What Was Wrong with Henry VIII’s Legs? The Historical Evidence

When we imagine Henry VIII in his later years, the picture of him that springs to mind is of an overweight, unhealthy man who struggled with his mobility and who’d had to give up his sporting pursuits. We also hear a lot about his troublesome legs, particularly the ulcers or sores that caused him so much pain.

But what exactly was wrong with Henry VIII’s legs? When did his leg problems start? Were they caused by his famous 1536 jousting accident or something else entirely? And what do the primary sources tell us?

I’ve been doing some digging into Henry VIII’s medical history recently, looking at contemporary accounts of his leg problems, the treatments he received from his doctors and what we can actually say about his condition.

And I’ve found some interesting things!

In my latest video, I look at the evidence for Henry VIII’s leg problems, including the story that a Kent physician, Thomas Vicary treated him for a sore leg in the late 1520s, his jousting accident in January 1536 and the reports of his increasingly troublesome legs in the final decade or so of his reign.

What do the contemporary sources tell us about Henry VIII’s leg problems?

One of the things that struck me while I was researching Henry VIII’s legs was that the primary sources don’t really give us evidence to support the claims that:

1. Henry VIII suffered with leg ulcers from 1527/28
2. His jousting accident caused his leg problems

What we do have, though, is evidence that Henry VIII was suffering from problems in 1537.

We have definite evidence of Henry suffering from leg problems in 1537. On 30th April, John Hussee wrote to Lord Lisle that “The King goes seldom abroad because his leg is something sore.”

Then, on 12th June 1537, the king himself wrote to Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, explaining why he’d postponed a planned journey, saying, “But to be frank with you, which you must keep to yourself, a humour has fallen into our legs, and our physicians advise us not to go so far in the heat of the year.”

Notice there that Henry VIII is referring to “legs”, plural.

By May 1538, things had become rather more serious. On 14th May, the French ambassador, Louis de Perreau, Sieur de Castillon, reported, “This King has had stopped one of the fistulas of his legs, and for 10 or 12 days the humours which had no outlet were like to have stifled him, so that he was sometime without speaking, black in the face, and in great danger.”

That’s quite an alarming description!

A fistula is an abnormal passage or opening in the body, and Tudor physicians believed that allowing harmful humours to drain away could help restore health, so a fistual closing up was a serious matter.

This happened again just under three years later. In March 1541, the French ambassador, Charles de Marillac, reported, “one of his legs, formerly opened and kept open to maintain his health, suddenly closed, to his great alarm, for, five or six years ago, in like case, he thought to have died.”

And by 1544, the king’s legs were described by the imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, as being the “worst legs in the world”. Chapuys went to to say that those who’d seen them wondered how he managed to stay out of bed.

Then, in January 1547, shortly before Henry VIII’s death, French diplomats reported that his legs had been cauterised, although they didn’t describe exactly how this had been done.

So, there’s no doubt that Henry suffered terribly with his legs, but what was actually causing the problems?

What might have caused Henry VIII’s leg ulcers?

There have been quite a few medical theories put forward over the years:

• Osteomyelitis – This is an infection of the bone which can develop following an injury or fracture. It can cause chronic infection, with sores or openings through which infected material drains. It’s one possible explanation for the fistulas described by the ambassadors, although we have no evidence that the king fractured a leg in his 1536 jousting accident.
• Venous disease – This can cause swelling, poor circulation and painful ulcers that are slow to heal. In a 2009 article published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, C. R. Chalmers and E. J. Chaloner explored the possibility that Henry suffered from deep vein thrombosis (DVT). They suggested that his injuries and increasing immobility could have contributed to damage to the veins, leading to chronic venous ulceration, and they raised another interesting possibility: the king’s garters.
  Henry VIII was very proud of his legs and showed them off, commenting in 1519, “Look here – and I have also a good calf to my leg!”, and he wore garters below his knees. Could wearing them too tightly have restricted the circulation in his legs and contributed to his problems? It’s an interesting suggestion.
• Venous ulceration associated with vascular disease, possibly made worse by Type II diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure.
• Syphilis – The idea that Henry VIII suffered from syphilis has been around for a long time. Syphilis was known in Tudor England and a common treatment for it was mercury. However, examinations of Henry VIII’s surviving medical accounts haven’t revealed evidence of mercury being used to treat him, and there’s also no contemporary record of him being diagnosed with syphilis.

Of course, these are just theories. The primary sources tell us that the king suffered from recurring sores, fistulas, periods of serious illness and increasing difficulties with his mobility. They also tell us that his physicians were treating his legs and, on occasion, deliberately keeping openings in them from closing, but, unfortunately, they don’t tell us exactly what caused these problems.

I’ve found it really interesting revisiting this topic, going back to the original sources and questioning some of the things I’ve read, and even repeated myself, over the years.

I’d love to know what you think. Had you always assumed that Henry’s leg ulcers were caused by his jousting accident? And which of the medical theories do you find most convincing?

Do let me know in the comments here or over on YouTube.

By the way, I’ve got another video to share with you! My YouTube channel, The Anne Boleyn Files, has reached 80,000 subscribers, which is wonderful, and to celebrate, I’ve put together a Tudor history challenge. Why not have a go and see how much you know about Tudor history and whether you can beat Tim? I’d love to know how you get on! And please do consider subscribing to my channel.

Sources and Further Reading

• Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Vol. XII, Part 1 (1537), John Hussee to Lord Lisle, 30 April 1537.
• Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Vol. XII, Part 2 (1537), Henry VIII to the Duke of Norfolk, 12 June 1537.
• Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Vol. XIII, Part 1 (1538), Castillon’s report of 14 May 1538.
• Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Vol. XVI (1540-1541), nos. 589 and 590, Marillac’s dispatches of 3 March 1541.
• C. R. Chalmers and E. J. Chaloner, “500 years later: Henry VIII, leg ulcers and the course of history”, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 102 (2009), pp. 514-517.
• Peter Perkins, “Henry VIII’s leg ulcers”, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 103 (2010), p. 81.
• Kyra Kramer, “Henry VIII: Fit, Fat, Fiction”, Tudor Society.