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  • Hello lovely people,

  • If youre new here,

  • hello,

  • I’m Jessica,

  • I make amusing and educational videos about disability, sexuality, vintage fashion and

  • history.

  • If you think you’d enjoy spending time with a girl from another century

  • learning about interesting things that have happened in the past then click subscribe!

  • I love making profiles on famous disabled figures from history and today

  • were going to be talking about King Charles II of Spain and how the dynasty that dominated

  • Europe for 500 years was undone

  • by incest.

  • Charles was nicknamedEl Hechizado’-

  • the Hexed-

  • (voiceover provided by my dear Spanish friend Clara)

  • because people at the time believed that his physical and mental disabilities were the

  • result of sorcery.

  • A new study into the genetics of his immediate ancestors has found that he was so inbred

  • that he actually suffered from at least two inherited disorders.

  • But that’s not how the Hapsburgs started out

  • - I apologise in advance for the fact I sayHapsburgrather thanHabsburg’,

  • it’s just the way I’ve always been taught history and it’s stuck in my head.

  • The English like to anglicise words in their schoolrooms because-

  • Colonialism.

  • The Hapsburg dynasty was one of the most important and influential royal families in Europe.

  • It was founded in 11th century Austria and produced Kings and Emperors of the Kingdom

  • of Bohemia, Croatia, Illyria, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands and the

  • German empireas well as several Dutch and Italian principalities.

  • And if that sounds likemost of Europeto you

  • that’s because it is!

  • [ding]

  • Don’t worry about France being missing, they married Frenchmen too.

  • - Mainly ones they were related to.

  • From the 16th century, following the reign of Charles V, the dynasty was split between

  • its Austrian and Spanish branches.

  • Although they ruled distinct territories, they nevertheless maintained unfortunately

  • close relations and frequently intermaried.

  • The family motto makes this clear: “Let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria,

  • shall marry

  • The Hapsburgs believed passionately in dynastic marriage.

  • That’s the practice by which members of ruling dynasties marry into other reigning

  • families.

  • Monarchs were often pursuing national or international aggrandisement, hoping that bonds of kinship

  • would restrain aggression and promote political unity.

  • It also enhanced territorial acquisition, and the inheritance pot.

  • Now, dynastic marriages may seem like a great idea

  • but theyre really, really not.

  • Growing your wealth and power seems like a great thing

  • but unfortunately the Hapsburgs were just too darn good at it.

  • As I said, they were soon ruling most of Europe and

  • that really only left each other to marry!

  • In 1700 there was a sudden demise of the royal Spanish branch of the family and scientists

  • now believe they have a definitive explanation as to why.

  • The very last Spanish Hapsburg king, Charles II, had a family tree that was

  • complex.

  • Really, really complex

  • His mother was his father’s niece.

  • His grandmother was also his aunt.

  • His paternal grandparents were also his maternal great grandparents.

  • And all of his great grandparents were descended from the same two people.

  • That’s… that was never going to be a good idea.

  • Scientists have found that with no let up on the amount of intermarriage, the degree

  • of genetic inbreeding gradually built up.

  • The founder of the Spanish dynasty, Philip I, is calculated to have an inbreeding coefficient

  • of 0.025, which meant that just 2.5 per cent of his genes were likely to be identical by

  • common descent.

  • But 200 years and seven generations later, the coefficient had leapt ten-fold to 0.25

  • in the genome of Charles II, meaning up to one in four of his genes might have been identical.

  • Yes, a quarter.

  • That’s the same as the risks to the offspring of a brother and sister or a parent and child.

  • The medical dangers here are obvious: defective, recessive genes can come together in one person

  • and manifest into

  • The unfortunate Charles II.

  • Charles’s father, Philip IV, didn’t have it great either.

  • He was only 10 years old when his parents arranged his first marriage to the daughter

  • of the French king.

  • - see, I told you they married French people!

  • Out of their eight children, only two were boys and both died.

  • One of them, Maria Theresa, you may recognise from the TV show Versailles

  • as she married Louis XIV of France and (spoiler) actually managed to have children.

  • At the age of 41 and now a widower, Philip remarried

  • his own 12 year old niece, Maria Anna,

  • lover of massive dresses, probably not a lover of where her life was going.

  • Only two of their five children survived to adulthood, Margarita Teresa and Charles.

  • Although no one really believed Charles would make it out of childhood.

