Kings and Brain Damage (not to mention politicians)

[michellemoran]

I was googling Henry VIII and brain damage the other day (don't ask) and came across this fascinating article by Jim Pittaway. Here's an interesting excerpt from the bottom of the article:


"Coming of age in Plantagenet times involved putting an iron bucket over your head and flailing about with broadswords, clubs, maces, and an assortment of heavy objects in the direction of other young men similarly accessorized, until you or your opponent broke major bones or lost consciousness. Then, with everybody revived—except those who were dead, fractured, or in a coma—the practice was to put the iron bucket back on your head, get on your horse, and charge at each other with maximum velocity until someone was unhorsed, generally landing on his head, which was still encased in that iron bucket.

"We know enough about the damage blows can do to heads encased in high-tech football helmets or struck frequently with padded gloves. Imagine the brain damage a prince had to acquire before he was deemed fit to be king.

"In the Tudor case of Henry VIII, we have an individual whose life has been chronicled in such tedious detail that we can identify with specificity what clinicians call “precipitating events.” We know that, in addition to any damage done in training, he was unhorsed in a tournament trying to impress Anne Boleyn. This left him unconscious, probably in a coma, for several days, as did another fall from a horse while riding in the country, shortly before he had Boleyn beheaded. Although this man was afflicted by numerous ailments, a recent publication by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons maintains that his remarkable cognitive and emotional degeneration was substantially due to progressively more severe organic brain damage incurred during the course of his violent life."

[SonjaMarie]

Fascinating!

SM

[Margaret]

That's pretty interesting! It does seem that the vast majority of kings, emperors and other heads of state of the past (sometimes one wonders about the present) were mentally impaired, if not seriously deranged. Theories about the Romans and lead poisoning have been fairly well publicized, but I hadn't heard this about the bashing and battering involved in war games and warfare - it's a very compelling argument.

[SonjaMarie]

I think some of the mentally impaired must've come from all the inbreeding the royals did, it certainly didn't help any!

SM

[Volgadon]

Is this documented anywhere?

[SonjaMarie]

[quote=""Volgadon""]Is this documented anywhere?[/quote]

Which thing the head trauma or the inbreeding?

SM

[michellemoran]

Volgadon, does your this refer to Henry VIII's falls? If so, then yes.

[Volgadon]

No, I meant the coming of age thing with metal buckets.

[MrsMorland]

Very interesting! Wasn't he also suffering from syphilis? I know I've read theories about his mental faculties being affected by that.

[michellemoran]

Ah. I think he's using iron buckets as a simile. As in, their metal helmets were like iron buckets, basically, with no more or less protection.