Long Live The King

The Kings and Queens of England have been mythologised and placed on a pedestal as the centuries have worn on, with their dominant role in shaping the country's history explored by scholars across the world. Their personal lives and abilities as rulers have been endlessly debated, but their impact on history can often be traced back to how they dealt with the illnesses that affected them and their families and which sometimes ravished the whole of Europe.

Small discoveries, chance encounters and unfortunate ironies can be understood as changing the course of history when it comes to some of England's most prominent Monarchs. Whether it was the skill of Henry V's surgeon that saved his life at the Battle of Shrewsbury and enabled the victories that ended the Hundred Years War, or the terrible advice of a quack doctor whose half-baked advice worsened the madness of King George III and led to the loss of the American colonies, the tides of British history were shaped by the way the country's Monarchs battled their ailments.

As diseases changed over the centuries and medicine slowly evolved into a modern science, physicians close to royalty often proved to be a mixed blessing, and most Monarchs kept them at arm's length. Banking on superstition and treatments that had no rational foundation, it was lucky some of them survived, and the course of history was often decided by those who did not understand the cause of diseases or treat them effectively.

Small decisions are shown to have monumental consequences in Brian Boughton's brilliantly informed investigation into the rulers of the British empire. And going into depth on how modern medicine changed the English landscape forever, he proves that fact is often stranger than fiction.