors were leaving nothing to chance.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10One of the items found here, at Hampton Court Palace,
0:01:10 > 0:01:14'shows what a close watch they kept on him.'
0:01:14 > 0:01:15And this is my favourite object,
0:01:15 > 0:01:18practically, in the whole of the collection.
0:01:18 > 0:01:19SHE GIGGLES
0:01:19 > 0:01:23- Wow.- That is what the Tudors called a piss pot,
0:01:23 > 0:01:25not my word, theirs,
0:01:25 > 0:01:29and this particular one was excavated in the privy garden,
0:01:29 > 0:01:32just outside Henry VIII's private apartment,
0:01:32 > 0:01:34and the brilliant thing about it
0:01:34 > 0:01:37is that the archaeologists who analysed it in there,
0:01:37 > 0:01:39when their report came back, it was great.
0:01:39 > 0:01:43It said, "Contains traces of genuine Tudor piss," that were in there.
0:01:43 > 0:01:44THEY LAUGH
0:01:44 > 0:01:49We do know that Henry VIII used not this one, but a piss pot like this,
0:01:49 > 0:01:53and his doctors closely analysed what it contained, didn't they?
0:01:53 > 0:01:56They would have actually decanted it out of the piss pot
0:01:56 > 0:02:00into what they would call a urinal or a jordan
0:02:00 > 0:02:01and then held it up to the light,
0:02:01 > 0:02:05and the badge of a physician is really the urinal,
0:02:05 > 0:02:07because in every illumination,
0:02:07 > 0:02:09they're always being shown at the bedside
0:02:09 > 0:02:11holding up the glass to the light.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13Henry's pretty closely monitored, isn't he?
0:02:13 > 0:02:17We hear that every time he goes to "make water", as they call it,
0:02:17 > 0:02:20he's accompanied by one of the gentlemen of the bed chamber.
0:02:20 > 0:02:22He must have been under constant surveillance.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25Inevitably, in such a close-knit community as this,
0:02:25 > 0:02:29with everybody standing around, it was very difficult to hide anything,
0:02:29 > 0:02:30so if the king wasn't well
0:02:30 > 0:02:34or there was something changed in the way his urine looked,
0:02:34 > 0:02:36then, it was likely to get out.
0:02:36 > 0:02:39And that is, you know, potentially a political problem, isn't it?
0:02:39 > 0:02:41Because if he's sick, he could die, there could be war.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44If the king was not right, if there was something wrong with the king,
0:02:44 > 0:02:47then, there was something wrong with the kingdom,
0:02:47 > 0:02:49so there was this very straightforward equation
0:02:49 > 0:02:52between the health of the king in a personal monarchy
0:02:52 > 0:02:54and the state of the realm.
0:02:55 > 0:02:58And the biggest problem facing the king and the country
0:02:58 > 0:03:02was that Henry had been unable to produce a son.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05When he inherited the throne in 1509,
0:03:05 > 0:03:08he'd married the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon,
0:03:08 > 0:03:12but, after more than a decade and six pregnancies,
0:03:12 > 0:03:15they had only one surviving child -
0:03:15 > 0:03:17a daughter, Princess Mary.
0:03:17 > 0:03:19The queen was almost 40
0:03:19 > 0:03:21and all hope of a son and heir
0:03:21 > 0:03:23to continue the Tudor royal line
0:03:23 > 0:03:25was fading fast.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29By now, Henry was desperate for a way out of his marriage,
0:03:29 > 0:03:33but divorce was impossible in the Catholic Church,
0:03:33 > 0:03:36so he considered doing the unthinkable
0:03:36 > 0:03:39and changing his religion.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43Henry broke with Rome and dissolved the monasteries
0:03:43 > 0:03:45and created the Church Of England,
0:03:45 > 0:03:48all to get a divorce from Catherine of Aragon
0:03:48 > 0:03:51in order to marry the younger, prettier Anne Boleyn
0:03:51 > 0:03:54who might, just might, give him a son.
0:03:54 > 0:03:58On the one hand, Henry's divorce was a matter of high state
0:03:58 > 0:04:00and international diplomacy.
