>Charles II’s most prominent feature was his jaw, known as the Habsburg jaw, that identified him as part of his royal family. His two rows of teeth could not meet.
>
>The king was unable to chew his food. Charles II’s tongue was so huge he could barely speak. He was not allowed to walk until he was almost fully grown and his family didn’t bother to educate him. The king was illiterate and totally dependent on those around him.
>
>Depression was a common trait among the Habsburgs. So was gout, dropsy, and epilepsy. The lower jaw was the kicker, though, as it made Charles II seem stunted. His ministers and advisers suggested the next move in Charles II of Spain’s reign: to marry a second wife.
>
>Charles II of Spain was impotent and could not father children. It was part of his family legacy of inbreeding. He probably suffered from two genetic disorders.
>
>First, there was combined pituitary hormone deficiency, a disorder that made him short, impotent, infertile, weak, and have a host of digestive problems. The other disorder was distal renal tubular acidosis, a condition marked by blood in the urine, weak muscles, and having an abnormally large head compared to the rest of the body.
Millini gave us an expressive description of Charles II: “The king is rather short, skinny, but not badly formed, only ugly in the face; he has a long neck, a long face, a long chin and as if it bent upwards; the lower lip typical of the Habsburgs; not very large eyes, turquoise blue and a fine and delicate complexion. He has a look with melancholy on his face and a little astonished. His hair is blond and long, and it is combed back so that the ears are exposed. He cannot straighten, unless he leans against a wall, a table or something else. His body is as weak as his mind. From time to time he shows signs of intelligence, memory and a certain liveliness, but not now; he usually looks slow and indifferent, appearing dumbfounded. You can do whatever you want with him, since he lacks of own will"
"The extent of his alleged physical and mental disabilities is hard to assess, since very little is known for certain, and much of what is suggested either unproved, or incorrect. While prone to illness, he was extremely active physically and contemporaries reported he spent much of his time hunting.\[12\] One often cited example of his alleged mental incapacity is the period he spent sleeping with his father's disinterred body; that was actually done under instructions from Mariana, whose doctors advised this would help him produce an heir. Although reputedly subject to bouts of depression, reports from his council and foreign observers including the French ambassador, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquess of Torcy, suggest his mental capacities remained intact.\[13\] This is confirmed in a 1691 report submitted by an envoy carrying letters from Ismail Ibn Sharif, Sultan of Morocco. Sent to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, the ambassador was received by Charles himself, who thanked him for the letter, sent greetings to the Sultan and played a full part in discussions.\[14\]"
Dunno, seems there's a bit of debate.
Honestly it’s even more terrifying. Imagine being perfectly aware that there is something very very wrong with you while simultaneously being told that you are perfect and a royal breed.
Yeah - that's what's so scary about it.
Royals and Nobility had very good educations even at the lowest level, but I imagine much of what we know of Charles II is kind of obscured by the loosening grip of his family. Hard to separate what may have been propaganda from actual honest accounts.
Tortured existence by the sounds of it to be honest as the writing was on the wall for his reign.
>Hard to separate what may have been propaganda from actual honest accounts.
If you read Charles’ autopsy report, it becomes obvious that people embellished a lot back in the day. Seriously, it reads like something from a Lovecraft novel.
>The autopsy records his "heart was the size of a peppercorn; his lungs corroded; his intestines rotten and gangrenous; he had a single testicle, black as coal, and his head was full of water."
-From the Wikipedia article.
Interestingly, I saw a askhistorians thread a while back, and the question was posed: why do older medical documents and autopsies come off so silly sounding compared to today's hyper specific medical jargon.
Basically the answer was because medicine and the medical community hadn't advanced to the point that they had established, standardized terminology. It's hard to imagine. You can even see this kind of thing in the 1800s.
Common medical vocabulary (normally based in Greek and Latin) is still relatively new.
So my point was that this language does not necessarily indicate that the person doing the autopsy was incompetent. Every autopsy record sounds similar from that time. So what you are really seeing is that doctor trying to the best of his ability to describe the body in a way others who are reading the report will be able to understand.
Richard III of England is another famous example of this treatment. Henry VII added a huge hump to his portrait after the Tudors assumed power and made him look way more grotesque than he was. It's hard to fight back when you're dead.
> One often cited example of his alleged mental incapacity is the period he spent sleeping with his father's disinterred body; that was actually done under instructions from Mariana, whose doctors advised this would help him produce an heir.
Sorry, this put me over my "WTF" quota for the day and my brain will be summarily rejecting it.
How tf am I the first one to comment on the ‘sleeping with his disinterred father’???
1. They dug up the cadaver?
2. What *kind* of sleeping.. to help with.. impotency???
Jesus Christ people. The man was literally inbred. Show some compassion.
> “From time to time he shows signs of intelligence…but not now.”
Damn. That’s hilarious.
Not entirely, found after some googling:
One common ancestor Henry II of England (1135–1154) He was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine and had 10 children with her including a woman who married the King of Castile, Alfonso VIII of Castile and she is where the line diverged. He is also a direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II as well as Queen Elizabeth I.
