Tea at Trianon: The Medicines of Henry VIII

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

Monday, December 2, 2024

The Medicines of Henry VIII

From Historic Royal Palaces:

Some of Henry’s ingredients are poisonous, whilst others seem simply bizarre. Litharge of gold is actually a lead compound, named for its reddish-gold colour, whilst the 'unicorn’s horn' referenced in the recipe above was probably narwhal horn. Other recipes call for ceruse (white lead), nightshade and – a personal favourite – ‘long worms of the earth’ or as we know them today, earthworms.

Various non-toxic herbs and flowers, white wine and rose water are all also frequent ingredients in Henry’s recipes. The second recipe devised by Henry whilst he was staying at Hampton Court is a poultice, the ingredients for which include violet leaves, apples, mallow flowers, linseed, and a newly laid egg. This would have been a topical compound applied to the body on a cloth, possibly used to treat Henry’s leg ulcers.

Although the pain caused by Henry’s legs was public knowledge, medical treatment probably took place in the King's private apartments.

A Tudor medical text by one of his nurse-physicians, titled Bullein’s Bulwarke of Defence against Sickness and Disease (1562), repeatedly urges patients to lie upon their bed when receiving topical treatments – including a treatment for swollen legs. Among the numerous medical recipes in Bullein's Bulwarke is this particularly strange 16th-century recipe for Oleum vulpinum, or fox oil:

Take a whole Foxe, except the bowels, and put hym in a vessel, and powre uppon him Welle water, and salte Water, [and] old oyle. Seeth thys over a softe fyre, with Salte untyll the Water be consumed. Then put it into a vessel and powre to it sweete Water, wherein the herbes were sodden and […] seeth them again, till the Water be consumed.

Possibly one of the more disturbing recipes in Bullein’s book, this Oleum Vulpinum was recommended as a remedy against arthritis, back pain, and gout. Henry himself suffered from gout and may possibly have used something like this when under the care of Bullein. (Read more.)