18 year old Henry VIII in 1509
Today’s post is a guest article from one of On the Tudor Trail’s readers, Fran Jablway. Fran has an MS in counselling psychology and is in the process of writing a Tudor novel. Thank you Fran for submitting this very interesting article and taking the time to consider whether Henry VIII may have suffered from a mental illness or sustained a serious brain injury. It would certainly explain a lot!
Regarding Henry VIII: Bipolar or Brain Injured?
Already he was a skillful horseman and jouster…and was popular with his subjects for his common touch (2:60) was how Henry VIII was described at age sixteen.
…he had aged beyond his years…He was frequently irascible, quick to burst out in temper, and given to bouts of black depression as the years advanced (2:416) is him at age fifty.
What happened in between? Henry himself likely wondered what in the world had happened. Back then, a person unburdened themselves to clergy or to the court fool and had leeches remove excessive humors causing the black moods. A look at those years through today’s lenses would provide a better picture and a more concrete basis for treating the depression and mood swings (sans leeches).
One of the tools at the modern practitioner’s disposal is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) (6). It provides criteria for diagnosis of mental health issues on a four axis system. Axis I deals with the presenting problems, or what made the client seek help in the first place. For Henry, that would be his moods and how they impacted his interpersonal relationships.
A quick look at his history might lead one to think that he suffered from bipolar disorder. The onset of symptoms occurs in the late teens or early twenties, and he was well into his forties when the erratic behavior started. While the trigger mechanisms aren’t known, research shows a genetic component. This author found no evidence of such in her research. In some forms, the swings occur cyclically, such as with the seasons. (7) A possible suspect, but a few more factors need to be weighed.
Axis III (Axis II deals with personality disorders, which would have impeded social functioning much earlier) (6), looks at underlying medical conditions contributing to the presenting symptoms. The National Geographic documentary “Inside the Body of Henry VIII” performed a virtual autopsy based on physician’s records and other historical documentation (3). Medically, two red flags stick out: flag one, Henry more than likely had uncontrolled diabetes based on his weight gain and on the ulcer on his leg that never healed. Historian Lucy Worsley took viewers on a trip to the supermarket to show them what Henry typically ate. Her cart was filled with mostly meat, white bread, and higher glycemic fruits as well as ale (up to ten pints a day) and red wine (to which he added additional sugar). Vegetables and wholegrain breads were for peasants, she reminded us. (On a related note, he also suffered from chronic constipation.)
Flag two: two serious closed head injuries. The first occurred in 1524. He forgot to lower the visor on his helmet during a jousting match, and caught the tip of his opponent’s lance just above his right eye. He didn‘t lose consciousness, but he complained of frequent migraines afterwards. (1, 3)
The second happened in 1536. Henry was thrown from a horse, who in turn fell upon him, causing a two hour loss of consciousness. (1, 3). Based on the changes in personality and his depression and paranoia after this incident, it would be logical to assume that damage occurred to the frontal lobes. That region of the brain processes impulse control, external cues from others‘ actions, and social and sexual behavior. (5) He also began to comfort eat about then, above and beyond his usual lusty appetite. Everyone has heard of someone who suffered a stroke, and just wasn’t “right” or “him/herself” afterwards. It’s the same thing in the instance of this king.
Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger
On top of that, chronic pain (from all the old injuries as a result of getting banged around in his younger, more athletic days and the leg wound as well as gout) did him no favors. Couple that with blood sugar levels constantly spiking and crashing, and you have a formula for a very unhappy person, brain injury or not.
Finally, Axis IV examines environmental factors, including external stressors and social conditions. Henry dearly and desperately needed sons to ensure the line of succession. That played into his impatience with his wives. He was the ruler of a world power and supreme head of a church. Anyone in Europe at the time was subject to the threat of rather nasty illnesses. His fear of germs didn’t help him, either. (2)
That’s a lot for anyone to carry, no matter what sort of shape he or she is in.
If this chain of events had happened to him today, he would have been referred to a physician experienced in treating traumatic brain injuries, and a treatment plan detailing medication for the depression; getting his blood sugar under control; and therapy for stress control and relationship issues.
Despite it all, Henry died a respected and popular monarch. His reign continues to inspire books and films, evolving his image from that of a cruel tyrant into a complex human being. While his behavior after the head injury cannot be excused, perhaps it can be better understood through the lenses of history and compassion.