0:04:00 > 0:04:04On the other, though, it was an intensely personal story
0:04:04 > 0:04:07about a man who was absolutely desperate for a son
0:04:07 > 0:04:10and a woman who was too old to give him one.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14But Henry's new wife, Anne Boleyn,
0:04:14 > 0:04:16did not bear him a son.
0:04:16 > 0:04:18Instead, she had another daughter,
0:04:18 > 0:04:19Princess Elizabeth,
0:04:19 > 0:04:21and this failure would ultimately
0:04:21 > 0:04:23cost her her life.
0:04:23 > 0:04:28It was Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, who finally gave him a son.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31Prince Edward was born in 1537,
0:04:31 > 0:04:3528 years after Henry had come to the throne.
0:04:37 > 0:04:39When he died, in 1547,
0:04:39 > 0:04:42Henry was convinced that he had finally fulfilled
0:04:42 > 0:04:45his most important duty as monarch,
0:04:45 > 0:04:48by leaving a son to inherit his throne.
0:04:48 > 0:04:53But would the future of the Tudor dynasty be secure in Edward's hands?
0:05:00 > 0:05:01Edward VI became king
0:05:01 > 0:05:05on the 28th of January 1547,
0:05:05 > 0:05:07he was just nine years old.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11On the eve of his coronation,
0:05:11 > 0:05:13the young prince led a procession
0:05:13 > 0:05:17from the Tower Of London to Westminster Abbey.
0:05:17 > 0:05:19The streets are lined with spectators,
0:05:19 > 0:05:23people hang tapestries out of the windows of their houses
0:05:23 > 0:05:26and there's a great cavalcade of noblemen on horseback.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29The Privy Council are there, the trumpeters are there,
0:05:29 > 0:05:32but when they reach Old St Paul's Church,
0:05:32 > 0:05:34the whole procession comes to a stop.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37People start saying, "What's going on? Why have we stopped here?"
0:05:37 > 0:05:41What had happened was that the king himself had stopped the show.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43He'd had his eye caught by an acrobat.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45He watched his performance on the tightrope,
0:05:45 > 0:05:48he was laughing his head off, enjoying it.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51He was, after all, only nine years old.
0:05:51 > 0:05:53It was a really charming and amusing moment,
0:05:53 > 0:05:57full of hope for the future, but there was a dark side to it.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01People did remember the Old Testament saying,
0:06:01 > 0:06:06"Woe upon thee, O land, when thy king is a child."
0:06:06 > 0:06:11Edward was considered too young to rule by himself,
0:06:11 > 0:06:16so his uncle the Duke Of Somerset was appointed as his protector
0:06:16 > 0:06:18and exercised power in his place.
0:06:20 > 0:06:25One unique document reveals the young king's private thoughts about his position.
0:06:26 > 0:06:30We actually know what Edward was thinking and feeling
0:06:30 > 0:06:33because he's the first king that we know about to have kept a diary.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36It's amazing, it's here at the British Library,
0:06:36 > 0:06:38and one thing it covers is his whole relationship
0:06:38 > 0:06:41with his uncle, Protector Somerset.
0:06:41 > 0:06:43We pick up the story in 1549,
0:06:43 > 0:06:46when things are beginning to sour for Somerset.
0:06:46 > 0:06:49By the age of 12, Edward had become convinced
0:06:49 > 0:06:55that his uncle Somerset was abusing his position and must be deposed.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57Edward summarises the charges here -
0:06:57 > 0:07:00"Ambition, vain glory,
0:07:00 > 0:07:05"entering into rash wars as Protector,
0:07:05 > 0:07:08"enriching himself of my treasure
0:07:08 > 0:07:12"and following his own opinion."
0:07:12 > 0:07:14Just a couple of years later,
0:07:14 > 0:07:20Edward himself signs the death warrant for his uncle's execution
0:07:20 > 0:07:25and in this diary entry here, it's...it's amazing, really.