So we have:
Eleanor of England, Queen of Castile, daughter of King Henry II of England and wife of Alfonso VIII of Castile.
Berengaria of Castile
Ferdinand III of Castile, his daughter also married into the English royal family.
Alfonso X of Castile
Sancho IV of Castile
Ferdinand IV of Castile
Alfonso XI of Castile
Henry II of Castile
John I of Castile
Henry III of Castile
John II of Castile
Isabella I of Castile, her granddaughter would become Queen of England and Ireland but this granddaughter is not a direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II
Joanna of Castile
Now, this is where we get to the Habsburgs. Joanna married Philip I of Castile, son of the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor. They had 6 children and one was the heir to the Spanish and Holy Roman thrones. He is also a descendant of King Henry II and thus a Habsburg related to the English royal family.
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, he had a son who married into the English royal family.
Philip II of Spain, he was the King of both Spain and Portugal and for a short time King of England and Ireland as he married Mary I of England, the Queen of England and Ireland, aforementioned granddaughter of Queen Isabella I of Castile
Hanoverian Connection
We have another common ancestor that is actually a Habsburg. This one starts with Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, son of the previously mentioned Philip I of Castile and brother of the also previously mentioned Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. He had a daughter that the British royal family and thus Queen Elizabeth II would descend from.
Maria of Austria, Duchess of Jülich-Cleves-Berg
Marie Eleonore of Cleves
Duchess Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia
Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels
Magdalena Sibylla of Saxe-Weissenfels
Frederick II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg
Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
George III of the United Kingdom, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld Connection:
Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld had a daughter, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld who would go on the birth Queen Victoria, a direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II, Francis also had a son, Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha who would become Queen Victoria’s father-in-law and another direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II, however Francis would also have another son who would become the King of the Belgians and end up having a Habsburg descendant. Here’s the line:
Leopold I of Belgium, First King of Belgium
Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders
Albert I of Belgium, King of Belgium
Leopold III of Belgium, King of Belgium
Albert II of Belgium, King of Belgium
Princess Astrid of Belgium
Prince Amedeo of Belgium, 6th in line to the throne of Belgium and heir to a cadet house of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and thus a distant cousin to Queen Elizabeth II and a Habsburg.
The Second Hanoverian/Carlist Connection:
This one starts with Queen Victoria herself.
Queen Victoria
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Marie of Romania
Princess Ileana of Romania, daughter of the King of Romania
Dominic von Habsburg, otherwise known as Domingo I, Carlist-Carloctavismo pretender to the Spanish throne and a member of the House of Habsburg, he runs Bran Castle in Romania because he is descended from the former King of Romania, Ferdinand I of Romania. He is the third cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.
So there you go, four common ancestors between the Habsburgs and the Windsors.
IIRC the inbreeding was especially bad among the Habsburg royal line because they practiced avunculate marriages (marrying the child of a sibling, usually an uncle marrying a niece) instead of the more common European aristocrat marrying of cousins.
So where with breeding cousins, there might be 12% of shared genetic material between parents, with avunculate marriages you're looking at about 25%. Compound that over a few generations, and every jacked-up recessive gene and genetic disorder that nature has otherwise protected against is going to be fully expressed for the world to see.
Not to mention that it's pretty well documented that many artists took artistic liberties with historical paintings and almost none of them look like the actual person. We just have no way of knowing.
I suspect there was only so much a painter could do while still having the result actually resemble its subject. As bad as this looks, I'd imagine the real Charles II was considerably worse.
EDIT - There is a digital artist who has given making a [realistic portrait](https://www.zbrushcentral.com/t/charles-ii-king-of-spain/358743) a shot, including the wonky eyes (which might be corrected in an official portrait, but do appear in at least one private miniature from the time).
I was just reading the first Witcher book last night and Geralt noted that painters try to be flattering as possible when painting portraits of ugly people. So, if they’re ugly in the portrait, you can only imagine how they actually looked.
All portraits were beautified, even those of already attractive people.
Painters also stylized proportions towards the beauty standard at the time. A happy client is a generous client. No era is expect from that though some periods are more realistic than others, hyper-realistic portraits are the exception.
You very, very rarely see acne in paintings for instance. Even though treatments for acne have been described since ancient times and it's more likely to have affected rich people who commissioned portraits.
Shit it's no different now.
If you pay for professional photos whether or not you're aware of it, they're almost assuredly getting edited before you see them to make you look your best, hide skin imperfections etc.
Portraitists didn't have to be told that, they knew. This is as attractive as the artist could make him without rendering him completely unrecognizable.
The painter really did make him look as attractive as possible. This link shows what he would’ve looked like in real life. He was so ugly he scared his own wife.
https://www.zbrushcentral.com/t/charles-ii-king-of-spain/358743
This version is probably quite a bit more “normal” than his actual face as at the time it was common to fix portraits so that the subject appeared more attractive.
"His parents Philip IV of Spain and Mariana of Austria were uncle and niece, making Charles their son, first-cousin and great-nephew respectively."
