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A NEW EXPLANATION FOR THE REPRODUCTIVE

WOES AND MIDLIFE DECLINE OF HENRY VIII

CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY and KYRA KRAMER

The Historical Journal / Volume 53 / Issue 04 / December 2010, pp 827 - 848

DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X10000452, Published online: 03 November 2010

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0018246X10000452

How to cite this article:

CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY and KYRA KRAMER (2010). A NEW EXPLANATION
FOR THE REPRODUCTIVE WOES AND MIDLIFE DECLINE OF HENRY VIII. The
Historical Journal, 53, pp 827-848 doi:10.1017/S0018246X10000452

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The Historical Journal, 53, 4 (2010), pp. 827–848 f Cambridge University Press 2010
doi:10.1017/S0018246X10000452

A NEW EXPLANATION FOR THE

REPRODUCTIVE WOES AND MIDLIFE
DECLINE OF HENRY VIII*
CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY
Southern Methodist University

AND

KYRA KRAMER

A B S T R A C T . Henry VIII’s first two wives experienced multiple pregnancies culminating in late-term
miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal mortality. After his fortieth birthday, the king’s mental and physical
health underwent rapid deterioration. In this article, we argue that both his reproductive troubles and his
midlife pathologies can be explained if Henry VIII were positive for the Kell blood group. A Kell negative
woman who has multiple pregnancies with a Kell positive male will suffer repeated miscarriages and death of
Kell positive foetuses and term infants that occur subsequent to the first Kell positive pregnancy. This pattern
is consistent with the pregnancies of Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Additionally, Henry VIII may
have suffered from McLeod syndrome, a genetic disorder of the Kell blood group system, which is a condition
that causes physical and mental impairment consistent with his ailments.

The life of Henry VIII has long been the topic of intrigue and debate. Henry VIII
is one of England’s most well-known monarchs who broke with the Catholic
Church, created the Church of England, and married six women, two of whom
he notoriously executed. Much literature has been devoted to unravelling Henry’s
difficulty producing male heirs and the cause of his apparent change in person-
ality in later life. Henry’s first two wives encountered repeated reproductive
problems, and theories abound explaining their numerous miscarriages. A shift in
the king’s policies and in his personality is noticeable as he entered middle age,
supporting David Starkey’s observation that there were ‘ two Henry’s … one old,
the other young. And they are very, very different ’.1 Carolly Erickson further

6715 Cypress Village Dr., Sugar Land, TX 77479, USA catrina_whitley@prodigy.net

4404 Weymouth Lane, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA kyrathered@gmail.com
* We are indebted to the anonymous reviewers and editors of the Historical Journal whose astute
comments and recommendations greatly enhanced this article. Kyra Kramer would also like to thank
Indiana University for allowing residents of Bloomington access to its library resources, thereby
making her independent research possible.
1
D. Starkey, Henry: virtuous prince (London, 2008), p. 3.

827
828 CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY AND KYRA KRAMER

describes Henry’s change from ‘ a brilliant, athletic, heroic figure bursting with
vigor’ in his youth into a middle-aged tyrant who had become ‘ monstrous, in-
wardly and outwardly’.2
This article offers a solution to the long-debated issues surrounding Henry
VIII’s reproductive woes and alterations in his personality. During his first two
marriages, his wives conceived easily, yet bore only two viable offspring. Were the
myriad stillbirths, miscarriages, and neonatal deaths the result of living in an era
without medical intervention, a physiological flaw in the women, or was there an
unseen causal agent lurking within Henry VIII himself ? Further, why did Henry’s
health decline so precipitously and why did his personality change so significantly
around his fortieth birthday? Did circumstances, failures, adversities, or illnesses
influence his personality change and dearth of progeny, or could a medical con-
dition, genetic in nature, account for the high rate of miscarriage and stillbirths
experienced by Henry’s unfortunate wives, as well as his emotional instability
after midlife ?
It is our assertion that we have identified the causal medical condition under-
lying Henry’s reproductive problems and psychological deterioration. We propose
that Henry VIII was positive for the Kell blood group, with the complication of
McLeod syndrome, an X-linked medical condition of some (but certainly not all)
Kell positive patients.
A Kell positive father frequently causes negative reproductive outcomes for his
reproductive partner after the first Kell negative pregnancy, which is precisely the
circumstance experienced with women who had multiple pregnancies by Henry.
McLeod syndrome, with a mean onset between thirty to forty years, is sympto-
mized by cardiomyopathy, muscular myopathy, psychiatric abnormality, and
motor nueropathy.3 Henry VIII experienced most, if not all, of these symptoms,
which indicates McLeod syndrome as a plausible explanation for his psycho-
logical deterioration and for some of his physical decline after midlife.

I
Henry is justly famous for his marital exploits. Katherine of Aragon and Henry
had been married for eighteen years when he attempted to annul their marriage
in order to marry Anne Boleyn. The newly recognized archbishop of Canterbury,
Thomas Cranmer, obligingly nullified Henry’s marriage to Katherine on the
assumption that she was lying when she denied having consummated her prior
marriage to Henry’s dead brother. This annulment legitimized Henry’s marriage
to Anne Boleyn, but, a few years later, Anne was accused of committing adultery
with several men, including her brother, for which Henry had her beheaded. The
day after Anne’s execution, Henry announced his engagement to Jane Seymour,

2
C. Erickson, Great Harry: the extravagant life of Henry VIII (New York, NY, 1980), p. 10.
3
H. Jung, ‘McLeod syndrome: a clinical review’, in Adrian Danek, ed., Neuroacanthocytosis syndromes
(New York, NY, 2004), pp. 45–53, at p. 45.
 H E N R Y V I I I’S R E P R O D U C T I V E W O E S 829
whom, Karen Lindsey suggests, turned out to be the ‘perfect wife, docile and
submissive, giving him his son and then dying before he grew bored with her ’.4
Henry’s marriage to his next wife, Anne of Cleves, was short-lived, for while her
beauty was praised, Starkey observes that Henry was ‘ overwhelmed with disgust ’
at her appearance and marvelled at the enthusiastic reports.5 Anne of Cleves was
arguably the most fortunate of his wives, as she readily agreed to an annulment of
their unconsummated marriage and was rewarded with lands, wealth, and inde-
pendence. Henry then married one of Anne’s teenage ladies in waiting, Kathryn
Howard, but, when Henry was informed of a previous lover before their union
and possibly an extramarital affair during their marriage, he executed his young
wife. For his sixth and final wife, Henry chose Catherine Parr, to whom he was
married until his death on 28 January 1547.
While Henry’s matrimonial experience was turbulent, his reproductive history
was tumultuous. The king’s reproductive partners frequently experienced foetal
loss, usually suffering a spontaneous abortion in the later stages of pregnancy.
The precise number of miscarriages endured by Henry’s reproductive partners is
difficult to determine. The rate of miscarriage may have been higher than re-
ported in the surviving historical record. Even the wealthiest women were subject
to poor nutrition, contaminated water, and minimal hygiene, and alcohol was a
regular part of the diet, so irregular menstruation may not have been uncommon,
and simply missing a menstrual period, or having a longer interval between
menses, might have been construed as a possible sign of conception. Pregnancy
was not generally confirmed until ‘quickening ’, at which time the woman could
feel foetal movement, and pregnancies typically remained unannounced until the
second trimester. Therefore, it is possible the king’s reproductive partners had
unreported miscarriages in the first trimester of pregnancy.
Following Henry and Katherine of Aragon’s marriage on 11 June 1509, there
was widespread hope that the newlyweds would quickly have their first child,
preferably a son. Katherine soon became pregnant, but the joy was short-lived as
she gave birth to a premature, stillborn female on 31 January 1510. This royal loss
was kept secret with only the king, a physician, Katherine’s confessor, and two
Spanish women privy to events.6 Confusing matters further, her uterus swelled
extensively after the delivery and her physician thought she might still be pregnant
with a second foetus.7 Those hopes were false, but Katherine quickly conceived
again sometime in late April or early May. Two confirmed pregnancies in rapid
succession conclusively demonstrate that both she and Henry were fertile together.
On New Year’s Day 1511, Katherine delivered a son, the new prince of Wales,
named Henry after his father. Young Prince Henry initially seemed healthy,
prompting widespread celebration. At seven weeks old, however, the infant
prince died, on 22 February 1511. In September of the same year, it was rumoured