Resources Print 1.McCarthy, Michael. “The Jousting Accident that Turned Henry VIII into a Tyrant,” The UK Independent, April 18, 2009 2. Weir, Alison. The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Grove Press, 1991 TV programs 3.“Inside the Body of Henry VIII,” National Geographic Society 4.“The Madness of Henry VIII,” National Geographic Society On the Web 5.http://neuroskills.com/tbi/bfrontal 6.http://psyweb.com 7.http://webmd.com 8.http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England
I have to point out that Miss Worsley’s “evidence” is sketchy at best, as was pointed out to her at the time by her colleagues at Hampton Court Palace. The list that she so gleefully used to fill her shopping trolley is NOT a list of food that Henry ate, it is a list of food *offered* to him, in essence a menu from which he would choose. We have little to no idea what Henry ate on a regular basis, hints about certain things he liked of enjoyed, but no real information on which to say “this is what he regularly ate”.
Using the list that Miss Worsley used in the way she did is akin to taking a modern restaurant menu and extrapolating that diners at that restaurant regularly eat all the food on that menu, something that we know would not be the case as a menu is there to offer the diner a choice. The same held true for meals at Henry’s Court, the big difference being that all the food was cooked and presented to the table for the diner to choose from, much as we might at a modern buffet style meal.
Thank you for your comment Tudorcook. It is absolutely important to make the distinction between food ‘offered’ and what he actually ate. I suppose all we can really assume is that he ate a selection of food from what was offered to him. The exact amount or combination, we will never know for sure. Though I think it is safe to assume that it would have been an ‘unbalanced’ diet (in modern terms) and would have been heavily protein based?? Feel free to jump in at any time here as your expertise in this area way surpass mine!
Henry ate vegetables in addition to meats and sweets. They weren’t called vegetables in Tudor times – with the exceptions of grains and berries, things that grew from plants were lumped together under herbs.
His favourite veg was said to be artichokes, in extant records from his Board of the Green Cloth, which took care of supplying Henry and his court. Remember, he was a king; he could get exotic foodstuffs imported from other countries, like Valencia oranges from Spain, so he wasn’t limited to ye olde apple orchard. Even the humble turnip isn’t a native English plant, but was imported from Normandy in those days.
Sallets (salads) of greens were popular Tudor side dishes. So were new peas, butter beans, green beans, broad beans, parsnips, scallions, chives, garlic, carrots, onions, asparagus, beetroot, and his artichokes, in addition to lettuces. With the amount of days in the calendar where meat was prohibited – even after the Reformation, as Henry changed almost nothing in regard to Catholic practices – he ate a great deal of seafood as well. Lent and Advent were two whole months out of the year on a fish diet right there, in addition to other Holy Days of Obligation.
If his diet is going to be called into question, I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned that meat and seafood (and some of the veg that the author thinks was non-existent) were preserved either by pickling in brine or salted and smoked for long-term storage, and rubbed with salt for short-term storage. That’s a lot of salt intake when either meat or fish or both were served at every meal. Whiter bread was preferred because it was known that darker breads could cause illness if eaten all the time (ergot from rye, for instance). He also consumed a lot of dairy – cheese boards were often served as the final remove at dinner, bread got buttered, a lot of butter, eggs, milk, and cream went into all that baking and rich bread puddings (his favourite dessert was something called aleberry pudding).
Henry had the same problem a lot of middle-aged men do. He went from being extremely active and sporty to having increasingly limited mobility, and never adjusted his diet to reflect that. Same thing happened with his grandpa, Edward IV, who carried so much excess weight in the torso by the time he was forty that he couldn’t fight off a chest cold, and died even younger than Henry did.
May not have been all fat that made Henry wheezy, either. Tuberculosis rather galloped through the Tudors. Several members of his immediate family died of it.
On a side note, Henry basically invented the chair lift when he couldn’t climb stairs any more. Imagine being the manservants who had to tug on the ropes to haul Henry up, and try not to drop him on his way down!
apologies for the use of bold type, used the wrong html tag….oops
That’s ok 🙂
“Though I think it is safe to assume that it would have been an ‘unbalanced’ diet (in modern terms) and would have been heavily protein based??”
certainly high in protein and indeed when compared to *modern* definitions of a balanced diet, an unbalanced one, although one must of course always be wary of comparing diets from the past with modern ideas of nutrition (as indeed we should be wary of comparing many things from the past to today).
Changes in our concepts of nutrition make how we ate in the past look, on paper, very poor yet at the time this would not have been the case. I’m sure that in a few decades time nutritional science will have advanced sufficiently to say that the way we eat today is not balanced or healthy within those new terms, yet we wouldn’t say that was the case when looking at it with what we know now! (I hope that makes sense)
I quite agree with everything you have said Tudor cook, the Tudor diet may have seemed to be mostly meat/high protein, but was this not the main principle of the Atkins diet fad some years back, and people actually lost weight eating lots of meat..I also agree that there will be ‘food’ scientist telling us that our diets are not balanced in the future, but you only have to look around to see the amount of ‘junk food’ there is to buy, and the high increase in obesity of late, to prove that we are eating it, not to mention binge drinking, so maybe our diet is not as ‘superior’ as we like to think it is.