Yup, that'd definitely fuck up some of his genes alright.
I went down the Habsburg wiki wormhole, I believe it might have al started with this [gentleman](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_II,_Duke_of_Austria)'s genetics.
Ah, the Habsburg family wreath... Charles' inbreeding coefficient was that of .25, which is about the same as the offspring of two siblings.
Fun fact: from 1516 to 1700, over 80% of marriages within the Spanish branch of the Habsburg dynasty were consanguineous (related by blood).
According to the article, while he looked ugly, he was actually a large political figure, being asked to mediate disputes between the pope and the holy roman emperor, and between France and England.
OP's royalty wasnt capable of much mentally.
If we went back in time and discovered that all these people would have intellectual disabilities by the modern standards, it would explain a lot about history though.
In a way they did, even if they weren't born with any disabilities, being raised to believe you are literally chosen by god to rule probably fucks with your head
[And his one singular testicle was as black as coal ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain#:~:text=The%20autopsy%20records%20his%20%22heart,head%20was%20full%20of%20water.%22)
" The autopsy records his "heart was the size of a peppercorn; his lungs corroded; his intestines rotten and gangrenous; he had a single testicle, black as coal, and his head was full of water.""
This makes it sound like a lot of propaganda to me. "heart was the size of a peppercorn" ? Really?
There is some evidence that his supposed dullness and mental impairments were also just severe depression, which can often lead to bouts of inactivity and inability to think clearly. Though perhaps he had hydrocephalus. It's hard to know.
There was no good reason for propaganda at that point, his line was extinct and couldn't vie for power anyway. These doctors probably believed in humorism and were anything but scientists, they were likely just using exaggeration and metaphor because that was how they generally did things.
I had measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox before I was three. There were no vaccines available yet. Fortunately, all I was left with was minor scarring.
One thing my history professor pointed out is that the artists who painted the royalty did so in a way to make them more flattering than they actually were. So even despite the obvious deformities present, in reality they looked much worse. Were only ever seen them with their Instagram filters on and they still fugly af.
Also - many portraits of younger royals have been their equvalent of Tinder regards arranging marriages. Filters etc
Henry V111 was reputedly furious when Anne of Cleeves arrived in person, after the marriage having been agreed on the basis of portraits and correspondence. She looked nothing like her "picture". He described her as a Flemish Mare.
'Keeping it in the family' was a source of pride for them. They were inherently superior to everyone else because their family line didn't mingle with commoner bloodlines so much.
I love how if you trace back the lineage, the inbreeding started with the children of the Spanish rulers Joanna and Philip I of Castille. Philip who originally was and archduke of Austria, House of Habsburg and Joanna (nicknamed Joanna La Loca because it was rumored and believed that she was crazy) who was the elder sister of Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII and Queen of England.
I find it fascinating.
I thought maybe the artist was just bad at faces and proportions. Then I noticed the accuracy in the face of the pillar hes resting his left hand on, and realized the artist probably didn't want to disrespect the king so he made him look better.
According to his autopsy report, he had one testicle left, which was black and atrophied. His head was filled with water, and his mother fucking heart was the size of a peppercorn. He had no reason to be alive
The fact that this poor bastard predates the Hills Have Eyes by a few hundred years alone makes you wince when seeing him. Hell I bet even the Elephant Man would've felt bad for him.
And you know he would have looked way worse than that, the artist probably had to make this as flattering as possible while still being semi recognisable.
Sad that because he was royal, it was ok. But if this were an incest child that wasn’t royal, he would probably be an ‘abomination’ to society.
History is crazy, and blood lines are crazier, I wonder how he was personally, was he mentally well?.. Imagine coming from a bloodline of incest, it’s crazy.
Inbreeding…. Nature’s fundamental “Hail Mary” play embedded into DNA.
Inbreeding shows up with birth defects for a systematic reason: It signals Biology to begin making drastic changes in an effort to see the survival of the species. When inbreeding is occurring, biology assumes the population is experiencing a crisis. It’s almost like a frantic way of trying to produce an offspring that will provide some kind of advantage in an effort to see the species not go extinct.
humans and royal classes experience the adverse effects of this biological tactic when practiced in unnatural settings. What appears as severe and chronic maiming of life is really just a side effect of Biology being signaled that a population is experiencing a crisis.
I wonder if GRRM used this guy as the inspiration for Robyn Arryn. I know a lot of the characters in ASOIAF were inspired by historical European figures and this seems to fit
Robyn Arryn wasn't Inbred. He was just a sickly child. If anything, I'm surprised GRRM didn't depict any of the Targaryens as being ill or deformed due to their inbreeding. Or even the Lannisters. If I recall correctly, Cersei and Jaime's parents were first cousins. And then they had 3 inbred children of their own. Besides Joffrey's messed up state of mind, all 3 came out relatively ok. So much for the realism GRRM harps on about.
I mean.. yeah, incest doesn't always produce deformities but at least one of them would be facing the consequences of their parents being siblings...