4
K. Lindsey, Divorced, beheaded, survived: a feminist reinterpretation of the wives of Henry VIII (Reading, MA,
5
1995), p. 135. D. Starkey, Six wives: the queens of Henry VIII (New York, NY, 2003), pp. 628–9.
6 7
Starkey, Henry: virtuous prince, p. 308. Ibid.
830 CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY AND KYRA KRAMER

that Katherine might be pregnant again, but this rumour was never confirmed
and may indicate an early miscarriage. Owing to Henry’s absence for military
reasons, she did not conceive again until 1513. Katherine delivered a premature
son in October who died shortly after birth. Katherine’s sorrows continued in
November 1514 when she delivered another son who also died within hours of
birth. Finally, on 18 February 1516, a healthy daughter, Mary, was born. Katherine
was possibly pregnant again in August 1517, but no pregnancy was officially
announced. Her final acknowledged pregnancy ended in November of 1518 when
she delivered a baby girl who died shortly thereafter. Clearly, Katherine was
fecund, even though only one of her multiple pregnancies resulted in a child who
lived to adulthood.
Although Henry and Katherine were unsuccessful at producing a male heir to
the throne, Henry had a healthy son by his mistress, Bessie Blount, in 1519.8 It was
Bessie’s first pregnancy and her only child by the king. Henry VIII named the boy
Henry Fitzroy and publicly acknowledged paternity. Henry Fitzroy was healthy
as an infant and throughout early childhood, but became ill and died of unknown
causes in 1536 at the age of seventeen. Although the king was credited by Lacey
Baldwin Smith with proving ‘ where the fault of sterility lay by siring a son ’,
multiple confirmed pregnancies and a living daughter do not indicate that sterility
was a problem for either Henry or Katherine.9
In 1525, Mary Boleyn Carey delivered a son, Henry Carey, who may have also
been the king’s.10 The king’s desire for sons was such, that if he had been even
reasonably sure the boy was his, it seems unusual that he did not acknowledge his
paternity. Since Henry Carey’s paternity cannot be conclusively proved, he will
not be included in the king’s reproductive history.
Henry ceased having sexual relations with Katherine by 1524, and in 1527
sought to nullify the marriage on the scriptural grounds that Leviticus forbids a
man to marry his brother’s widow.11 Henry’s interest in Anne Bolyen probably
began in the winter of 1524–5.12 After years of an unconsummated relationship,
Henry and Anne Boleyn were probably married in a small, secret ceremony in
November 1532, followed by a second ceremony on 25 January 1533.13 Anne was
crowned in May, and in September gave birth to a healthy female, Elizabeth.
Although Henry would have preferred a boy, he was sanguine that a healthy first
baby presaged more children for himself and Anne, which seemed accurate as his
wife was pregnant again by January 1534. Anne’s pregnancy progressed well until
July, when she went into premature labour.14 The baby was either stillborn or
died shortly after birth, and its sex was left unreported. The king and queen never
made a formal announcement about the end of the pregnancy. Anne had a

8
Starkey, Six wives, p. 274.
9
L. B. Smith, Henry VIII: the mask of royalty (Chicago, IL, 1982), p. 128.
10 11
Starkey, Six wives, p. 274. Ibid., p. 203.
12 13
Ibid., p. 273. Ibid., pp. 463, 473–4.
14
S. Lipscomb, 1536: the year that changed Henry VIII (Oxford, 2009), pp. 66–7; E. Ives, The life and death
of Anne Boleyn (Oxford, 2004), pp. 191–2.
 H E N R Y V I I I’S R E P R O D U C T I V E W O E S 831
reported pregnancy in March 1535, but miscarried in June, probably near the end
of her second trimester. Her final pregnancy ended calamitously with the mis-
carriage of a boy in January 1536. Once again, she was probably into the second
trimester when the foetus spontaneously aborted. Anne never had another
chance to reproduce, because at the end of April she was accused of adultery and
treason and, following a brief trial, was beheaded on 19 May 1536.
Eleven days after Anne’s execution Henry married Jane Seymour who, on 12
October 1537, bore a son, Edward. The queen, however, died twelve days later,
possibly from puerperal sepsis.15 The newborn prince was Henry’s fourth and
final offspring, as none of Henry’s subsequent marriages, or mistresses, produced
another child.
Considering the king’s partners had a total of at least eleven, and possibly
thirteen or more pregnancies, fertility was clearly not Henry’s problem. Rather,
foetal and neonate mortality were the crux of his reproductive troubles since only
four of the eleven known pregnancies survived into infancy. Henry VIII’s re-
productive history is particularly interesting because he was unable to produce
multiple viable offspring with his first two wives, suggesting that the problem lay
not with either woman, but with him. Furthermore, the high rate of spontaneous
late-term abortion, stillbirth, or rapid neonatal death suffered by Henry’s first two
queens was an atypical reproductive pattern, as even in an age of high child
mortality, most women carried their pregnancies to term, and their infants lived
at least sufficiently long to be christened.

II
Abundant theories exist to explain Henry VIII’s health and fertility issues. The
myth that Henry VIII had syphilis still persists, despite the fact that neither
Henry, nor any of his wives, showed symptoms consistent with syphilitic disease.
Physicians of Henry’s time were familiar with syphilitic symptoms and would
have attempted to treat him appropriately. The most common treatment for
syphilis by Tudor physicians involved dosing patients with massive quantities of
mercury, yet Henry was never given mercury.16 Furthermore, syphilis cannot
explain Henry’s reproductive problems. Syphilis can cause miscarriage, but
miscarriage occurs only if the mother has the disease or if the foetus has been
exposed to syphilis during pregnancy. Three of Henry’s surviving children were
the firstborn in Henry’s relationship with their mothers. It could be argued that
those infants survived because their mothers had not yet contracted syphilis from
the king, but Henry and Katherine’s fifth child, Mary, would have contracted
congenital syphilis were syphilis to blame for Katherine’s preceding miscarriages.
Additionally, none of Henry’s surviving offspring showed typical manifestations

15
M. Keynes, ‘The personality and health of Henry VIII (1491–1547)’, Journal of Medical Biography,
13 (2005), pp. 174–83, at p. 180.
16
D. Starkey, The reign of Henry VIII: personalities and politics (London, 1985).
832 CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY AND KYRA KRAMER

