Tea at Trianon: Incompatibility

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Incompatibility

Science may have found the key to Henry VIII's marital woes. From the SMU blog:

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 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. (Read more.)

Nancy Reyes said...: There was a lot of intermarriage in the British aristocracy, so if this was true, we should see more cases of multiple miscarriages in Henry's extended family. Is there any history here?

Catherine's poor obstetrical history could also have been from incompetent cervix. But why did Anne miscarry? what about Henry's other children born of his mistresses? Did these women too miscarry after their first normal birth?

On the other hand, the history is consistent with other problems, such as congenital syphilis, and his paranoia could have been either from neurosyphillis or mercury poisoning, from the drug used to treat the disease.

A DNA tissue sample could tell us if this is true.; November 25, 2014 at 5:26:00 PM EST
elena maria vidal said...: Excellent insights! I personally think Henry had some kind of STD.; November 25, 2014 at 5:48:00 PM EST