“he would have been referred to a physician experienced in treating traumatic brain injuries, and a treatment plan detailing medication for the depression; getting his blood sugar under control; and therapy for stress control and relationship issues.”
This passage made me chuckle. Not because it isn’t true, but because it is hard to imagine Henry VIII talking to a dietitian and monitoring his blood sugar. Also, it would be interesting to see Henry in an anger management class. Now that is a book waiting to be written.
@Theresa–when I was researching this bit, I had a couple of days when I was thinking about how “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” would’ve handled trying to get Henry to cooperate with a treatment plan. Especially the anger management part. 🙂
@Tudorcook–thanks for your comment.
@Tudorcook: you’re right about two things:
1. how much of it that Henry likely ate himself and
2. what makes good nutrtion seems to change from moment to moment. I’ve done some articles on alternative health for my newsletter. I’ve come to the conclusion that proper diet is relative to the individual.
Now, if I could just get my doctor on board with me about Ben and Jerry’s ice cream being the perfect food…protein, calcium, fruit in some flavors, grains in the ones with brownies and chocolate chip cookie dough mixed in…;)
Has anyone ever done a genealogical study to see whether there was a possibility of bipolar personality in his family (going back to great-grandparents perhaps)? And has anyone ever considered that the king might have suffered from seasonal affective disorder? I wonder if anyone ever studied the correlation between seasons, England’s colder weather in the 1500s, and this king’s moods. Perhaps he suffered from winter doldrums.
Well, both his grandmothers, Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville, were said to be quite the control freaks. His grandfather Edward IV developed a case of the I-don’t-cares in his latter years.
The winter of 1535/6 – right before he had Anne Boleyn executed – was the coldest of his reign. The Thames froze solid that winter, solid enough so that Henry, Anne, and their court were able to go sleigh-riding upon it. But he hadn’t that excuse for his other ‘conspiracies’ that ended in bloodbaths.
I found the comments made about the psychology very interesting. I have been reading over the years about Behavioural Science, or Profiling, used to work out the minds of serious criminals, serial killers etc, used by FBI developed by people like John Douglas based at Quantico, Virginia (not that I am suggesting that Henry was a serial killer). And it seems that alot of these offenders have suffered bad head injuries at some time that changed their personalities and behaviour, maybe we should ask them to do a profile on Henry, I know they have helped British police in the past, and John Douglas did a profile on our infamous Jack the Ripper, it would be very interesting don’t you think…..
I have no earthly clue who Lucy Worsley is, but a historian she is not – she sounds more like a grocery store game show contestant. It wouldn’t take a PhD in English History to conduct a little historical research and discover that Henry VIII loved fruits and vegetables, particularly strawberries, cherries, and artichokes, and consumed them frequently. He was also tall, slim and athletic until his last jousting accident in 1534. His obesity and gluttony didn’t become an issue until after that fact. Loading up a shopping cart full of meat and trying to convince viewers that the cart contained the amount of food Henry ate – as opposed to what was prepared and offered, not only to the King but whomever was dining with him – smacks of game show stunt antics. Henry Tudor had enough natural failings without Worsley making him look even worse – and herself look like a fool.
To hell with all that stuff about food and diet. It misses the point about Henry VIII being unconscious for about two hours after the jousting accident, and the likelihood that his personality would be changed radically if he responded in ways that so many head injured people are observed doing in modern times, with greater medical supervision. Henry changed radically as from 1536 and everyone at court was afraid of him, his outbursts, his anger, paranoia and changeability. Look at the way he treated Thomas Cromwell who did so much in making the king extremely wealthy, ran parliamentary business and calmed potential enemies in Spain, France and Italy. Cromwell was beheaded cruelly with a dull axe wielded by an amateur executioner. Not surprisingly, Henry VIII was known to have felt immense regret for this later on. More than this, though, Cromwell, I think, was well aware of Henry’s mental problems and spent his career after 1536 controlling and guiding the king through his duties as best he could. He even had a tunnel built so that he could get to the king and vice versa without anybody seeing them. I think Cromwell did his best to control a very unstable king and protect him from the court and the people. In other words Cromwell ruled the country virtually until the nobles by birth turned on him realising that they too could affect Henry’s decisions.