of congenital syphilis, such as rashes, gummatous ulcers, collapse of the nasal

bridge, or the characteristic saber shin, Hutchinson’s incisors, or mulberry
molars.17
There has been speculation that Henry had Type II diabetes, based on his
obesity after middle age and ulcers on his legs. If the king did develop this disease,
it might provide an explanation for some aspects of his personality change, in-
fertility, and ill health after midlife, but it cannot explain the reproductive prob-
lems of his youth. Male infertility resulting from diabetes is associated with
erectile dysfunction and low sperm count, which could explain the lack of preg-
nancies for his fifth and sixth wives, but not the reproductive troubles of his first
and second wives. Superstructure defects in the sperm of male diabetics can
decrease the chances of conception or increase chances of a first trimester spon-
taneous abortion of a non-viable embryo, which is inconsistent with the fact that
Henry’s first two wives conceived quickly and miscarried late in the pregnancy.18
It has also been suggested that Henry had myxedema, a byproduct of hy-
pothyroidism which could have caused his weight gain, constipation, and muscle
pains, as well as explaining his psychological problems. Yet, like Type II diabetes,
this diagnosis does not resolve questions about Henry’s reproductive problems.19
Cushing’s syndrome, another endocrine disease, is also posited as a possible cause
of Henry VIII’s mental and emotional deterioration.20 Henry certainly displayed
symptoms consistent with Cushing’s syndrome, including excessive obesity,
slower healing of wounds and skin abrasions, depression, paranoia, fatigue,
headaches, lowered fertility, and likely impotence, but Cushing’s syndrome can-
not account for Henry’s reproductive history prior to his fourth marriage.
Few theories take an obstetric or genetic approach to the mystery of Henry’s
health and fertility. As an exception, Eric Ives has pointed out that the lack of
successful reproduction ‘ raises the possibility that it was Henry and not his wives
who was responsible for the silence in the royal nurseries ’.21 Ives argues that it
was anxiety-induced impotency that hindered Henry’s reproductive ambitions.
However, impotency does not cause multiple pregnancies, miscarriages, and
neonatal deaths, and thus cannot account for the reproductive history of
Katherine or Anne. Likewise, there has been speculation that Anne Boleyn may
have been Rhesus (Rh) negative, which could account for her reproductive his-
tory, but does not explain Katherine of Aragon’s rate of miscarriage.22

17
M. L. Powell and D. C. Cook, ‘Treponematosis: inquiries into the nature of a protean disease’,
in M. L. Powell and D. C. Cook, eds., The myth of syphilis: the natural history of treponematosis in North America
(Gainesville, FL, 2005), pp. 9–62, at pp. 24–30.
18
I. Agbaje, ‘Increased concentrations of the oxidative DNA adduct 7,8-dihydro-8-oxo-2-deoxy-
guanosine in the germ line of men with type 1 diabetes ’, Reproductive BioMedicine Online, 16 (2008),
pp. 401–9.
19
C. Murphy, ‘ Second opinions: history winds up in the waiting room’, The Atlantic, 287 (2001),
pp. 16–18.
20
R. Hutchinson, The last days of Henry VIII: conspiracy, treason and heresy at the court of the dying tyrant
21
(London, 2005), pp. 205–10. Ives, Life and death, p. 190.
22
Erickson, Great Harry, p. 304.
 H E N R Y V I I I’S R E P R O D U C T I V E W O E S 833
Henry is generally ignored as the cause for the failed pregnancies because
socio-cultural conditioning assumes that obstetrical problems are associated with
the female partner. Katherine, according to Starkey and Antonia Fraser, ‘ failed ’
to produce offspring, and such descriptions reaffirm cultural assumptions that
unhealthy pregnancies and neonates are invariably caused by the female.23 Henry
might have been identified as the culprit if none of his wives had become preg-
nant, but since troubled pregnancies are rarely associated with male-mediated
negative reproductive outcomes, a possible connection between Henry’s health
and the unsuccessful pregnancies is obscured.
The fact remains that the current hypotheses do not adequately explain the
numerous miscarriages by Katherine and Anne and why Henry began his reign
as a ‘ much feted, glorious, and fun young monarch of the 1510s and 1520s’ and
ended his reign, as Suzannah Lipscomb put it, as an ‘overweight, suspicious, and
ruthless tyrant ’.24

III
What, exactly, does it mean to say that Henry VIII was Kell positive ? The Kell
antigen system assists in determining the human blood type. A Kell positive
phenotype diagnosis for Henry VIII means that he carried the gene for the Kell
antigen. The Kell antigen system is determined by a group of antigens on the
human red blood cells, similar to the Rh blood system, although in the Kell
system most individuals are negative for the antibody system. Just as in the Rh
blood system, genetic incompatibility between the phenotype of the father and
mother can cause significant difficulties when trying to produce offspring.
With the Rh blood group system, the majority of individuals are Rh positive,
and only a few individuals are Rh negative. With Kell, the majority of individuals
are Kell negative and only a few individuals are Kell positive. Since so few people
are Rh negative, the rare negative phenotype in the mother is the source of
fertility problems. In the Kell system, it is the rare Kell positive father that creates
reproductive problems (Figure 1). In both cases, problems with fertility occur
when the mother is negative and mates with a positive father, because she then
develops antibodies in response to the foreign positive phenotype.
If a Kell negative mother mates with a Kell positive father, each pregnancy has
a 50/50 chance of being Kell positive. The first pregnancy, providing that noth-
ing goes awry from other causes, typically carries to term and produces a healthy
infant, even if the infant is Kell positive and the mother is Kell negative (Figure 1).
After giving birth to the first Kell positive infant, or miscarrying a Kell positive
infant at any time during the pregnancy, a small amount of blood from the
foetus/newborn will be transferred to the mother causing alloimmunization, or
the development of anti-Kell antibodies, because her body is exposed to the foreign

23
Starkey, Six wives, pp. 123, 161; A. Fraser, The wives of Henry VIII (New York, NY, 1992), p. 136.
24
Lipscomb, 1536, p. 13.
834 CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY AND KYRA KRAMER

Figure 1 Pregnancy options from the pairing a Kell negative female and a Kell positive male

Kell antigen. Once the mother has become Kell-sensitized, her subsequent Kell
positive pregnancies are at risk because the mother’s antibodies will attack the
Kell positive foetus as a foreign body. The anti-Kell antibodies hasten the
removal of the Kell antigen, including the ‘ foreign ’ red blood cells of the baby.
However, any baby that is Kell negative will not be attacked by the mother’s
antibodies and will carry to term if otherwise healthy.
Since the majority of individuals are Kell negative, if Henry VIII was Kell
positive he would have had significant reproductive problems because it is
 H E N R Y V I I I’S R E P R O D U C T I V E W O E S 835
unlikely his partner would also have been Kell positive. A Kell positive mother’s
body will not reject either a Kell positive or Kell negative foetus as a foreign body
due to the presence of the Kell antigen (Figure 1). Any of the mother’s Kell positive
male offspring, unless mated with a Kell positive individual, would nevertheless
have significant reproductive issues.
Kell alloimmunization of the mother results in infant fatalities of Kell positive
infants from hemolytic disease of the newborn (HDN), anaemia, jaundice, hy-
drops fetalis (heart failure), foetal erythroblastosis, or autoimmune hemolytic
anaemia.25 HDN is the most common disease associated with anti-Kell alloim-
munization. HDN is a ‘potent immunogen ’ and 10 per cent of all HDN is caused
by the Kell blood group antigen.26 HDN, if it does not result in spontaneous
abortion or a stillbirth around twenty-four to twenty-eight weeks, can result in
severe anaemia of the newborn which is associated with the onset of jaundice at
birth causing heart failure, enlarged liver and/or spleen, swelling, and respiratory
distress. Even in anti-Kell alloimmunized pregnancies successfully carried to
thirty-one to forty weeks, the infant may suffer anaemia, jaundice, and hyrdops
fetalis. Without modern medical intervention, these newborns typically die within
twenty-four hours of birth. Some hardier infants may survive a few months and
their short-term survival can be the result of late onset HDN, called hypo-
regenerative anaemia. In these cases, HDN symptoms do not appear until two to
six weeks after birth, briefly postponing the infant’s inevitable death.27
Numerous studies cite neonatal and term infant deaths caused by anti-Kell
antigens, with births of a healthy firstborn child being followed by sponta-
neous abortions, stillbirths, and the occasional subsequent healthy infant.
A twenty-four-year-old mother with four total pregnancies was monitored during
her fourth pregnancy.28 Her first pregnancy was ‘uneventful ’, and resulted in the
birth of a healthy Kell positive child. Likewise, the second pregnancy was also
uneventful. Kell alloimmunization did not affect the pregnancy since the child