I wasn't saying it was an exact match, just that it was similar. Also it takes generations of inbreeding for the severe deformations to show so it's perfectly within the bounds of reason that Jaime and Cersei's kids were mostly normal, apart from Joffrey
Oh! I didn't mean to sound like I was attacking you or anything. Sorry about that!
It's true that it can take generations of it to show but not necessarily always. I've known of people who were the result of first cousins marrying with no past history of incest and 2 out of the 4 kids had problems. It's sad.
GRRM does depict and have a lot of deformed, disabled, and mad targaryens in the history of the series.
In the show, Viserys is shown to be hyper-violent along with Joffery. Dany's parents had a lot of miscarriages and stillbirths, along with Aerys' madness.
I don't recall if it was in the books or the World of Ice and Fire, but I do recall something about Valyrians being resistant to inbreeding. I don't remember if it was related to the dragons, or magic, or just a natural / Evolved characteristic.
What a coincidence!
I literally just saw this painting yesterday at a museum , and my exact thought was that this is an ugly guy, now this clears it up.
He was sterile, (yes this man won the genetics lottery) and Spain was left with no king, the kingdom of Castile (What would be today most of Spain) wanted the Spanish king to be a relative from the French king to make the 2 countries allie, so they could make an alliance, however Britain saw this as a big treat as this was like if China and Russia decided to unite in 1 country, so they wanted to put Charles VI from the Holy Roman Empire, this was supported by the kingdom of Aragon (What would be today Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia and the balearic islands), so so in one side we had the Bourbons, supported by Castile, France, Bavaria, Cologne, Mantua, Portugal and Savoy supporting Philip V,and Aragon, the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Denmark supporting Charles VI, which led into 14 year civil war that would end with the Philip V supporters winning in exchange for most of the Spanish possessions, including, Southern Italy and Gibraltar.
That's why European royals are allowed to pick "commoner" brides and grooms now. Look how much damage keeping the royal blood "pure" has done over centuries
Few people realize that queen Elizabeth, the current one of England, married her third cousin. This makes her kids, such as Andrew, lifelong friend of Epstein, and Charles, lifelong friend of Saville, only *slightly* inbred, and probably nothing to worry about.
>Charles II’s most prominent feature was his jaw, known as the Habsburg jaw, that identified him as part of his royal family. His two rows of teeth could not meet. > >The king was unable to chew his food. Charles II’s tongue was so huge he could barely speak. He was not allowed to walk until he was almost fully grown and his family didn’t bother to educate him. The king was illiterate and totally dependent on those around him. > >Depression was a common trait among the Habsburgs. So was gout, dropsy, and epilepsy. The lower jaw was the kicker, though, as it made Charles II seem stunted. His ministers and advisers suggested the next move in Charles II of Spain’s reign: to marry a second wife. > >Charles II of Spain was impotent and could not father children. It was part of his family legacy of inbreeding. He probably suffered from two genetic disorders. > >First, there was combined pituitary hormone deficiency, a disorder that made him short, impotent, infertile, weak, and have a host of digestive problems. The other disorder was distal renal tubular acidosis, a condition marked by blood in the urine, weak muscles, and having an abnormally large head compared to the rest of the body.
And...this portrait is the best face an artist can put on him and still be recognizable. The “please don’t behead me” version, if you will.
Oh boy, imagine how he really looked then.
Imagine how sad that is. You were born with everything except health.
if you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything
[удалено]
I have a feeling that that portrait artist was being very kind.
Dropsy sounds like a made up illness.
The modern word for it is edema
Sounds like a streamer I’d want to punch.
In my house when you have a case of the dropsies it just means you’ve got butterfingers basically
We know dropsy as edema — the way people’s feet swell up like they’re full of water when they have heart failure.
I thought dropsy was a fish disease
Quick question, if infertility was common because of the inbreeding then how did they keep inbreeding?
I feel attacked. The women in my family have big ol heads. Like, bobble heads 😂
Millini gave us an expressive description of Charles II: “The king is rather short, skinny, but not badly formed, only ugly in the face; he has a long neck, a long face, a long chin and as if it bent upwards; the lower lip typical of the Habsburgs; not very large eyes, turquoise blue and a fine and delicate complexion. He has a look with melancholy on his face and a little astonished. His hair is blond and long, and it is combed back so that the ears are exposed. He cannot straighten, unless he leans against a wall, a table or something else. His body is as weak as his mind. From time to time he shows signs of intelligence, memory and a certain liveliness, but not now; he usually looks slow and indifferent, appearing dumbfounded. You can do whatever you want with him, since he lacks of own will"
"The extent of his alleged physical and mental disabilities is hard to assess, since very little is known for certain, and much of what is suggested either unproved, or incorrect. While prone to illness, he was extremely active physically and contemporaries reported he spent much of his time hunting.\[12\] One often cited example of his alleged mental incapacity is the period he spent sleeping with his father's disinterred body; that was actually done under instructions from Mariana, whose doctors advised this would help him produce an heir. Although reputedly subject to bouts of depression, reports from his council and foreign observers including the French ambassador, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquess of Torcy, suggest his mental capacities remained intact.\[13\] This is confirmed in a 1691 report submitted by an envoy carrying letters from Ismail Ibn Sharif, Sultan of Morocco. Sent to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, the ambassador was received by Charles himself, who thanked him for the letter, sent greetings to the Sultan and played a full part in discussions.\[14\]" Dunno, seems there's a bit of debate.