0:07:25 > 0:07:27It just reads as follows -
0:07:27 > 0:07:30"The Duke Of Somerset had his head cut off upon Tower Hill
0:07:30 > 0:07:33"between eight and nine o'clock in the morning."
0:07:33 > 0:07:37That's it. That's really cold, isn't it?
0:07:37 > 0:07:39And it's from this point onwards
0:07:39 > 0:07:43that observers said the young king is now to be feared.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45In just three years,
0:07:45 > 0:07:50the little boy who'd brought his coronation procession to a halt to watch an acrobat
0:07:50 > 0:07:54had been transformed into a ruthlessly effective king.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59As the 12-year-old Edward's confidence grew,
0:07:59 > 0:08:01his top priority was to ensure
0:08:01 > 0:08:05that England remained a Protestant country.
0:08:05 > 0:08:09Edward himself is the embodiment of the Reformation.
0:08:09 > 0:08:11It was for Edward that actually Henry went through
0:08:11 > 0:08:14all this whole process of changing the church.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17Edward is the first king who is the king
0:08:17 > 0:08:19and the head of the Church Of England.
0:08:19 > 0:08:21It was in Edward's reign
0:08:21 > 0:08:24that, sort of, stained glass was ripped out of the churches,
0:08:24 > 0:08:27saints' images were smashed, altars had to be changed,
0:08:27 > 0:08:30that were the very fabric of the medieval Catholic Church,
0:08:30 > 0:08:31fundamentally shifted.
0:08:31 > 0:08:33How does this affect his relationship
0:08:33 > 0:08:34with his half-sister Mary?
0:08:34 > 0:08:38It's one of these fascinating sort of psycho-dramas, really,
0:08:38 > 0:08:39the Tudor family,
0:08:39 > 0:08:42that you've got all these sort of half-brothers and sisters,
0:08:42 > 0:08:45Mary obviously being sort of brought up a devout Catholic,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48Edward being completely on the opposite side of the scale
0:08:48 > 0:08:51and then becoming ever more Protestant.
0:08:51 > 0:08:52In the end,
0:08:52 > 0:08:56it wasn't Mary who was the greatest obstacle to Edward's reign,
0:08:56 > 0:08:59it was his own failing health.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03In January 1553, the teenage king fell ill
0:09:03 > 0:09:05with what was probably tuberculosis.
0:09:06 > 0:09:08Even on his death bed,
0:09:08 > 0:09:10Edward remained obsessed
0:09:10 > 0:09:12with the country's religious future.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16He plotted that his crown shouldn't pass to the Catholic Mary,
0:09:16 > 0:09:18who was next in line to the throne,
0:09:18 > 0:09:20but to his Protestant cousin,
0:09:20 > 0:09:21Lady Jane Grey.
0:09:23 > 0:09:28Yet Edward's attempt to exclude Mary from the succession would backfire
0:09:28 > 0:09:32and plunge the country into political and religious turmoil.
0:09:39 > 0:09:41In 1553,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44Henry VIII's eldest daughter, Mary I,
0:09:44 > 0:09:46became our first reigning queen.
0:09:46 > 0:09:51Mary was a committed Catholic and she returned England to her faith.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54But if the country was to stay Catholic,
0:09:54 > 0:09:56she had to produce a successor.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00She chose Prince Phillip, son of the King Of Spain, as her husband
0:10:00 > 0:10:04and, she hoped, as the father of her heir.
0:10:06 > 0:10:11It was now Mary's duty as the monarch, as a Catholic,
0:10:11 > 0:10:14even as a woman, to reproduce.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18But time was against her. She was 38 years old.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21Only three months, though, after her wedding,
0:10:21 > 0:10:23Mary felt something move inside her
0:10:23 > 0:10:27and her doctors confirmed it - she was pregnant.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31According to royal etiquette, Mary now withdrew from public life
0:10:31 > 0:10:36and she locked herself away in her private chambers at Hampton Court.
0:10:36 > 0:10:41Mary's pregnancy may have removed her from daily political life,
0:10:41 > 0:10:45but it didn't stop her from pursuing a dedicated programme
0:10:45 > 0:10:47of religious reform,
0:10:47 > 0:10:50which included persecuting Protestants.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55Nearly 457 years ago,
0:10:55 > 0:10:58a man was brought here, to Smithfield,
0:10:58 > 0:11:01to be burnt at the stake as a heretic.