25
J. C. Santiago et al., ‘Current clinical management of anti-Kell alloimmunization in pregnancy ’,
European Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, 136 (2008), pp. 151–4; V. Baichoo and
A. Bruce-Tagoe, ‘Recurrent hydrops fetalis due to Kell allo-immunization’, Annals of Saudi Medicine, 20
(2000), pp. 415–16; M. E. Caine and E. Mueller-Heubach, ‘Kell sensitization in pregnancy ’, American
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Jan. (1986), pp. 85–90; J. M. Bowman et al., ‘ Maternal kell blood
group alloimmunization’, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 79 (1992), pp. 239–44 ; K. Mayne et al., ‘The sig-
nificance of anti-Kell sensitization in pregnancy ’, Clinical and Laboratory Hematology, 12 (1990),
pp. 379–85; W. L. Marsh, and C. M. Redman, ‘The Kell blood group system: a review’, Transfusion,
30 (1990), pp. 158–67; R. L. Berkowitz et al., ‘Death in utero due to Kell sensitization without ex-
cessive elevation of the Delta OD 450 value in amniotic fluid’, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 60 (1982), pp.
746–9; J. T. Goh et al., ‘Anti-Kell in pregnancy and hydrops fetalis’, Aust NZ Journal of Obstetrical
Gynaecology, 33 (1993), pp. 210–11.
26
K. Dhodapkar and F. Blei, ‘Treatment of hemolytic disease of the newborn caused by anti-Kell
antibody with recombinant erythropoietin’, Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, 23 (2001), pp. 69–70,
at p. 69.
27
N. L. C. Luban, ‘ Hemolytic disease of the newborn: progenitor cells and late effects’, New England
Journal of Medicine, 38 (2008), pp. 829–31, at p. 31.
28
Goh et al., ‘Anti-Kell in pregnancy’, passim.
836 CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY AND KYRA KRAMER

was tested and found to be Kell negative. Her third pregnancy resulted in foetal
death in utero suggesting a Kell positive foetus, although Kell testing was not
undertaken. The fourth pregnancy was Kell positive, and resulted in severe HDN
with foetal death at twenty-seven weeks gestation. Another study discussed a
thirty-year-old woman with three pregnancies and only one surviving child.29
The firstborn infant survived without complications, but the second and third
pregnancies, both Kell positive, resulted in stillborn hydropic foeti at twenty-four
weeks.
A similar study examined the reproductive history of a patient with three poor
pregnancy outcomes.30 The participant’s first pregnancy resulted in spontaneous
abortion at eighteen weeks of unknown cause. The second and third pregnancies
ended in foetal death due to hydrops. In this same study, special discussion
focused on a Kell positive pregnancy that progressed normally, but the infant
died of congestive heart failure shortly after delivery.31
The reproductive patterns suffered by the partners of Henry VIII are similar to
the documented cases of Kell-affected pregnancies. Although the fact that Henry
and Katherine of Aragon’s firstborn did not survive is somewhat atypical, it is
possible that some cases of Kell sensitization affect even the first pregnancy.32
Every pregnancy also had a chance of inheriting the recessive Kell gene from
Henry, resulting in a healthy infant. This explains how Mary, the fifth baby born
to Katherine of Aragon, survived when her siblings did not. Anne Boleyn’s
pregnancies were a textbook example of Kell alloimmunized pregnancies with a
healthy first child and subsequent late-term miscarriages. Jane Seymour had only
one child before her death, but a healthy firstborn is consistent with a Kell posi-
tive father and is not inconsistent with the theory.
Kell is the second most common irregular antibody, exceeded only by the Rh
blood group system. In England the positive Kell phenotype occurs in 9 per cent
of the population.33 For white populations in general, 0.2 per cent of individuals
are homozygous Kell positive and 8.7 per cent are Kell heterozygous.34 Therefore,
we argue that, although alloimmunization due to the Kell blood group is generally
considered rare, the frequency of the phenotype in the English population demo-
nstrates that this condition is prevalent enough reasonably to explain Henry’s
reproductive problems.
Our theory is further supported by the fact that the reproductive history of
several of Henry’s male maternal relatives follows the Kell positive reproductive
pattern. We have traced the possible transmission of the Kell positive gene from
Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the king’s maternal great-grandmother. The pattern of
reproductive failure among Jacquetta’s male descendants, while the females were

29
Berkowitz et al., ‘Death in utero’, passim.
30 31
Caine and Mueller-Heubach, ‘Kell sensitization’, passim. Ibid., p. 87.
32
Luban, ‘Hemolytic disease’, p. 829; Z. Zika et al., ‘Massive fetomaternal transplacental
hemorrhage as a perinatology problem, role of ABO fetomaternal compatibility – case studies’,
33
Medical Science Monitor, 7 (2001), pp. 308–11. Mayne et al., ‘Significance of anti-Kell ’, p. 382.
34
Baichoo and Bruce-Tagoe, ‘Recurrent hydrops fetalis’, p. 415.
 H E N R Y V I I I’S R E P R O D U C T I V E W O E S 837
generally reproductively successful, suggests the genetic presence of the Kell
phenotype within the family.35

IV
Our theory that Henry VIII was Kell positive explains his reproductive history.
Furthermore, we posit that he consequently developed a disease which is ex-
clusive to Kell positive individuals : McLeod syndrome.36
McLeod syndrome is carried on the X chromosome, and is inherited from the
patient’s mother as an unexpressed positive Kell phenotype.37 Few, if any, females
express McLeod syndrome because of the Lyon effect ; however, women are able
to pass the gene on to their children, where it can be expressed in Kell positive
male offspring.38 It resembles Huntington’s disease and may operate in a similar
fashion by causing degeneration of the basal ganglia.39 Although patients may be
sickly as youngsters and adolescents, many do not show obvious symptoms until
later in life.
Patients suffering from McLeod syndrome demonstrate physical and mental
symptoms. A patient will often experience muscle weakness and nerve deterio-
ration, especially in his lower limbs, and may also suffer various degrees of
depression, paranoia, irrational personality alterations, and congestive cardio-
myopathy. The onset of the symptoms of McLeod syndrome typically begins
when the patient is aged between thirty and forty,40 most often manifesting
around the fortieth birthday, and thereafter becoming progressively worse. There
is extreme variability in the scope of the pathologies with the common symptoms
of McLeod syndrome, such as acanthocytosis (spur cells or malformed red blood
cells) and areflexia (an absence of reflexes indicating possible nerve damage),
heart disease, muscle weakness, and psychopathology, frequently showing a
wide spectrum of severity.41 Varying levels in the psychopathology exhibited by

35
Dearth and incomplete obstetrical documentation among a few relatives makes it difficult to
verify the Kell pattern among these individuals, yet the overall pattern of reproductive failure among
Jacquetta’s male descendants strongly suggests the presence of the Kell positive phenotype.
36
M. Miranda et al., ‘Phenotypic variability of a distinct deletion in McLeod syndrome’, Movement
Disorders, 22 (2007), pp. 1358–61. McLeod syndrome is ‘characterized by absent Kx red blood cell
(RBC) antigen and weak expression of Kell RBC antigens’.
37
W. L. Marsh, ‘ Biological roles of blood group antigens’, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 63
(1990), pp. 455–60, at p. 458.
38
B. M. Wimer, and W. L. Marsh et al., ‘Heamatological changes associated with the McLeod
phenotype of the Kell blood group system’, British Journal of Haematology, 36 (1977), pp. 219–24, at p. 223.
The Lyon effect is the inactivation of one of the X-chromosomes in female mammals in which one of
the two X-chromosomes is not expressed.
39
A. Danek et al., ‘McLeod neuroacanthocytosis: genotype and phenotype ’, Annual Neurology, 50
(2001), pp. 755–64. The basal ganglia are a group of nuclei in the brain called the caudate nucleus,
putamen, and globus pallidus. In humans, the basal ganglia are believed to control a diverse group of
functions, including motor control, cognition, learning, and emotions.
40
Jung, ‘McLeod syndrome’, p. 45.
41
Danek et al., ‘McLeod neuroacanthocytosis’, p. 761.
838 CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY AND KYRA KRAMER