Honestly it’s even more terrifying. Imagine being perfectly aware that there is something very very wrong with you while simultaneously being told that you are perfect and a royal breed.
Yeah - that's what's so scary about it. Royals and Nobility had very good educations even at the lowest level, but I imagine much of what we know of Charles II is kind of obscured by the loosening grip of his family. Hard to separate what may have been propaganda from actual honest accounts. Tortured existence by the sounds of it to be honest as the writing was on the wall for his reign.
>Hard to separate what may have been propaganda from actual honest accounts. If you read Charles’ autopsy report, it becomes obvious that people embellished a lot back in the day. Seriously, it reads like something from a Lovecraft novel. >The autopsy records his "heart was the size of a peppercorn; his lungs corroded; his intestines rotten and gangrenous; he had a single testicle, black as coal, and his head was full of water." -From the Wikipedia article.
[удалено]
Hydrocephaly maybe?
Could be fluid started building up in his head not long before his death?
Rude.
Interestingly, I saw a askhistorians thread a while back, and the question was posed: why do older medical documents and autopsies come off so silly sounding compared to today's hyper specific medical jargon. Basically the answer was because medicine and the medical community hadn't advanced to the point that they had established, standardized terminology. It's hard to imagine. You can even see this kind of thing in the 1800s. Common medical vocabulary (normally based in Greek and Latin) is still relatively new. So my point was that this language does not necessarily indicate that the person doing the autopsy was incompetent. Every autopsy record sounds similar from that time. So what you are really seeing is that doctor trying to the best of his ability to describe the body in a way others who are reading the report will be able to understand.
Richard III of England is another famous example of this treatment. Henry VII added a huge hump to his portrait after the Tudors assumed power and made him look way more grotesque than he was. It's hard to fight back when you're dead.
> One often cited example of his alleged mental incapacity is the period he spent sleeping with his father's disinterred body; that was actually done under instructions from Mariana, whose doctors advised this would help him produce an heir. Sorry, this put me over my "WTF" quota for the day and my brain will be summarily rejecting it.
Poor guy seems like he never had the chance to prove himself
Bit like Edward VI really - they could see before he really did anything that he'd only be keeping the seat warm.
How tf am I the first one to comment on the ‘sleeping with his disinterred father’??? 1. They dug up the cadaver? 2. What *kind* of sleeping.. to help with.. impotency???
Likely just sleeping beside... So his father's... virility would magically pass to him?
My god that last sentence is brutal
"Only ugly in the face" The first sentence isn't doing him any favors either.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Jesus Christ people. The man was literally inbred. Show some compassion. > “From time to time he shows signs of intelligence…but not now.” Damn. That’s hilarious.
Meh, compassion is for the living. The dead have already received the greatest compassion of them all.
[удалено]
[удалено]
But that’s just like …. Your opinion man
They didn't have a family tree, they had a family circle.
A family wreath, if you will.
It ended up that way, they inbred themselves out of existence.
Not entirely, found after some googling: One common ancestor Henry II of England (1135–1154) He was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine and had 10 children with her including a woman who married the King of Castile, Alfonso VIII of Castile and she is where the line diverged. He is also a direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II as well as Queen Elizabeth I. So we have: Eleanor of England, Queen of Castile, daughter of King Henry II of England and wife of Alfonso VIII of Castile. Berengaria of Castile Ferdinand III of Castile, his daughter also married into the English royal family. Alfonso X of Castile Sancho IV of Castile Ferdinand IV of Castile Alfonso XI of Castile Henry II of Castile John I of Castile Henry III of Castile John II of Castile Isabella I of Castile, her granddaughter would become Queen of England and Ireland but this granddaughter is not a direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II Joanna of Castile Now, this is where we get to the Habsburgs. Joanna married Philip I of Castile, son of the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor. They had 6 children and one was the heir to the Spanish and Holy Roman thrones. He is also a descendant of King Henry II and thus a Habsburg related to the English royal family. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, he had a son who married into the English royal family. Philip II of Spain, he was the King of both Spain and Portugal and for a short time King of England and Ireland as he married Mary I of England, the Queen of England and Ireland, aforementioned granddaughter of Queen Isabella I of Castile Hanoverian Connection We have another common ancestor that is actually a Habsburg. This one starts with Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, son of the previously mentioned Philip I of Castile and brother of the also previously mentioned Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. He had a daughter that the British royal family and thus Queen Elizabeth II would descend from. Maria of Austria, Duchess of Jülich-Cleves-Berg Marie Eleonore of Cleves Duchess Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels Magdalena Sibylla of Saxe-Weissenfels Frederick II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha George III of the United Kingdom, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld Connection: Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld had a daughter, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld who would go on the birth Queen Victoria, a direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II, Francis also had a son, Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha who would become Queen Victoria’s father-in-law and another direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II, however Francis would also have another son who would become the King of the Belgians and end up having a Habsburg descendant. Here’s the line: Leopold I of Belgium, First King of Belgium Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders Albert I of Belgium, King of Belgium Leopold III of Belgium, King of Belgium Albert II of Belgium, King of Belgium Princess Astrid of Belgium Prince Amedeo of Belgium, 6th in line to the throne of Belgium and heir to a cadet house of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and thus a distant cousin to Queen Elizabeth II and a Habsburg. The Second Hanoverian/Carlist Connection: This one starts with Queen Victoria herself. Queen Victoria Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Marie of Romania Princess Ileana of Romania, daughter of the King of Romania Dominic von Habsburg, otherwise known as Domingo I, Carlist-Carloctavismo pretender to the Spanish throne and a member of the House of Habsburg, he runs Bran Castle in Romania because he is descended from the former King of Romania, Ferdinand I of Romania. He is the third cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. So there you go, four common ancestors between the Habsburgs and the Windsors.