0:11:01 > 0:11:02His name was John Rogers,
0:11:02 > 0:11:07he was the canon of St Paul's and a leading Protestant churchman.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11A huge crowd had gathered to watch him being burnt.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14He was offered a last chance to recant,
0:11:14 > 0:11:16to say, "Yes, I give in, I am a Catholic,"
0:11:16 > 0:11:19but he refused and the crowd were on his side.
0:11:19 > 0:11:25As the flames rose up to consume him, some of them wept.
0:11:25 > 0:11:28Others of them prayed to God to give him strength
0:11:28 > 0:11:31to bear the pain and not to recant.
0:11:31 > 0:11:32Over the next few days,
0:11:32 > 0:11:36other leading Protestant churchmen were burnt
0:11:36 > 0:11:39and the legend of Bloody Mary was born.
0:11:39 > 0:11:46Mary had 284 Protestants killed in this way, leading to public outcry.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50But the pregnant queen ignored these protests,
0:11:50 > 0:11:52she was certain that she was carrying the heir
0:11:52 > 0:11:56who would guarantee that England stayed Catholic.
0:11:56 > 0:11:58As she approached the end of her pregnancy,
0:11:58 > 0:12:02preparations were made for this much-anticipated arrival.
0:12:05 > 0:12:09Witnesses to the royal birth were summoned and wet nurses
0:12:09 > 0:12:13and the swaddling clothes of the unborn baby were laid out.
0:12:13 > 0:12:16A few weeks before the baby was due,
0:12:16 > 0:12:19Mary showed herself at the window of her bed chamber
0:12:19 > 0:12:23so the court could all see her great belly.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27She also signed pre-prepared letters announcing the birth of her heir
0:12:27 > 0:12:31and one addressed to the Pope very confidently proclaimed
0:12:31 > 0:12:34the happy delivery of a prince.
0:12:34 > 0:12:36But, after nine months,
0:12:36 > 0:12:39there was still no sign of Mary's son and heir.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42It must have been a horrible feeling,
0:12:42 > 0:12:44- when people started to doubt.- Mmm.
0:12:44 > 0:12:45They would have started to think,
0:12:45 > 0:12:49"Hang on, this has gone on for too long. There's something not right here."
0:12:49 > 0:12:53Yes, absolutely, and she would be scrutinised very closely
0:12:53 > 0:12:56for the shape of her belly, for example,
0:12:56 > 0:13:01and whether the roundness was descending to indicate
0:13:01 > 0:13:06that the child was moving down, so it would have been a very anxious time.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09A lot of modern historians talk quite glibly about this condition
0:13:09 > 0:13:13as a phantom pregnancy, it was all in the mind.
0:13:13 > 0:13:17What do you think may really have been going on, then?
0:13:17 > 0:13:20Certainly, we've got a queen who's got a big belly,
0:13:20 > 0:13:21that much is absolutely certain,
0:13:21 > 0:13:24and she believes that she's pregnant, but there's never a baby.
0:13:24 > 0:13:27What are the possible causes of the situation?
0:13:27 > 0:13:30It could have been a tumour, it could have been a swelling,
0:13:30 > 0:13:32either of air or of water,
0:13:32 > 0:13:36or it could have been what they would have called a mole
0:13:36 > 0:13:37or a false conception,
0:13:37 > 0:13:41which was just a kind of mass of tissue
0:13:41 > 0:13:44that was not a fully-formed foetus.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50Tragically, what Mary had believed to be a child
0:13:50 > 0:13:53was probably the cancer that would kill her.
0:13:53 > 0:13:58She died three years later and her half-sister Elizabeth became queen
0:13:58 > 0:14:01and made England Protestant again.
0:14:02 > 0:14:08The consequences of Mary's failure to produce a successor were immense.
0:14:08 > 0:14:12Had she succeeded, we might still be living in a Catholic country today.