patients with McLeod syndrome include, but are not limited to, deterioration of
memory and executive functions, paranoia, depression, socially inappropriate
conduct, and even schizophrenia-like behaviours.42 In severe cases, ‘schizo-
phrenia-like symptoms ’ of personality changes could be the ‘prominent initial
clinical manifestation ’ of McLeod syndrome.43
Henry VIII turned forty on 28 June 1531. Consistent with McLeod’s syndrome,
he began to manifest physical and psychological problems in his late thirties,
which became more acute after the king entered his fourth decade, and continued
to worsen as he aged. It is difficult to isolate Henry’s physical manifestations of
McLeod syndrome because many of the king’s symptoms cannot be conclusively
separated from physical infirmity caused by co-morbidity. For example, in the last
years of his life, Henry’s mobility deteriorated such that he had to be moved
around in a ‘tramme ’ – a chair with poles attached and carried by bearers – and
had likewise to be lifted up and down stairs. This immobility is consistent with a
known McLeod syndrome case in which a patient began to notice weakness in his
right leg when he was thirty-seven, and by age forty-seven both of his legs had
begun to atrophy.44 Similarly, the king could also have been experiencing nerve
deterioration and atrophy of the limbs.
Nonetheless, McLeod’s is not the only reasonable explanation, as Henry
had chronic leg ulcers, which were probably caused by osteomyelitis, a chronic
bone infection resulting from accidents experienced while hunting or jousting.45
Osteomyelitis could have made walking extremely painful, and would also ex-
plain Henry’s recurrent fevers and his general feeling of ill health. Moreover, the
king was indisputably obese, and his lack of mobility may have been caused by
excessive weight in combination with osteomyelitis. It is certainly possible that the
king was suffering each of these disorders concurrently with McLeod. Adding to
the diagnostic difficulties is the fact that records do not indicate whether Henry
displayed other physical signs of McLeod syndrome, such as dystonia (sustained
muscle contractions which may be seen as tics, cramps, or spasms) or hyperkin-
esia (abnormal increase in muscle activity, such as twitching or hyperactivity), and
it is impossible to confirm if he had an enlarged liver, hematological abnormali-
ties, or cardiac disease.46 Obviously, physical symptoms alone cannot be used
effectively to argue that Henry suffered from McLeod syndrome.
Psychological complications of McLeod syndrome, however, provide stronger
evidence that Henry had this syndrome, as his mental and emotional instability
increased severely in the dozen years before he died in 1547, to the extent that
Smith observed that Henry became ‘neurotic, possibly even a psychotic in the

42
H. Jung and H. Haker, ‘Schizophrenia as a manifestation of McLeod-Neuroacanthocytosis
43
syndrome’, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 65 (2004), pp. 722–3. Ibid., p. 723.
44
M. Wada et al., ‘ An unusual phenotype of McLeod syndrome with late onset axonal neuro-
pathy ’, Journal of Neurology and Neurosurgical Psychiatry, 74 (2003), pp. 1697–9, at p. 1697.
45
Ives, Life and death, p. 190.
46
Danek et al., ‘McLeod neuroacanthocytosis’. pp. 757–60.
 H E N R Y V I I I’S R E P R O D U C T I V E W O E S 839
modern clinical sense ’.47 McLeod syndrome could be the reason that Henry ap-
peared to experience progressively increasing paranoia (anxiety and fear strong
enough to cause delusions and irrational behaviour), depression, and abnormal
executive functions after midlife. It should be noted, however, that disagreement
exists as to the nature of Henry’s personality change, whether his personality
actually changed, and, if it did change, when this change first occurred. Starkey
argues that since Henry was both ‘ ruthless and selfish, with a staggering self-
righteousness ’,48 from his earliest manhood, there is no need to look for a drastic
personality change to explain why during the ‘last dozen or so years’ of his life,
the king became a ‘hulking tyrant ’.49 J. J. Scarisbrick likewise asserts that there
was no change in the king’s personality, but rather that Henry simply grew older
and less genial with his failing health making him irritable, or that merely chan-
ged circumstances induced him to become a more ruthless monarch.50 Karen
Lindsey also argues that Henry had always been a latent tyrant, but prior to his
attempted nullity suit, the king’s ‘ monstrous ego … had … gone unchallenged,
and thus unnoticed ’.51 Even those scholars who eschew the idea that Henry
changed radically after midlife still, however, observe that his behaviour became
more unstable and despotic in later years. Smith notes that, while in his youth
Henry was ‘ a man of honour, a warrior knight and a noble gentleman ’, in his
later years he ‘ became the most dangerous kind of tyrant, secretive, neurotic and
unpredictable ’.52 Starkey also acknowledges that ‘ Henry’s is a life which naturally
falls in halves ’, meaning that the Henry who was crowned in 1509 ‘ is not the same
as the man who revises [the coronation oath] … twenty-odd years later ’.53
Other scholars posit that Henry’s personality did change abruptly. Lipscomb
argues that a distinct difference in Henry’s personality emerged during and after
1536, and that ‘[m]any of the flaws in his character were fashioned or catalyzed
by the events of this one year’.54 There is speculation that Henry sustained brain
damage when he fell from his horse while jousting, in 1536, explaining a rapid and
radical switch in his behaviour.55 A brain injury in 1536 is not, however, a satis-
factory explanation because the king showed signs of transformation two years
earlier in 1534. Certainly Henry’s moodiness, paranoia, and erratic behaviour
progressively became, as Lipscomb describes, ‘ markedly more distrustful and
despotic’, and thus more apparent, in the years following his fortieth birthday.56
What differentiates the king’s personality and mental state when influenced by
McLeod syndrome was the rationality behind his actions, no matter how self-
serving. Henry never lost his intelligence ; rather he lost his reasonability and
judgement. Although Henry was susceptible to enthusiasms in his youth, they

47 48
Smith, Henry VIII, p. 23. Starkey, Reign of Henry VIII, p. 11.
49
Starkey, Henry: virtuous prince, p. 3.
50
J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1970), pp. 624–5.
51 52
Lindsey, Divorced, beheaded, survived, p. 64. Smith, Henry VIII, pp. 23–4, 268.
53 54
Starkey, Henry: virtuous prince, p. 7. Lipscomb, 1536, p. 205.
55 56
Smith, Henry VIII, p. 264. Lipscomb, 1536, p. 184.
840 CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY AND KYRA KRAMER

were usually trivial and often short-lived.57 In important matters, the king tended
to approach decision-making in what Smith describes as a ‘reluctant and crab-
like ’ fashion, to ensure he felt secure in the path to which he would obstinately
adhere.58 Although Henry generally retained much of that same stubbornness of
purpose once he had chosen a position, during the last dozen or so years of his
life, such positions were increasingly adapted more often from the perspective of
an irrational and paranoid mental state and with a strange rapidity. As he ap-
proached his fifties, Smith remarks that the once steadfast king was ‘often of one
mind in the morning and of quite another after dinner ’.59 The king’s increasing
paranoia meant those who dealt with Henry learned to dread his suddenly
forming an apparently irrational antipathy to any of his councillors or courtiers,
since Henry’s dislikes often led to the executioner’s block.60
Additionally, Henry may have experienced a crisis of generativity, more
commonly known as a ‘midlife crisis ’, which complicates events surrounding his
personality change.61 The king had embarked on his ‘ great matter ’, attempting to
replace his older queen with a new one. While Henry’s marriage to Katherine of
Aragon appears to have been a love match, his ardour for his bride cooled as she
grew older, lost her looks, and none of the sons she bore him survived infancy.
Although rumours that Henry was seeking to divorce Katherine extend as far as
1514,62 it was not until 1527 that he firmly resolved to end his first marriage.
Despite his desire for Anne, the king seems to have genuinely convinced himself
that his marriage to Katherine had been false and forbidden by God.63
Scarisbrick observes that Henry’s conscience was ‘malleable ’ and so long as he
could convince himself that he was in the right, no matter how much hypocrisy
was involved, he was content.64
Henry did not expect his nullity suit to raise any difficulties. Papal annulments,
at least for the wealthy or royal, were easy to obtain. Henry’s sister Margaret
received an annulment from her husband, the earl of Angus, in 1527, for a variety
of implausible theological reasons.65 Henry’s ego was immense, provoking sur-
prise when his otherwise compliant wife retaliated and did not retire quietly to a
nunnery. Lindsey asserts that, while Katherine was ‘not a woman much given
to subterfuge … when it was called for, she knew how to use it ’.66 The queen
used every means at her disposal, including her extremely powerful nephew,
Charles V, to block the nullity suit and ensure her daughter’s place in the royal
succession was preserved.
Henry inadvertently hampered his goal of marrying Anne Boleyn, since the
matter could have been resolved by means other than a papal dissolution of his
first marriage. Pope Clement VII expressed his openness to alternative solutions,