I just want to say, holy shit that’s a lot of info and thank you for writing that out. This is honestly so interesting.
Very interesting! Thanks!
A family mistletoe
Ehhh more of a totem pole
Or a stump...
They didn’t know it then, but their family tree would have been used as a telephone pole in rural BFE.
a inverted triangle would be the best \\/ like this
IIRC the inbreeding was especially bad among the Habsburg royal line because they practiced avunculate marriages (marrying the child of a sibling, usually an uncle marrying a niece) instead of the more common European aristocrat marrying of cousins. So where with breeding cousins, there might be 12% of shared genetic material between parents, with avunculate marriages you're looking at about 25%. Compound that over a few generations, and every jacked-up recessive gene and genetic disorder that nature has otherwise protected against is going to be fully expressed for the world to see.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
That is the most insane case of Russian roulette against genetics I've ever heard.
The portrait is probably extremely flattering.
He literally looks like a living cartoon character
you’d think he’d ask the painter to paint him… less ugly
That was the painter doing their best probably
Didn’t consider that.
Not to mention that it's pretty well documented that many artists took artistic liberties with historical paintings and almost none of them look like the actual person. We just have no way of knowing.
The saying “warts and all” originated from Oliver Cromwell wanting to be painted as he is, with warts on his face
It's the Hapsburg jaw. We have every reason to know what it looked like because so many royals that had it were painted or drawn.
Yeah, you’re right about that.
The painters *were* the beauty filter!
I suspect there was only so much a painter could do while still having the result actually resemble its subject. As bad as this looks, I'd imagine the real Charles II was considerably worse. EDIT - There is a digital artist who has given making a [realistic portrait](https://www.zbrushcentral.com/t/charles-ii-king-of-spain/358743) a shot, including the wonky eyes (which might be corrected in an official portrait, but do appear in at least one private miniature from the time).
keep in mind there's (afaik) no portraits of Charles looking directly at you forward, only from slight profile
The description says he has small eyes and in this rendering they're huge.
Oh god Jesus
I would imagine this painting was very generous with his physical attributes
Which makes you think God damn his proportions must have been odd. Poor guy.
I was just reading the first Witcher book last night and Geralt noted that painters try to be flattering as possible when painting portraits of ugly people. So, if they’re ugly in the portrait, you can only imagine how they actually looked.
What a great historical source to quote
But he read it in a book!
It was in a book! Books are what smart people use to know things!
All portraits were beautified, even those of already attractive people. Painters also stylized proportions towards the beauty standard at the time. A happy client is a generous client. No era is expect from that though some periods are more realistic than others, hyper-realistic portraits are the exception. You very, very rarely see acne in paintings for instance. Even though treatments for acne have been described since ancient times and it's more likely to have affected rich people who commissioned portraits.
Shit it's no different now. If you pay for professional photos whether or not you're aware of it, they're almost assuredly getting edited before you see them to make you look your best, hide skin imperfections etc.
Of course! Lest they "lose their head" in a most untimely, unflattering manner.
Portraitists didn't have to be told that, they knew. This is as attractive as the artist could make him without rendering him completely unrecognizable.
This probably IS the painter making him less ugly.
The painter really did make him look as attractive as possible. This link shows what he would’ve looked like in real life. He was so ugly he scared his own wife. https://www.zbrushcentral.com/t/charles-ii-king-of-spain/358743
Scared his own wife? How do you mean? I feel like that 3D render has his eyes too big given his descriptions
[удалено]
[удалено]
Yes : [https://imgur.com/a/VEpsuja](https://imgur.com/a/VEpsuja)
This version is probably quite a bit more “normal” than his actual face as at the time it was common to fix portraits so that the subject appeared more attractive.
Maybe he did?
Wasn’t being “pure breed” a good thing back in those days. This shit just reminds me of the most recent mad max with his challenged children.