  • Contemporary writings called the babybig headedandweak”.

  • He was described asshort, lame, epileptic, senile and completely bald before 35, always

  • on the verge of death but repeatedly baffling Christendom by continuing to live.”

  • Go Charles!

  • By this point thisHapsburg liporHapsburg jawwas well known.

  • It’s an inherited mandibular prognathism, which means the lower jaw grows faster than

  • the upper, resulting in an extended chin.

  • It was a family trait but due to Charles being the most Hapsburg Hapsburg to ever Hapsburg

  • his case was very extreme.

  • His lips were unable to meet and his tongue was too large which meant he had difficulty

  • swallowing, eating or not drooling.

  • - try it right now: keep your mouth open and your tongue flat then try to swallow.

  • Nope.

  • You have to form a seal with either your lips or tongue.

  • Charles spoke and ate only with extreme difficulty and was not able to form words until the age

  • of four, nor walk until the age of eight.

  • He suffered from convulsions, intestinal upsets, edemas and hallucinations.

  • However, foreign observers did note that his mental capacities remained intact.

  • Which is probably worse for him because he knew who to blame.

  • Absolutely all of his ancestors!

  • Intentional inbreeding: we know better than to do it to dogs now(!)

  • Professor Gonzalo Alvarez, of the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain,

  • (thanks Clara),

  • found that the Hapsburgs suffered a far higher child mortality than the general population,

  • even though the family was immensely wealthy and did not experience the poverty related

  • health problems faced by many people at the time.

  • They even had doctors!

  • and intentional inbreeding!

  • Again, guys, no.

  • Don’t- don’t do that.

  • Fun fact: Marie Antoinette also inherited the Hapsburg jaw

  • but hers was minor enough to just make it look like she was pouting all the time in

  • an attractive way

  • although it probably didn’t endear her to people who weren’t attracted to her.

  • However, the impact of this inbreeding isn’t really fully understood as Charlesfull-blood

  • sister Margaret Theresa had absolutely none of his health problems and was both attractive

  • and healthy with a lively character.

  • She also died at the age of 21-

  • but she’d already been pregnant six times so I feel like this may be a circumstantial

  • thing more than it is genetic.

  • Oh also they married her to her uncle-slash-cousin because apparently no one had learnt any lessons

  • ever.

  • She called himUnclethroughout their marriage and it was a bit weird.

  • Professor Alvarez suggests that Charles II had inherited genes that caused two genetic

  • disorders:

  • one was a hormone imbalance called pituitary hormone deficiency, which would have affected

  • his growth and development,

  • and the other was a kidney problem that led to a metabolic disorder which caused impotence

  • and infertility.

  • His muscular weakness at a young age, rickets, haematuria [blood in the urine] and big head

  • relative to his body size could be attributed to this genetic disorder,” he said.

  • Although, others have pointed out that rather than being deficient in growth hormone he

  • may have had too much, resulting in acromegaly.

  • That’s a condition where people continue to grow once their growth plates have fused.

  • But these conditions aren’t necessarily genetic and some scientists believe that there

  • is no conclusive evidence they were caused by detrimental recessive alleles inherited

  • from common ancestors.

  • Despite all of this, Charles became King at the age of three, when his father, Philip

  • IV died in 1665.

  • As he was a legal minor his mother ruled as Queen Regent creating a bitter internal struggle

  • for control of the government

  • with Philip’s illegitimate half-brother John of Austria the Younger.

  • John eventually won but then died in the late 1670s, not before arranging 18-year-old Charles'

  • possible marriage to

  • Marie Louise of Orleans, eldest daughter of Philippe, Duke of Orleans,

  • who you may also recognise from the TV show Versailles.

  • It’s a good show.

  • Watch it.

  • However, the French ambassador wrote that '...the Catholic King is so ugly as to cause

  • fear and he looks ill' and the marriage was so strongly resisted by the prospective bride

  • that-!

  • It went ahead regardless.

  • This is history, what were you expecting to happen?

  • A woman to get her way?

  • [laughs]

  • No friend.

  • Charles was devoted to his bride, even when his mother returned as Regent and did her

  • utmost to isolate Marie Louise

  • (for being the choice of her rival and

  • French.

  • Theyre still iffy on the French).

  • The couplestruggled to get anywhere with making babies

  • which was really not the poor girl’s fault but she was put through severe intestinal