57 58
Starkey, Reign of Henry VIII, p. 13. Smith, Henry VIII, p. 106.
59 60
Ibid., p. 267. Ibid., p. 266.
61
M. F. Shore, ‘Henry VIII and the crisis of generativity’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2 (1972),
62
pp. 359–90, passim. Starkey, Six wives, p. 153.
63 64
Ibid., p. 293. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 161.
65 66
Lindsey, Divorced, beheaded, survived, p. 71. Ibid., p. 67.
 H E N R Y V I I I’S R E P R O D U C T I V E W O E S 841
such as permitting royal bigamy or legitimizing the offspring of any royal adul-
tery. Equally, Henry could have had Katherine clandestinely murdered. Lindsey
argues that Katherine was ‘too popular for Henry to harm her without anta-
gonizing his people’, but that would not have stopped the king had he been
determined to eliminate her.67 After all, popular support did not save anyone
Henry was to execute in the near future. Yet, the king was usually concerned
about discharging his conscience, and needed to believe himself in the right, as
a representative of God on earth.68 Henry desired admission from everyone,
including the pope, Katherine, and all of Katherine’s supporters, that he was
correctly and legitimately following God’s will.
It was not until after McLeod syndrome would have begun adversely to affect
Henry’s decisions in the mid-1530s that the divorce was transformed from a
thorny political problem into an issue to be determined, as Starkey puts it, ‘by the
axe and the knife ’.69 In 1535, Henry started to execute those with whom he
disagreed, starting with four Carthusian priests executed for treason in May, their
punishment also involving disembowelment and castration.70 The king then
executed John Fisher in June and Thomas More in July, both of whom were
respected public figures who had been posthumously canonized by the Roman
Church. As Scarisbrick shows, Henry’s execution of the Carthusians, Fisher, and
More ‘ shocked much of the outside world … and cast a large blood-stain on the
new regime ’.71
The deaths of Fisher and More are good examples of a change in Henry’s
personality. If the king had always been a ruthless tyrant he would probably have
executed Fisher long before 1535. Rather than end Fisher’s open rebellion ex-
pediently, Henry waited for eight years while Fisher wrote seven well-respected
books defending Katherine’s position.72 Fisher actively continued to preach
against the king and refused to be silenced. Yet Henry did not have Fisher ar-
rested until 1529 when Fisher publicly preached a sermon defending the validity
of Katherine’s marriage to the king, and compared Henry to the biblical mon-
arch Herod. In 1533, Fisher provided Henry with ample reason to execute him for
treason when he appealed to foreign powers to remove Henry from his throne.
We speculate that it was not until the irrationality and paranoia of McLeod
syndrome started to affect Henry’s judgement that Fisher was, however, finally
executed.
More’s execution made much less sense than that of Fisher’s. It was politically
unwise since More was popular and had never openly rebelled against Henry’s
commands. When More became Henry’s chancellor in 1529, the king had pro-
mised More that he would never be required to ‘molest his conscience ’, and in
turn More maintained a dignified silence, neither supporting Henry’s nullity suit
nor publicly refuting it.73 In 1532, More retired as chancellor and returned the

67 68 69
Ibid., p. 80. Smith, Henry VIII, p. 125. Starkey, Six wives, p. 523.
70 71 72
Ibid., p. 523. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 332. Ibid., p. 167.
73
Ibid., p. 236.
842 CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY AND KYRA KRAMER

Great Seal to the king.74 Although More remained silent about the divorce, he
refused to swear the Act of Succession.75 In 1534, Henry imprisoned More and
executed his former friend, teacher, and chancellor the following year. Starkey
asserts that it was not so much More’s political stance that condemned him as the
king’s ‘ hatred, now as deep and unquenchable as his affection had once been ’,76
whilst evidence of Henry’s hatred and paranoia is supplied in the posthumous
attainder of More for treason in 1536.77 Although More had not changed, Henry
had, and he started to eliminate all those regarded as a threat to the throne.78
McLeod syndrome could have rendered Henry paranoid, a mental condition that
explains why, as Scarisbrick put it, people ‘ who were not explicitly for him were
against him, and he could not rest until they had been destroyed ’.79
Henry’s behaviour prior to the potential onset of McLeod syndrome, and its
attendant paranoia, is demonstrated by his reaction to other well-known priests
who sided against him over his divorce. In 1532, William Peto preached an Easter
sermon, in the king’s presence, comparing Henry to Ahab and strongly implying
that Anne was Jezebel reborn.80 Peto was jailed, but rather than being executed
for treason, he was eventually freed and exiled. Peto fled to Antwerp where he
published a book defending the legitimacy of Katherine’s marriage to Henry and
continued to act openly on her behalf.81 Henry could have likewise exiled Fisher
and More, sparing the lives of men he had befriended since earliest childhood,
but his paranoia and erratic mental state instead demanded their executions.
Henry’s succumbing to McLeod syndrome is also apparent in the rise and fall
of Anne Boleyn. At the start of his relationship with Anne, the king displayed only
his pre-existing psychopathology of egocentricity. Lindsey maintains that Henry’s
continued pursuit of Anne was the ‘ deliberate ignorance of an absolute narcissist,
for surely she had given clear enough signals ’, especially since the king prevented
a proposed match between Anne and Henry Percy, and only a ‘ grossly self-
absorbed person [would] destroy two people’s happiness because of his own,
possibly mild, attraction to a woman’.82
Although Anne refused to consummate the relationship for more than six
years, Henry remained obsessed with her.83 Though scholars have long supposed
that he turned against Anne because of Elizabeth’s birth, rather than that of the
son he had wanted, or Anne’s subsequent miscarriages, more recent scholarship
indicates that Henry remained loyal to his second wife until just a few weeks prior
to her execution.84 Ives notes that Henry did not eschew Anne after Elizabeth’s
birth, but instead appeared ‘more besotted than ever, constantly at his wife’s side
and letting court discipline go to the dogs ’. Even after her final miscarriage,
Henry ‘ continued determined efforts to persuade Europe to accept Anne as his