0:14:21 > 0:14:25When Charles I came to the throne in 1625,
0:14:25 > 0:14:29the monarchy was a popular and stable institution.
0:14:29 > 0:14:31But less than 20 years later,
0:14:31 > 0:14:34the country was locked in bitter conflict.
0:14:34 > 0:14:39The English Civil War had complex political, social and religious origins,
0:14:39 > 0:14:47but I believe that the king's own personal shortcomings were one of its most important causes.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51Many of Charles' later problems can be traced back to his childhood.
0:14:51 > 0:14:54As a small boy, he had trouble walking
0:14:54 > 0:14:58and I think that one of the objects in the Museum Of London store
0:14:58 > 0:15:02'can shed some light on the effect this had on his character.'
0:15:02 > 0:15:04What I want to show you is in here.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10Have a look at them and see what you make of them.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12'When Charles was three-and-a-half,'
0:15:12 > 0:15:16he was given his own household and his own governess, Lady Carey,
0:15:16 > 0:15:19and she seems to have paid particular attention
0:15:19 > 0:15:21to this problem that he had with his legs.
0:15:21 > 0:15:24We know that he had rickets and there are hints
0:15:24 > 0:15:28that Lady Carey got him what you'd call orthopaedic boots,
0:15:28 > 0:15:29I suppose, today.
0:15:35 > 0:15:37These child's boots
0:15:37 > 0:15:40are traditionally associated with Charles I
0:15:40 > 0:15:45and you can see that they've got really odd metal heels
0:15:45 > 0:15:47and sort of little supports here,
0:15:47 > 0:15:51so the suggestion is that this is what helped him to stand upright,
0:15:51 > 0:15:52and this was a real concern.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55When he was made Duke Of York, they were so worried
0:15:55 > 0:15:58that he wouldn't be able to stand for the whole ceremony
0:15:58 > 0:16:03that a courtier was positioned each side to catch him if he fell down.
0:16:03 > 0:16:05Now, this is clearly a little boy
0:16:05 > 0:16:08who's suffering from physical weakness
0:16:08 > 0:16:11and I don't know if it's reading too much into this
0:16:11 > 0:16:14to suggest that, later on, he would overcompensate.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19Charles grew up in the shadow of two men,
0:16:19 > 0:16:23his father's dashing young favourite, the Duke Of Buckingham,
0:16:23 > 0:16:26and Charles' charismatic elder brother Henry,
0:16:26 > 0:16:28who died suddenly,
0:16:28 > 0:16:33leaving Charles as the unexpected heir to the throne.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36So we've got this king who's an introvert, he's sensitive,
0:16:36 > 0:16:39he's a bit of a swot. Is this to do with his childhood?
0:16:39 > 0:16:44I think, ultimately, yes, a lot of it goes back to his early upbringing.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47I mean, he doesn't have a very satisfactory relationship
0:16:47 > 0:16:50with his parents, they tend to sort of neglect him,
0:16:50 > 0:16:55and, of course, his father has a series of very obvious homosexual relationships
0:16:55 > 0:16:56with various royal favourites,
0:16:56 > 0:16:59which I think are constantly being thrust in Charles' face.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02How did Charles feel about first being the spare,
0:17:02 > 0:17:03but then he becomes the heir?
0:17:03 > 0:17:06He doesn't seem to have had a very satisfactory relationship
0:17:06 > 0:17:08with his elder brother, who seems to have sort of bullied him.
0:17:08 > 0:17:11He tends to be sort of pushed into the background
0:17:11 > 0:17:13and doesn't have a great deal of sort of self-confidence.
0:17:13 > 0:17:17And I think that stays with him throughout his life, really.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22Despite his physical weaknesses and personal insecurities,
0:17:22 > 0:17:27Charles was convinced that he really was God's representative on Earth.
0:17:31 > 0:17:36Charles I absolutely believed that he was accountable only to God.
0:17:36 > 0:17:40But, unlike his clever and subtle father,
0:17:40 > 0:17:44he didn't have the skills to persuade other people of this.