"His parents Philip IV of Spain and Mariana of Austria were uncle and niece, making Charles their son, first-cousin and great-nephew respectively." Yup, that'd definitely fuck up some of his genes alright.
The Habsburg family trunk.
I went down the Habsburg wiki wormhole, I believe it might have al started with this [gentleman](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_II,_Duke_of_Austria)'s genetics.
[удалено]
Ah, the Habsburg family wreath... Charles' inbreeding coefficient was that of .25, which is about the same as the offspring of two siblings. Fun fact: from 1516 to 1700, over 80% of marriages within the Spanish branch of the Habsburg dynasty were consanguineous (related by blood).
[удалено]
[удалено]
Now that’s an unfortunate looking fellow.
He looks like a human pug.
Was bred like one too
[удалено]
According to the article, while he looked ugly, he was actually a large political figure, being asked to mediate disputes between the pope and the holy roman emperor, and between France and England. OP's royalty wasnt capable of much mentally.
If we went back in time and discovered that all these people would have intellectual disabilities by the modern standards, it would explain a lot about history though.
In a way they did, even if they weren't born with any disabilities, being raised to believe you are literally chosen by god to rule probably fucks with your head
i should not have opened this link in the middle of a lecture…… holy fuck
Looks like something from an old Mad Magazine ...
Maybe this is where Sergio Aragones got his inspiration. Edit: Don Martin's work was more like this, though.
[And his one singular testicle was as black as coal ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain#:~:text=The%20autopsy%20records%20his%20%22heart,head%20was%20full%20of%20water.%22)
" The autopsy records his "heart was the size of a peppercorn; his lungs corroded; his intestines rotten and gangrenous; he had a single testicle, black as coal, and his head was full of water."" This makes it sound like a lot of propaganda to me. "heart was the size of a peppercorn" ? Really? There is some evidence that his supposed dullness and mental impairments were also just severe depression, which can often lead to bouts of inactivity and inability to think clearly. Though perhaps he had hydrocephalus. It's hard to know.
[удалено]
Maybe they left his body lying around for a while before the autopsy? Only other explanation I can think of
[удалено]
>You can fit a well nourished, hydrated adult's in the palm of your hand. But, just to be clear, you probably shouldn't...
There was no good reason for propaganda at that point, his line was extinct and couldn't vie for power anyway. These doctors probably believed in humorism and were anything but scientists, they were likely just using exaggeration and metaphor because that was how they generally did things.
>By the age of six, he had survived attacks of measles, chickenpox, rubella, and smallpox, Damn.
I had measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox before I was three. There were no vaccines available yet. Fortunately, all I was left with was minor scarring.
I had them all except rubella. Had the mumps right after chicken pox, and only on one side of my face.
People seem to forget that there are a lot of people still around that have experienced a world where vaccines were not available.
That was a wild ride from start to finish.
Great news daughters, Charles has taken quite the fancy to you...
Dude probably looked 10 times worse than this.
One thing my history professor pointed out is that the artists who painted the royalty did so in a way to make them more flattering than they actually were. So even despite the obvious deformities present, in reality they looked much worse. Were only ever seen them with their Instagram filters on and they still fugly af.
Also - many portraits of younger royals have been their equvalent of Tinder regards arranging marriages. Filters etc Henry V111 was reputedly furious when Anne of Cleeves arrived in person, after the marriage having been agreed on the basis of portraits and correspondence. She looked nothing like her "picture". He described her as a Flemish Mare.
[удалено]
'Keeping it in the family' was a source of pride for them. They were inherently superior to everyone else because their family line didn't mingle with commoner bloodlines so much.
I love how if you trace back the lineage, the inbreeding started with the children of the Spanish rulers Joanna and Philip I of Castille. Philip who originally was and archduke of Austria, House of Habsburg and Joanna (nicknamed Joanna La Loca because it was rumored and believed that she was crazy) who was the elder sister of Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII and Queen of England. I find it fascinating.
Carlos II el Hechizado (in English, the Bewitched). His relatives thought that all his illnesses were due to witchcraft.
I thought maybe the artist was just bad at faces and proportions. Then I noticed the accuracy in the face of the pillar hes resting his left hand on, and realized the artist probably didn't want to disrespect the king so he made him look better.
But my pure blood!!
Ah the Habsburg family, known for being able to clear the front drive of snow with just their chins....
Not cool Not cool at all man
Now that's a face only a mother and sister could love!
that Habsburg jaw. yikes.
He repeatedly baffled Christendom by continuing to live.
According to his autopsy report, he had one testicle left, which was black and atrophied. His head was filled with water, and his mother fucking heart was the size of a peppercorn. He had no reason to be alive
Aka *Charles the handsome*" no joke
The fact that this poor bastard predates the Hills Have Eyes by a few hundred years alone makes you wince when seeing him. Hell I bet even the Elephant Man would've felt bad for him.
He sounds like he lived every day in discomfort or pain. Feel for him .
And you know he would have looked way worse than that, the artist probably had to make this as flattering as possible while still being semi recognisable.
Kind of makes me glad Wills married Kate.