74 75
Ives, Life and death, p. 155. Lipscomb, 1536, p. 41.
76 77 78
Starkey, Reign of Henry VIII, p. 107. Lipscomb, 1536, p. 195. Ibid., pp. 193–201.
79 80
Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 332. Ives, Life and death, p. 154.
81
G. W. Bernard, The king’s reformation (New Haven, CT, 2007), p. 153.
82 83
Lindsey, Divorced, beheaded, survived, pp. 54, 58. Starkey, Six wives, p. 461.
84
G. Walker, ‘Rethinking the fall of Anne Boleyn’, Historical Journal, 45 (2002), pp. 1–29, at pp. 28–9.
 H E N R Y V I I I’S R E P R O D U C T I V E W O E S 843
legitimate wife ’.85 As late as 25 April 1536, the king wrote a letter to Richard Pate,
the English ambassador in Rome, asserting ‘ the likelihood and appearance that
God will send us male heirs ’ and referring to Anne as ‘ our most dear and most
entirely beloved wife, the queen ’.86 Suddenly, at the beginning of May, Henry
then had Anne charged with adultery and treason and she was beheaded on 19
May.87 Henry appears to have been genuinely in love with Anne. If he eventually
had her executed as a result of McLeod-induced paranoia, then her death would
be even more of a tragedy.
One of the men with whom the king accused Anne of committing adultery was
Henry Norris, whom Greg Walker describes as ‘ the chief gentlemen of [Henry’s]
privy chamber and his closest companion. ’88 Ostensibly, Henry offered Norris a
full pardon if he would confess, but Norris steadfastly maintained his innocence.89
It has been argued that Henry’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, orchestrated
the deaths of Anne Boleyn and other court members,90, but, even if Cromwell
supplied information in the hope of inspiring Henry’s wrath toward particular
individuals, it still required the king to turn suddenly and violently against those
whom he had previously loved. Indeed, the allegation implies that Henry was
experiencing paranoia and excessive emotional instability, a fact which Cromwell
might have exploited. Regardless of how, why, and by whom he received infor-
mation, Anne was probably convicted because of imprudent conversations with
her brother regarding Henry’s failing sexual prowess and jokes with Norris re-
garding Henry’s death.91 If the king had been rendered paranoid by McLeod
syndrome, such relatively innocuous conversations could, after being filtered
through a delusional mental state, be construed as a threat on his life and his
ability to produce heirs to the throne.
Despite his abrupt enmity toward Anne, Henry did not seem perturbed by her
alleged infidelity.92 This is in considerable contrast to his later reaction to his fifth
wife’s alleged adultery, when Henry became so distraught that he stormed and
wept to such a degree that courtiers feared he verged on insanity.93 Henry ap-
parently did not believe that Anne had committed adultery, but instead devel-
oped a sudden and irrational hatred of his queen, and was henceforth committed
to what Smith calls her ‘ judicial murder ’.94 Henry displayed signs of paranoid
delusion in claiming that Anne was a ‘ cursed and poisoning whore ’ who had
planned to kill his two older children, and that she had been ‘ unfaithful to him
with one hundred men ’.95 Irrespective of what Henry had initially believed about
Anne’s guilt or innocence, after her death he embraced, as Ives describes, a
‘ prurient self-righteousness which anesthetized all doubt’.96 On 17 May 1536 the

85 86
Ives, Life and death, pp. 193, 300. Ibid., p. 321.
87
Walker, ‘Rethinking the fall’, pp. 4–5; Ives, Life and death, pp. 319–21.
88 89
Walker, ‘Rethinking the fall’, p. 4. Ibid., p. 5.
90 91
Ives, Life and death, pp. 316–21. Walker, ‘Rethinking the fall’, p. 29.
92 93
Starkey, Reign of Henry VIII, p. 126. Smith, Henry VIII, p. 198.
94
Ibid., p. 591.
95 96
Walker, ‘Rethinking the fall’, p. 29. Ives, Life and death, p. 351.
844 CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY AND KYRA KRAMER

king’s marriage to Anne was annulled and Elizabeth was proclaimed illegitimate.
Henry’s actions were thus becoming increasingly irrational, and Ives observes
that Henry’s ‘decision to annul [their] marriage immediately after accusing her of
adultery was, of course, schizoid ’.97
The events of 1536–9 are marked by bloodshed and cruelty particularly
towards those for whom the king felt ‘ personal antipathy ’,98 suggesting Henry
further declined into the psychopathology of McLeod syndrome. Arguably,
some of the king’s heartless actions during this time are exemplified by those
taken against his eldest daughter, as Henry refused to allow Mary to visit her
dying mother, from whom he kept her separated for five years.99 The king was
determined to force Mary to accept that his first marriage was null and that she
was a bastard. Mary finally submitted to her father’s demands, declaring that she
was the illegitimate product of incest and repudiating a key tenet of her Catholic
faith. According to Scarisbrick, had Mary not submitted to Henry’s demands,
‘ she might have been put to death ’.100 Once Mary capitulated, the king
welcomed her back to court but, in an irrational twist, Henry quickly blamed
Anne Boleyn for the persecution Mary had suffered, although Anne had already
been executed.101
Concomitantly, as the king’s ability to make sound decisions would have con-
tinued to erode under the psychopathology resulting from McLeod syndrome, his
subjects also began to register unhappiness with his policies. As Scarisbrick
has shown, there were outbreaks of rebellion in late 1536, and ‘the country was
thick with prophecies and political ballads, unflattering stories about Henry and,
above all, violent rumors … [which] suggests a collapse in confidence in royal
government ’.102 Widespread discontent persisted although the rebellions failed,
more from a lack of resolve on their leaders’ part than from any of Henry’s
actions.
Henry’s paranoia is also evident in his sudden changed attitude towards his
Plantagenet relatives, the Courtenay, Neville, and Pole families. These same
maternal kin whom, as a freshly crowned monarch, he had allowed to become
favourites in his court,103 were, instead, perceived as a threat to his throne and
dynastic ambitions. Among those he eliminated was Henry Courtenay, earl of
Devon, who was Henry’s maternal first cousin, and, according to Ives ‘ one of the
king’s intimates’, who had ‘ been brought up of a child with his grace in his
chamber ’.104 The use of parliamentary attainder, a means of conviction without
due process or trial, was increasingly used to pass capital sentence on those ac-
cused to death without specifying crimes or providing specific evidence. Several
individuals from these high-profile families, including Gertrude Courtenay and
the old, infirm Margaret Pole, were thus convicted of treason by attainder without

97 98
Ibid., p. 355. Lipscomb, 1536, p. 195.
99 100
Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 435. Ibid., p. 353.
101 102
Lindsey, Divorced, beheaded, survived, p. 132. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 341.
103 104
Starkey, Henry: virtuous prince, p. 306. Ives, Life and death, p. 105.
 H E N R Y V I I I’S R E P R O D U C T I V E W O E S 845
indictment or trial.105 Although it could be argued that Henry’s decision to
eliminate the Plantagenets was politically, and even reasonably, motivated, it was
certainly a departure from the king’s earlier behaviour toward his mother’s
family, and demonstrates a radically altered perspective.
The final seven years of Henry’s life were even less commendable than the later
half of the 1530s. Smith contends that ‘[m]istaken or inept are the kindest words
to describe the King’s diplomatic and military labours during the 1540s, and
more often than not the chorus of condemnation includes wanton, extravagant,
frivolous, stupid and even criminal’.106 Henry’s political judgement was rapidly
giving way to irrational choices made from mental and emotional instability.
After the death of his third wife, Henry sought political ties through marriage
to a foreign princess. These efforts proved fruitless for two years. Fears of a
Franco-Spanish coalition prompted Henry to propose marriage to Anne of
Cleves to secure an alliance with her brother, the duke of Cleves. The king sent
his court painter to obtain of portrait of Anne, to ascertain if she was sufficiently
attractive. Starkey notes that Anne’s portrait by Hans Holbein was described by
contemporaries as ‘ very lively ’ and did ‘not appear to have flattered ’ the bride-
to-be, whilst those who met her reported favourably on her appearance.107 Any
hope of a love match ended, however, when Henry went to meet his betrothed in
disguise at Rochester in December 1539. Unaware that the stranger who had
come to meet her was really Henry, Anne ‘ regarded him little but always looked
out the window ’.108 Piqued, the king decided that Anne was unattractive and he
did not want her for his wife, regardless of political expedience.109 Although the
king married her in January 1540 to avoid precipitating a political disaster, the
union made him deeply unhappy. In early July, the marriage was annulled with
little resistance from the former queen.110
Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves turned out to be, at worst, a minor and
easily resolved inconvenience. Under the influence of the paranoid delusions
McLeod syndrome may have been causing, Henry, nevertheless, developed a
pressing need to punish someone and Cromwell became his target. It made little
difference that Cromwell, a brilliant and skilled royal minister, had only arranged
the match on Henry’s orders. In another example of erratic behaviour, the king
elevated Cromwell as earl of Essex in April, before abruptly arresting him for
treason and heresy in June. Cromwell remained alive sufficiently long to procure
Henry a divorce from Anne of Cleves. Despite letters from Cromwell begging for
mercy, Henry had him executed on 28 June 1540.111 In under a year, Henry
regretted Cromwell’s death and started blaming others for forcing him to execute
Cromwell.112