0:17:44 > 0:17:49He had to fall back on stubbornly insisting upon his divine right.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54Right from the start of his reign, he made unpopular decisions,
0:17:54 > 0:18:00and particularly dangerous amongst them was his choice of his closest advisor.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04It was his father's great love, the Duke Of Buckingham.
0:18:04 > 0:18:08I mean, I think it's very different from his father's relationship with Buckingham.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11I don't think there's any element of a sexual relationship there.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14I think it's much more a matter of Charles looking on Buckingham
0:18:14 > 0:18:18as the elder brother that he wasn't able to relate to,
0:18:18 > 0:18:22so he looks to Buckingham for worldly wisdom
0:18:22 > 0:18:27and guidance and advice and does become very dependent on him.
0:18:27 > 0:18:32In 1625, Buckingham led a military campaign to Spain.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35But the mission was a disaster
0:18:35 > 0:18:39and Parliament demanded that the king sack his favourite.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43Charles was furious at this challenge to his absolute authority.
0:18:43 > 0:18:47He backed his friend and dismissed Parliament instead.
0:18:47 > 0:18:52The king's high-handedness and refusal to compromise with his MPs
0:18:52 > 0:18:55set the tone for his future dealings with Parliament,
0:18:55 > 0:18:59the institution that would ultimately overthrow him.
0:19:07 > 0:19:09In 1760,
0:19:09 > 0:19:11the 22-year-old George III
0:19:11 > 0:19:15inherited the throne from his grandfather George II.
0:19:15 > 0:19:18George III presents a paradox.
0:19:18 > 0:19:20He did have one enormous weakness -
0:19:20 > 0:19:26his episodes of so-called madness that have come to define his reign.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29On the other hand, though, he did rule for 60 years -
0:19:29 > 0:19:33one of the longest reigns of any British monarch.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44When George was suffering from his episodes of madness,
0:19:44 > 0:19:47he was imprisoned at Kew Palace,
0:19:47 > 0:19:50isolated from his court,
0:19:50 > 0:19:53even kept apart from his wife and children.
0:20:04 > 0:20:09These are George's clothes that show some of the signs of his illness.
0:20:09 > 0:20:11We know this shirt belonged to him,
0:20:11 > 0:20:15it's got "GR" and a little crown
0:20:15 > 0:20:17and it's been made extra big,
0:20:17 > 0:20:19there's extra fabric under the arms,
0:20:19 > 0:20:21so that his pages could dress him
0:20:21 > 0:20:24when he wasn't able to do it for himself.
0:20:27 > 0:20:29The waistcoat is even more poignant -
0:20:29 > 0:20:33you can see how the shoulders have been enlarged
0:20:33 > 0:20:35so that his servants could put it on him,
0:20:35 > 0:20:39and down the front, there is food or maybe dribble.
0:20:40 > 0:20:42When he couldn't feed himself,
0:20:42 > 0:20:46he was fed from a cup with a spout, like a child.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51For a long time, George's illness was thought to be caused
0:20:51 > 0:20:55by a physical genetic blood disorder called porphyria.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58But now, doctors are beginning to question this diagnosis.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04Clinical neurologist Dr Peter Garrard has been studying letters
0:21:04 > 0:21:08George wrote before and during his "madness"
0:21:08 > 0:21:12with the same techniques he uses to diagnose his modern patients.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15One of the most striking things about this letter
0:21:15 > 0:21:16is the length of the sentences.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19If you look at the letter that you've got in your hand,
0:21:19 > 0:21:21there are maybe 400 words
0:21:21 > 0:21:23and it's divided up into five or six sentences
0:21:23 > 0:21:26- and that's...- That's normal. - ..and that's the kind of way
0:21:26 > 0:21:28in which you or I would divide up our letters.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31But if you look at this letter, which is much longer,
0:21:31 > 0:21:33it's maybe 500 or 600 words,
0:21:33 > 0:21:35there are only two sentences in it.
