Christopher Duffin
London, England

As the eldest son of King James I (1566–1625) and Anne of Denmark (1574–1619), Henry Frederick (Fig. 1) was heir apparent to the English throne. His premature death from typhoid fever in 1612 meant that he was succeeded by his younger brother, Charles I (1600–1649). An erudite scholar, enthusiastic sportsman, and highly moral and committed Protestant, Prince Henry was a popular youth who showed great leadership potential. His death prompted a great public outpouring of grief; his body lay in state for four weeks, his funeral cortège was a mile long, and he was immortalized in sermons, poems, songs, and musical anthems.

Sir Charles Cornwallis (died 1629) was appointed treasurer of Prince Henry’s household in 1610; he clearly got to know the young prince well and was impressed by his character and abilities. His assessment was that Henry “loved and did mightily strive to doe somewhat of every thing, and to excell in the most excellent,” whether it be in athletic pursuits, sports, naval and military skills, building, gardening, music, woodworking, writing, or painting; indeed, Cornwallis’ assessment was that “hee had a certaine kind of extraordinary unspeakable excellency.”¹ In early October 1612, Cornwallis began to notice changes in the prince; although suffering from continuous headaches and lassitude, Henry tried to continue with his normal routines. John Hammond (c. 1555–1617), his physician, was called on October 10 when the prince became feverish, and administered clysters (enemas) and purgative (strong laxative) pills. This resulted in a total of thirty bowel movements on October 12, when he was confined to his bed. During the following twelve days, he suffered a series of restless nights but on October 24, he roused himself and played tennis. The following day brought feelings of faintness, persistent headache, visual sensitivity (unable to bear the light of a candle), a febrile pulse, pale and washed-out appearance, hollow and dull eyes, dizziness, intense thirst, and dry, blackened lips. In response, the king dispatched Théodore Turquet de Mayerne (1573–1655; Fig. 2), his “first physician,” to attend his son that same evening.

De Mayerne, a committed Protestant, accepted James I’s invitation to move to England following the assassination of Henry IV of France in 1610 and the subsequent anti-Huguenot atmosphere developing in Paris. In his carefully written clinical notes on the case (in both Latin and French versions), the Swiss doctor was critical of Prince Henry’s lifestyle—continually fatiguing “his body by exercises and violent occupations, hunting in the heat of the day, riding and playing tennis” as well as eating “strangely to excess of fruit, and especially of melons and of half-ripe grapes, and often eating his full of fish and of raw and cooked oysters beyond rule or measure at each meal” and then “plunging into the river after supper, his stomach full,” remaining in the water for several hours.²

Mayerne’s initial approach was to administer a tisane or herbal tea (usually based on barley) in a bid to slake the prince’s extreme thirst, and a light broth. Together with Dr. Hammond, his physicians then gave him a gently purging “lenitive clyster” and, throughout the following day, a series of “cordial refreshing juleps” (drinks flavored with aromatic herbs, often including mint and occasionally alcohol), soups, and medicines based on two popular alexipharmics (bezoar stones and unicorn horn). These preparations reduced the prince’s fever, giving some cause for optimism which, unfortunately, was short-lived.

Despite Prince Henry’s instructions that no more doctors should be brought in to consult, William Butler (1535–1618) appeared the following day, summoned independently by Sir David Murray of Gorthy (1567–1629), a member of the prince’s bedchamber staff. Butler, called “the greatest physician of his time” by John Aubrey,³ was a rather eccentric empiric and academic with no medical qualifications; he was also a drunkard. Butler approved of the prince’s diet and recommended the use of cordials (strengthening medicines) and analeptics (restoratives).

Over the next few days, Prince Henry continued to be feverish, delirious, and restless, especially at night, and suffered from tinnitus, an occasional nosebleed, and a black and fissured tongue. Enemas plus senna and rhubarb purges brought no relief. Then, on November 1, after considerable discussion, the prince was bled, resulting in his best day since the start of his illness.

Much to Henry’s consternation, a fourth physician, sent by the King, joined the consult. Dr. Henry Atkins (1558–1635) was ordinarily an enthusiastic proponent of bleeding as a means of balancing the humors but clashed with Mayerne’s suggestion that further bloodletting was required in this case. The prince steadily worsened; the fever intensified, accompanied by profuse sweating, and he became increasingly delirious. In response, the crowd of doctors applied cupping glasses to his shoulders, accompanied by scarification.

The prince was clearly dying, so ever more desperate therapeutic measures were employed. Henry’s head was shaved and pigeons applied to it. A means of treating plague, delirium, melancholy, and fever, this involved cutting the bird into two and laying the still warm, divided carcass onto the head in order supposedly to draw out any poison. A day later, a cock was slit down the back and applied to the soles of the feet in a further bid to evacuate poisons by transference from the young man.⁴

At this very late stage, further cordials and bloodletting were prescribed. One final attempted intervention came from an unusual source. Queen Anne pressed for her son to be given some of Sir Walter Raleigh’s famous cordial. Raleigh, consigned to the Tower, had effectively been tutoring Henry, and the prince admired him greatly. When it was obvious that the royal physicians were running out of options, at Queen Anne’s insistence, some of Raleigh’s medicine was administered to the prince, who rallied slightly but died on November 6. Raleigh’s comment was that his balsam would cure any fever so long as a poison had not previously been administered.⁵ With poisoning thus being suspected, the full complement of physicians carried out a detailed post-mortem the following day, with exhaustive notes taken by Mayerne, who was anxious to distance himself from any suggestion that his therapies could have hastened the prince’s demise. The results confirmed that poisoning had not taken place and that the prince had died of fever.

To some, the therapeutic failure of the cloven pigeon and cock when applied to the head and feet were the most surprising elements of the treatment regimen.⁶ In the words of the Earl of Dorset to Sir Thomas Edwards (1555–1634), “Our Rising Sun is set ere scarce he had shone and […] all our glory lies buried.”⁷

References

1. Cornwallis, C. The Life and Death of our Late most Incomparable and Heroique Prince, Henry, Prince of Wales. London: John Dawson, 1641, p. 100, 101.
2. Moore, N. The illness and death of Henry Prince of Wales in 1612: a historical case of typhoid fever. London: J.E. Adlard, 1882, p. 6.
3. Aubrey, J. Brief Lives, volume 1. Oxford: Henry Frowde, 1898, p. 138.
4. Duffin, C.J. Théodore Turquet de Mayerne and his ‘Balsom of Batts’ (1677). Pharmaceutical Historian; 2024; 54 (3): 85-95.
5. Lacey, R. Sir Walter Ralegh. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973, p. 324.
6. Devereux, W.B. Lives and Letters of the Devereux, earls of Essex, in the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I. 1540-1646. London: John Murray, 1853, p. 271.
7. Burton, J.H. The History of Scotland from Agricola’s Invasion to the Revolution of 1688. Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1870, p. 178.