105 106
Lipscomb, 1536, pp. 193–5. Smith, Henry VIII, p. 164.
107 108
Starkey, Six wives, pp. 620–6. Ibid., p. 627.
109 110
Lindsey, Divorced, beheaded, survived, p. 142. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 373.
111 112
Erickson, Great Harry, p. 155. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 383.
846 CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY AND KYRA KRAMER

To demonstrate Henry’s personality change, the rapidity of Cromwell’s fall

should be compared to the length of time it took Henry to decide to eliminate
Thomas Wolsey, since previously the king was slow to dispense execution. Henry
prevaricated about dismissing Wolsey, even with Anne Boleyn encouraging his
removal. In September 1529, the king commanded Wolsey to return the Great
Seal, but after Wolsey had departed in humiliation, the king dispatched a mess-
enger from Windsor, with a ring and assurances that Henry had not really
abandoned him. Overjoyed, Wolsey fruitlessly waited in retirement for Henry to
invite him back to court. In October, however, Wolsey was found guilty of sup-
porting the papal authority, instead of the king, but Henry could not bring him-
self to order Wolsey’s execution, and pardoned his former chancellor again.113
Henry continued to send occasional gifts, bolstering Wolsey’s hopes for a return
to royal favour. After more than a year of uncertainty, however, Henry had
Wolsey arrested for treason on 4 November 1530. Whether the king would once
again have pardoned him remains unknown, as Wolsey expired from natural
causes shortly thereafter.
A decade later, Henry readily ordered the execution of those who fell from
favour. In 1540, Henry not only executed Cromwell, but also executed the
religious reformers Robert Barnes, William Jerome, and Thomas Garret.114
Three devout Catholics, Edward Powell, Richard Fetherston, and Thomas Abel,
were also put to death on the same day.115 There were no plausible reasons
for these executions and judgement was reached by attainder, and, as Lindsey
notes, it was a ‘ perversion of justice of which both parties complained … they had
never been called to judgment, nor knew why they were condemned ’.116 It is
difficult to form a rational explanation as to why Henry killed so many individuals
for such different religious reasons on the same day. Scarisbrick argues that
Henry was not to blame for these deaths, and that the king was not a ‘ capricious
tyrant ’ but rather a ‘volatile ’ man caught up in the machinations of bloodthirsty
factions.117 Nevertheless, the king retained ultimate authority in his court,
rendering his actions suspect. These were prominent men who were executed.
Henry must have known of, and approved, their executions.
As he entered his fifties, evidence of Henry’s psychopathology increased.
Stubbornness and the desire to be correct in all matters eclipsed his political
intuition. In 1542, the French king Francis I opened negotiations for a marriage
between his son and Mary, but Scarisbrick describes how the talks were
continuously impeded by Henry’s absolute refusal to allow Mary to be declared legitimate.
He held his ground now just as he had done four years [before] when Mary had been
suggested as a bride for a Portuguese prince. He would not allow the invalidity of his first
marriage to be doubted, however obliquely.118

113 114 115

Ibid., p. 235. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 380. Ibid., p. 383.
116 117
Lindsey, Divorced, beheaded, survived, p. 156. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 482.
118
Ibid., p. 434.
 H E N R Y V I I I’S R E P R O D U C T I V E W O E S 847
Henry’s stubbornness trumped political skill, but this had not always been the
case. Without the influence of McLeod syndrome, he showed himself capable of
putting aside personal grudges in favour of political gain. For example, when
Henry was much younger, his father-in-law, Ferdinand of Aragon, had embar-
rassed him several times by abetting and encouraging Henry in his war against
France while secretly signing peace treaties.119 Although Henry was tempted to
retaliate in kind to Ferdinand, the young king was not the implacable and
vengeful individual he later became. Thus, when Spanish ambassadors attempted
to reconcile Henry to his untrustworthy father-in-law, he relented, motivated by
political desire to renew hostilities against France.120
Smith argues that, during the last years of the king’s life, Henry’s mercurial
emotional changes and paranoid contrivances ensured that ‘not a single coun-
cilor dared advise him honestly ’ or ‘ tell him his mind ’ for fear a ‘ snare had been
laid for him ’.121 In 1543, for example, Henry coerced conservative members of his
privy council to arrest Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and interrogate him for
suspected heresy when they brought him evidence implicating Cranmer. All the
while, Henry had secretly given Cranmer his ring and royal protection. When
Cranmer was summoned before the council he waited until the interrogation had
begun and then revealed Henry’s ring, dumbfounding the councillors,122 who
were then reprimanded by Henry for pursuing royal instructions. Moreover,
Henry repeatedly indulged in such capricious whims. Although it could be argued
that he did so to remind courtiers that he remained absolute monarch of the
realm, Smith claims that it can also be seen as ‘ evidence of a psychotic mind … of
an apparently irrational mentality ’.123 If he suffered from McLeod syndrome, it
could have influenced his aberrant decisions, particularly since he was in his
fifties.
By the summer of 1545, Henry’s erratic political decisions had placed England
in danger of invasion on multiple fronts by combined forces from France and
Scotland, whose alliance had been reawakened by the poor diplomacy of Henry
himself. His conscription of monastic wealth brought him an immense treasury,
but excessive expenditures rendered the throne almost bankrupt.124 The king’s
actions and perceived motivations eventually became so convoluted that
Scarisbrick observes ‘ there is scarcely an event in the last year or so of his reign
which is not enigmatic ’.125 Henry died on 28 January 1547, leaving his kingdom
financially overburdened and in civil turmoil.

V
Henry VIII was destined to be famous, since it was in his blood. A Kell positive
diagnosis for Henry and his obsessive quest for a male heir sets course towards

119
Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, pp. 78–9.
120 121
Ibid., pp. 55–9. Smith, Henry VIII, p. 304.
122 123 124
Ibid., p. 30. Ibid., p. 34. Ibid., p. 456.
125
Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 470.
848 CATRINA BANKS WHITLEY AND KYRA KRAMER

multiple marriages, and considerable heartache at the loss of so many potential

heirs. The notion that Henry VIII was Kell positive is supported by several aspects
of his family’s medical history, and the reproductive history of his sexual partners
is consistent with Henry being a Kell positive paternal genetic donor. Kell in-
duced HDN would certainly explain the high spontaneous abortion and infant
mortality ratios of Henry’s first two wives, and Kell incompatibility absolves
Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn from traditional tendencies to regard
them as ‘failures ’ in reproductive terms. Interestingly, Henry desired a male heir
to ensure the destiny of the Tudor lineage, but being Kell positive meant that his
genetic legacy would have been better served by a daughter. A diagnosis of
McLeod syndrome also explains how such a promising monarchical reign came
to such a woeful conclusion. This disease, which can only manifest in Kell positive
patients, frequently causes the progressive physical deterioration of the lower
extremities and the type of increasingly severe psychological collapse which
Henry VIII exhibited with increasing frequency and severity from middle age.
The prince who had wanted to revive chivalry died with a reputation for
emotional contrariety and wilfulness that Martin Luther had scathingly declared
‘ Junker Heinz will be God and does what he lust. ’126

126
Lindsey, Divorced, beheaded, survived, p. 152.