0:21:35 > 0:21:38So he's writing these massively long sentences
0:21:38 > 0:21:41and that's something that seems to be a feature
0:21:41 > 0:21:44of the kind of verbal verbosity
0:21:44 > 0:21:47that's associated with the manic phase
0:21:47 > 0:21:50of a psychiatric illness like bipolar disorder.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53It's almost like he's giving out an explosion of words,
0:21:53 > 0:21:56and this matches what his doctors are telling us, as well.
0:21:56 > 0:22:00They describe how he suffered from "an incessant loquacity",
0:22:00 > 0:22:02and he would talk and talk and talk
0:22:02 > 0:22:06until the foam ran out of his mouth and he could talk no more.
0:22:06 > 0:22:11It's a harrowing image. He talks himself completely out of words.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14You can also look at how sophisticated the word usage is
0:22:14 > 0:22:15at the individual level.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18So he starts to introduce words
0:22:18 > 0:22:21which attract very high sophistication scores.
0:22:21 > 0:22:24Words here like "unattentive" or "the utmost".
0:22:24 > 0:22:27So it's like the reading level of the language is increased?
0:22:27 > 0:22:29Yes, that's a very good way of putting it.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31Isn't it quite unusual
0:22:31 > 0:22:33that he's using more sophisticated words when he's ill?
0:22:33 > 0:22:36I would have expected the other way around.
0:22:36 > 0:22:39Well, it's well-known that this kind of creativity
0:22:39 > 0:22:43is a feature of the manic end of the spectrum of mood disorders.
0:22:43 > 0:22:46And do you think, then, that the evidence of these letters
0:22:46 > 0:22:49shows that George wasn't suffering from porphyria,
0:22:49 > 0:22:52that he must have had some sort of psychiatric disturbance,
0:22:52 > 0:22:53a period of mania?
0:22:53 > 0:22:56I don't think there can be any doubt any more
0:22:56 > 0:22:59that the porphyria hypothesis is completely dead in the water,
0:22:59 > 0:23:02and that this was a psychiatric illness.
0:23:04 > 0:23:07George's madness left him totally out of action
0:23:07 > 0:23:10and unable to exercise his royal authority.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13The king's weakness was felt by the whole nation,
0:23:13 > 0:23:16who feared the consequences of a power struggle
0:23:16 > 0:23:17if he failed to recover.
0:23:20 > 0:23:24So the country breathed a collective sigh of relief when, in 1790,
0:23:24 > 0:23:28George did unexpectedly get better.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34He returned to rule for another 20 years,
0:23:34 > 0:23:37until his gradual decline in 1810.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45George has gone down in history as the mad king,
0:23:45 > 0:23:49But his illness should not be allowed to define his reign.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52In fact, he was one of the longest-serving and most successful
0:23:52 > 0:23:54of all British monarchs.
0:24:04 > 0:24:09It was the fundamental duty of any king or queen to produce an heir.
0:24:09 > 0:24:14And no monarch suffered more in her quest for a child than Queen Anne,
0:24:14 > 0:24:16the last of the Stuart dynasty,
0:24:16 > 0:24:19who came to the throne in 1702.
0:24:19 > 0:24:24Anne's gynaecological record was horrific and saddening.
0:24:24 > 0:24:29In 16 years, she had 17 pregnancies.
0:24:29 > 0:24:3212 of them ended in miscarriage or stillbirth
0:24:32 > 0:24:38and of her surviving children, the oldest only lived 11 years.
0:24:38 > 0:24:41Anne's friends said there was nothing more moving
0:24:41 > 0:24:44than to see the Queen and her husband mourning together
0:24:44 > 0:24:48as the little coffins mounted up.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50Sometimes, they would weep together,
0:24:50 > 0:24:55other times, they just sat in silence hand in hand.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58It was unimaginably awful.
0:24:58 > 0:25:04To this day, no-one really agrees on the reasons behind Anne's suffering.
0:25:04 > 0:25:07What we do know is that she was obese
0:25:07 > 0:25:09and even in the early 18th century,
0:25:09 > 0:25:14some doctors believed that this made it harder for a woman to give birth.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16Clearly there's something wrong for Anne.
0:25:16 > 0:25:19What did contemporaries think it might have been?
