[HN Gopher] Was Henry VIII Infertile? Miscarriages and Male Infe...
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Was Henry VIII Infertile? Miscarriages and Male Infertility in
Tudor England
Author : pepys
Score : 28 points
Date : 2021-11-16 22:53 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (direct.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (direct.mit.edu)
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I've always thought how sensible the Japanese tradition of
| adoption is.
|
| Henry had an illegitimate son quite early on (during marriage 1).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_FitzRoy,_Duke_of_Richmon...
| paleotrope wrote:
| Can you imagine the mess if FitzRoy had lived long enough to
| see Henry VIII's death?
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| It's a sad thing to think about women who were killed for no good
| reason after suffering a series of miscarriages in probably
| politically arranged marriages but as royals, this is kind of a
| live by the sword, die by the sword kind of thing.
|
| All their power came from someone being (at least plausibly) the
| male heir of a warlord to retain power within their warlord
| caste. If you can't further that goal for another warlord then
| you're going to get treated like they treat everyone else that's
| an obstacle to power.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| I'm not sure what kind of definition of 'infertile' is consistent
| with 'had four children live to teenhood or later another that
| managed a couple months, and two more that were at least born
| live'.
| kypro wrote:
| Yeah, that confused me when I first looked at the article.
| Obviously he wasn't? He had several children...
|
| I have no idea how the word "infertility" is used clinically,
| however I would think the title, "did Henry VIII have fertility
| problems?" would be more correct.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| That's called "clickbait".
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Yeah, if the question was "Is Dwayne Johnson, the Rock,
| infertile!?!" but I'm guessing not too many people care
| enough about Henry VIII to be baited to click by the
| salaciousness of the title.
|
| on edit: fix typo
| uniqueuid wrote:
| There is also the theory that Henry had the rare Kell antigene
| [1], which can cause autoimmune disease and would case
| complications on _second_ born babies (similar to antibody
| reactions with non-matching blood types between mothers and
| infants).
|
| It's mentioned in footnote 9.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kell_antigen_system
| 1cvmask wrote:
| From the article:
|
| The disregard of male infertility in Henry's case may offer a
| clue to the reasons for the under-reporting of male reproductive
| health, then and now, to the detriment of both men and women.
|
| -
|
| To the detriment and beheading of the his wives more accurately.
| PraetorianGourd wrote:
| While an interesting study, I think proper caution needs to be
| made with respect to his health before his marriage to Anne
| Boleyn and his health during and after said marriage. It is very
| possible that Catherine had fertility issues, but by the time he
| re-married, he was obese, over 40 etc. That is to say, he was
| only with married to one woman in his "prime".
|
| Still a fun thing to think about though.
| zwieback wrote:
| Agree. Although 100% of my knowledge about Henry comes from the
| Mantel trilogy it seems like after Catherine he had some
| serious risk factors.
| smegger001 wrote:
| also he had a infected ulcerated wound that never healed from a
| jousting accident. a major infection could have resulted in a
| increased body temperature and reduced his sperm count and
| effectiveness of his sperm.
| lqet wrote:
| Regarding problems of producing royal offspring, I always liked
| the rumored story of how Louis XIV was conceived: after his
| mother Anna of Austria had experienced four stillbirths and
| failed to produce an heir, she fell in disgrace and was largely
| ignored by the king. On December 5th 1637, after 23 years of a
| marriage that at that point only existed on paper, the king was
| on his way to a hunting lodge near Versailles. Bad weather forced
| him to stop at the Louvre palace, where his wife was already set
| up for the winter. The only rooms that were heated were hers, so
| the king was forced to share a bed with his wife. 9 months later,
| on September 5th 1638, Louis XIV was born.
| MadeThisToReply wrote:
| I'm a big fan of this theory of royal offspring:
| https://medium.com/@leibowitt/of-course-fidel-castro-is-just...
| [deleted]
| lqet wrote:
| My initial thoughts were that this was a bad satirical piece,
| but I was quickly intrigued. The resemblance is uncanny.
| Bayart wrote:
| You know who Justin Trudeau also looks like ? Pierre
| Trudeau.
| patentatt wrote:
| Yeah, is this real? Or is it nut-job stuff? Either way, a
| surprisingly fun read.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| It was also a known fact at the time that Margaret, his
| mother, was "promiscuous".
|
| The son is also much closer in height to Castro (6'3) than
| to his alleged father Pierre (5'7) and mother (5'6).
| jeffbee wrote:
| Wow that is entertaining and very interesting but it seems
| like, in accordance with other plausible-seeming internet
| conspiracy theories, this one relies on one seriously
| defective fact: Barbados is in no way "nearby" to Cuba.
| Ottawa is itself closer to Havana than is Barbados. That
| seems to scuttle the entire thing.
| patentatt wrote:
| But Cuba is definitely 'on the way' to Barbados if you're
| coming from Ottawa.
| foobarian wrote:
| DNA should make short work of any guesswork. Even from
| relatives.
| jjk166 wrote:
| I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the queen was boinking
| the guard/staff
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(page generated 2021-11-17 23:02 UTC)