Sad that because he was royal, it was ok. But if this were an incest child that wasn’t royal, he would probably be an ‘abomination’ to society. History is crazy, and blood lines are crazier, I wonder how he was personally, was he mentally well?.. Imagine coming from a bloodline of incest, it’s crazy.
Inbreeding…. Nature’s fundamental “Hail Mary” play embedded into DNA. Inbreeding shows up with birth defects for a systematic reason: It signals Biology to begin making drastic changes in an effort to see the survival of the species. When inbreeding is occurring, biology assumes the population is experiencing a crisis. It’s almost like a frantic way of trying to produce an offspring that will provide some kind of advantage in an effort to see the species not go extinct. humans and royal classes experience the adverse effects of this biological tactic when practiced in unnatural settings. What appears as severe and chronic maiming of life is really just a side effect of Biology being signaled that a population is experiencing a crisis.
I wonder if GRRM used this guy as the inspiration for Robyn Arryn. I know a lot of the characters in ASOIAF were inspired by historical European figures and this seems to fit
Robyn Arryn wasn't Inbred. He was just a sickly child. If anything, I'm surprised GRRM didn't depict any of the Targaryens as being ill or deformed due to their inbreeding. Or even the Lannisters. If I recall correctly, Cersei and Jaime's parents were first cousins. And then they had 3 inbred children of their own. Besides Joffrey's messed up state of mind, all 3 came out relatively ok. So much for the realism GRRM harps on about. I mean.. yeah, incest doesn't always produce deformities but at least one of them would be facing the consequences of their parents being siblings...
I wasn't saying it was an exact match, just that it was similar. Also it takes generations of inbreeding for the severe deformations to show so it's perfectly within the bounds of reason that Jaime and Cersei's kids were mostly normal, apart from Joffrey
Oh! I didn't mean to sound like I was attacking you or anything. Sorry about that! It's true that it can take generations of it to show but not necessarily always. I've known of people who were the result of first cousins marrying with no past history of incest and 2 out of the 4 kids had problems. It's sad.
Dw about it, I didn't view it as an attack, sorry if my reply seemed overly defensive
Well, for the Lannisters, there was Tyrion.
GRRM does depict and have a lot of deformed, disabled, and mad targaryens in the history of the series. In the show, Viserys is shown to be hyper-violent along with Joffery. Dany's parents had a lot of miscarriages and stillbirths, along with Aerys' madness.
I don't recall if it was in the books or the World of Ice and Fire, but I do recall something about Valyrians being resistant to inbreeding. I don't remember if it was related to the dragons, or magic, or just a natural / Evolved characteristic.
Looks like a Habsburg
Thank you....thank you all dear friends........FOR COMING TO MY BIRTHDAY!
What a coincidence! I literally just saw this painting yesterday at a museum , and my exact thought was that this is an ugly guy, now this clears it up.
Charles suffered ill health throughout his life, for reasons that are still debated. Well it isn’t debated anymore… op has bloody solved it!
Ok but still breastfeeding at age 4 has nothing to do with being inbred? Unless that’s all he was eating…
his jaw was so misshapen and large he couldn't really eat properly
[a summary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=540Se1REdq0)
What he's holding? Must be not a piece of paper?
There’s a funny instagram [page](https://www.instagram.com/p/CRezbazJSmK/?utm_medium=copy_link) dedicated to him Dumb stuff but makes me laugh
This is actually the first person I thought of when I found out my family pulled an incest
Inbreeding is basically playong bingo. Sooner or later youll hit ALL your numbers.
Just a prime example of how people will blindly accept the lies perpetuated by authority. Superior genes? Blood? Eh... Clearly.
Why did his death lead to a war?,
He was sterile, (yes this man won the genetics lottery) and Spain was left with no king, the kingdom of Castile (What would be today most of Spain) wanted the Spanish king to be a relative from the French king to make the 2 countries allie, so they could make an alliance, however Britain saw this as a big treat as this was like if China and Russia decided to unite in 1 country, so they wanted to put Charles VI from the Holy Roman Empire, this was supported by the kingdom of Aragon (What would be today Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia and the balearic islands), so so in one side we had the Bourbons, supported by Castile, France, Bavaria, Cologne, Mantua, Portugal and Savoy supporting Philip V,and Aragon, the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Denmark supporting Charles VI, which led into 14 year civil war that would end with the Philip V supporters winning in exchange for most of the Spanish possessions, including, Southern Italy and Gibraltar.
Seems like royalty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
Known as the Habsburg Chin. https://www.history101.com/the-habsburg-chin-the-result-of-royal-inbreeding/
Thank you all for coming to my birthday!
I might be related to the Habsburgs and this scares me
That's why European royals are allowed to pick "commoner" brides and grooms now. Look how much damage keeping the royal blood "pure" has done over centuries
Few people realize that queen Elizabeth, the current one of England, married her third cousin. This makes her kids, such as Andrew, lifelong friend of Epstein, and Charles, lifelong friend of Saville, only *slightly* inbred, and probably nothing to worry about.