0:25:19 > 0:25:23They would have explained it in terms of her humoral constitution.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26At this time, bodies were understood as made up of four humours -
0:25:26 > 0:25:30blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm,
0:25:30 > 0:25:34and they had qualities of hot, dry, cold and moist.
0:25:34 > 0:25:39And, as she became progressively larger, shall we say,
0:25:39 > 0:25:43they would have understood it as having an imbalance in her humours,
0:25:43 > 0:25:47and so, they would have explained her constitution
0:25:47 > 0:25:50as her being cold and moist.
0:25:50 > 0:25:54Predominantly, she had things like watery eyes, for example,
0:25:54 > 0:25:58and that would have affected her reproductive capacity.
0:25:58 > 0:26:03In these sorts of books of advice, Jane Sharp's work on midwifery...
0:26:03 > 0:26:04Oh, yeah.
0:26:04 > 0:26:09..she says quite clearly that fat, overindulgent city women
0:26:09 > 0:26:13who eat too much and have access to far too many delicacies
0:26:13 > 0:26:17are far more likely to have difficult labours and a hard time childbearing
0:26:17 > 0:26:21than your labouring women who were leaner and healthier as a result.
0:26:21 > 0:26:24Anne's failure to produce an heir
0:26:24 > 0:26:27meant that she was the last of the Stuart line,
0:26:27 > 0:26:31and a century later, the survival of the next royal dynasty
0:26:31 > 0:26:35again depended on one woman's ability to bear a child.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41Although King George III had 15 children,
0:26:41 > 0:26:45Princess Charlotte was his only legitimate grandchild
0:26:45 > 0:26:47and heir to his throne.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52In 1817, she was about to give birth to her first child.
0:26:52 > 0:26:55The man responsible for looking after Charlotte
0:26:55 > 0:26:58was Sir Richard Croft, the country's leading male midwife.
0:26:58 > 0:27:02He's left us an extraordinarily detailed account
0:27:02 > 0:27:04of his most important delivery.
0:27:04 > 0:27:10He's talking here about a uterine discharge "of a dark green colour."
0:27:10 > 0:27:12- Yes.- That doesn't sound good.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15No, this is a sign that the baby is in distress or already dead.
0:27:15 > 0:27:22It means the baby has been so badly affected by the process of labour,
0:27:22 > 0:27:27that it starts pooing in the womb and then swallowing this substance.
0:27:27 > 0:27:32Eventually, Charlotte does give birth, after 50 hours of labour.
0:27:32 > 0:27:34The baby is stillborn.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38- They rub his body "with salt and mustard..."- Yes.
0:27:38 > 0:27:44"..but no animation was ever restored."
0:27:44 > 0:27:46That must have been so frustrating.
0:27:46 > 0:27:50He was legitimate, he'd come to term, he was the right gender,
0:27:50 > 0:27:52but then, it all went wrong.
0:27:52 > 0:27:56Exactly, this was the most important baby in the whole of Great Britain.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00And the mother seems to have survived, doesn't she?
0:28:00 > 0:28:03She's doing reasonably well. She's quite composed and says,
0:28:03 > 0:28:05"Well, if this is God's will, then, that's it."
0:28:05 > 0:28:09And she feels tired, she wants to rest
0:28:09 > 0:28:12and, at midnight, Charlotte started complaining
0:28:12 > 0:28:17about a singing in her ears and she feels unwell, she throws up.
0:28:17 > 0:28:22And, very tragically, she dies at about 2:30 in the morning.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25Despite the depth of the detail,
0:28:25 > 0:28:28it's still not clear what actually killed Charlotte,
0:28:28 > 0:28:33but it's likely that a haemorrhage caused her to bleed to death.
0:28:33 > 0:28:37At a stroke, the nation had lost two heirs to the throne
0:28:37 > 0:28:40and the royal family once again faced the problem
0:28:40 > 0:28:43of how to secure the succession.
0:28:43 > 0:28:49It was clear that childbirth remained the monarchy's greatest biological challenge.
0:29:04 > 0:29:07Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd