Charles II
edyong | April 14, 2009On November 1st, 1700, an entire dynasty of kings came to a crashing end with the death of Charles II of Spain. Charles had neither a pleasant life nor a successful reign. He was physically disabled, mentally retarded and disfigured. A large tongue made his speech difficult to understand, he was bald by the age of 35, and he died senile and wracked by epileptic seizures. He had two wives but being impotent, he had no children and thus, no heirs. Which is what happens after 16 generations of inbreeding.
Charles II was the final king of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty (see family tree), part of a…
razib | April 14, 2009
The Hapsburgs are one of those royal families who are relatively well known, and in the minds of the public are to a great extent the emblems of the downsides of inbreeding. To painting to the left is of Charles II, king of Spain, the last of the Spanish Hapsburgs, and an imbecile whose premature death at the age of 39 ushered in a period of dynastic chaos which led to the War of Spanish Succession These conflicts between France and other European powers were one of those turning points in history, a sad capstone to the long reign of the Sun King, Louis the XIV. France's position as the…