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The King Who Died Screaming As His Kidneys Failed After Doctors Tortured Him For Days
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00:00February the 2nd, 1685. The morning began like any other in the opulent chambers of Whitehall
00:11Palace. King Charles II of England, the Merry Monarch, awoke to prepare for another day of
00:18courtly rituals and state affairs. By noon, he would be convulsing on the floor, surrounded
00:25by physicians who would spend the next six days systematically destroying his body in the name
00:32of healing. What you are about to hear is not a tale of medieval barbarism, but a documented medical
00:38case from the height of the Enlightenment, a king tortured to death by the very men sworn to preserve
00:45his life. The death of Charles II stands as one of history's most horrifying examples of medical
00:52hubris. This was not an execution, not an assassination, not an act of war. This was
00:59medicine, and it killed a king in the most agonizing way imaginable. The morning of the collapse
01:07Charles Stuart was 54 years old on that cold February morning. He had survived civil war, exile,
01:15and political conspiracies that would have destroyed lesser men. He had outlasted Cromwell's Commonwealth
01:20and restored the English monarchy to its former glory. He was witty, charismatic, and beloved by many of
01:27his subjects. He maintained numerous mistresses, fathered at least 12 illegitimate children, and lived
01:35with an exuberance that earned him his famous nickname. On the evening of February 1st, Charles had complained
01:42of feeling unwell. Nothing alarming, just a general malaise and difficulty sleeping. He went to bed,
01:50expecting to wake refreshed. Instead, he woke in agony. Around eight o'clock in the morning, while being
01:57shaved by his barber in his private chambers, the king suddenly cried out. His face contorted, his body
02:05went rigid, then he collapsed to the floor, his limbs jerking in violent spasms. The barber screamed for help.
02:12Within moments, the chamber filled with courtiers and attendants, all watching in horror as their monarch
02:19thrashed on the Persian carpet. Foam appeared at the corners of his mouth. His eyes rolled back. The seizure
02:26lasted several minutes before subsiding, leaving Charles semi-conscious, confused, and terrified.
02:32The royal physicians were summoned immediately. Within the hour, fourteen of England's most distinguished
02:39doctors had assembled in the king's bedchamber. They represented the pinnacle of seventeenth-century
02:45medical knowledge. They had trained at the finest universities in Europe. They had treated nobles,
02:51bishops, and scholars. They carried with them leather cases filled with instruments, potions,
02:57and remedies that represented centuries of accumulated medical wisdom.
03:01They were about to kill their patient. Dr. Edmund King, one of the king's personal physicians,
03:08took charge of the situation. He examined Charles briefly, noting the king's rapid pulse, his pallor,
03:15his disorientation. Without conducting any thorough diagnostic examination, Dr. King made his
03:22assessment. The king had suffered an apoplexy, what we would now call a stroke. The treatment,
03:29according to the medical theories of the day, was immediate and aggressive intervention to rebalance
03:35the body's humors. What Dr. King and his colleagues didn't realize, or didn't care to investigate,
03:42was that Charles' symptoms were more consistent with a severe urinary tract infection or kidney stone,
03:50both eminently treatable conditions. The seizure was likely caused by a sudden spike in blood pressure
03:56or a reaction to toxins building up in his system due to kidney inflammation. With rest,
04:03fluids, and time, Charles Stewart might have recovered completely. Instead, the doctors prepared
04:09their instruments. The torture was about to begin. The first treatment, bloodletting. The theory of
04:17humoral medicine dominated European medical practice for over 2,000 years. According to this ancient Greek
04:24system, the body contained four humors, blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Health required these
04:32humors to remain in perfect balance. Illness occurred when one humor became excessive or deficient. The
04:40treatment for almost any ailment, therefore, involved removing the excess or adding the deficiency.
04:46In Charles' case, the doctors believed he had an excess of blood. The solution was obvious. They would remove it.
04:55Dr. King ordered the King's arm to be extended. A leather strap was tied tightly around the upper arm to make the veins bulge.
05:03A silver basin was placed beneath. Then, with practiced efficiency, Dr. King took his lancet, a sharp,
05:11double-edged blade designed specifically for this purpose, and sliced open the basilic vein in Charles' inner elbow.
05:20Blood poured out. It was dark, almost purple, which the doctors took as confirmation of their diagnosis.
05:28Corrupt blood, they muttered to each other, nodding sagely. They let it flow freely into the basin,
05:34measuring carefully. Sixteen ounces. A full pint of the King's blood drained into the silver vessel.
05:42Charles, already weakened from his seizure, grew paler. His breathing became more labored, but the
05:49doctors were not finished. According to their calculations, more blood needed to be removed.
05:55They opened a vein in his other arm. Another eight ounces flowed out. Within the first hour of
06:01treatment, Charles II had lost approximately twenty-four ounces of blood, nearly a quarter of
06:07his body's total supply. For a man already in medical distress, this massive blood loss was catastrophic.
06:16His blood pressure plummeted. His heart began racing to compensate for the reduced volume.
06:22His organs, including his already stressed kidneys, received less oxygen and nutrients.
06:28The doctors observed these changes with satisfaction. The King's rapid heartbeat, they believed, indicated
06:35that the treatment was working, that the body was responding to the removal of toxic humors.
06:40They did not understand that they were watching the early stages of hypovolemic shock.
06:46But bloodletting from the veins was only the beginning. The physicians had another more aggressive
06:52technique in their arsenal. Cupping. Heated glass cups were applied to Charles's shoulders and back.
06:59As the air inside cooled, it created a vacuum that drew blood to the surface of the skin.
07:04Then, the doctors made small incisions beneath each cup, allowing blood to pool and be collected. Eight
07:13more ounces of blood were removed through cupping. Charles drifted in and out of consciousness.
07:21When awake, he complained of terrible thirst and a pounding headache. The doctors interpreted the headache
07:28as further evidence of excessive blood and pressure in the skull. They prepared for the next phase of
07:34treatment. Purging and blistering medieval and early modern medicine operated on a principle of aggressive
07:42intervention. Illness was seen as an invasion or imbalance that must be forcibly expelled from the body.
07:51If bleeding didn't work quickly enough, doctors turned to purging, forcing the body to evacuate its contents
07:58through every possible orifice. The royal physicians prepared an emetic, a substance designed to induce
08:05violent vomiting. The concoction they chose was antimony, a silvery metalloid that had been used in medicine
08:13since ancient times, despite its well-known toxicity. In large doses, antimony causes severe gastrointestinal
08:22distress. In very large doses, it can be fatal. The doctors mixed antimony potassium tartrate, also known as
08:31tartar emetic, into a glass of wine. Charles, barely conscious and unable to protest, was forced to drink it. The effect
08:40was almost immediate. Within minutes, Charles began retching. His body convulsed as wave after wave of
08:47nausea overwhelmed him. He vomited repeatedly, violently, until there was nothing left in his
08:53stomach but bile and blood. The doctors held another silver basin to catch the expelled material, examining
09:01it closely for signs of the morbid matter they believed was poisoning the king. But vomiting alone was not
09:08sufficient. The body needed to be purged from below as well. The physicians prepared a powerful laxative
09:15combining jalap root, a new world plant known for its dramatic purgative effects, and calomel, a mercury
09:23compound. This mixture was administered rectally through an enema. The result was catastrophic for
09:31Charles' dignity and comfort. He experienced explosive diarrhea for hours. Attendants had to
09:38constantly change the bedding and clean the king as he lost control of his bowels. The combination of
09:44violent vomiting and severe diarrhea led to massive fluid loss and electrolyte imbalances. Charles' body
09:52was being drained of the water and minerals essential for organ function. His kidneys, already under stress,
09:59from whatever infection or inflammation had triggered his initial collapse, now faced an additional crisis.
10:06Dehydration reduces blood flow to the kidneys, impairing their ability to filter waste products.
10:13The toxic substances accumulating in Charles' bloodstream were beginning to reach dangerous levels.
10:20Meanwhile, the doctors prepared another treatment.
10:23Blistering. This technique involved applying caustic substances to the skin to create large,
10:30painful blisters. The theory held that these blisters would draw out internal poisons and redistribute the
10:37humours. The physicians shaved Charles' head completely, leaving his scalp bare and vulnerable. Then they applied
10:44canthorides, a powder made from crushed blister beetles. This substance contains canthoridin,
10:50a potent toxin that causes severe chemical burns. When applied to the skin, it creates large,
10:57fluid-filled blisters within hours. Across Charles' bare scalp, angry red welts began to form. The pain
11:05was excruciating, but the doctors weren't finished. They also applied blistering agents to his neck,
11:11shoulders, and the soles of his feet. Anywhere they believed poisonous humours might accumulate,
11:17they burned the king's skin. Charles screamed. Witnesses later reported that his cries could be
11:24heard throughout the palace. Courtiers waited in antechambers, listening to their monarch's agonized
11:30shrieks and wondering if he would survive the night. The second day. Escalation.
11:38By the morning of February 3rd, Charles had survived one full day of treatment. He had lost over 30 ounces
11:45of blood. He had been purged from above and below until his body was wrung dry. His scalp and feet were
11:52covered in weeping blisters. He was delirious with pain and dehydration. Any reasonable physician might have
12:01concluded that the treatments were not working. A more thoughtful practitioner might have questioned
12:07whether the interventions themselves were causing harm. But 17th century medicine did not operate
12:14on principles of observation and adjustment. It operated on dogma. If the patient was not improving,
12:21the answer was not to stop treatment, but to intensify it. The royal physicians convened for a
12:28consultation. They examined the king's urine, a standard diagnostic practice of the era. What they
12:35saw alarmed them. Charles' urine had become dark, cloudy, and reduced in quantity. To modern eyes, these
12:42are clear signs of kidney dysfunction. To the physicians of 1685, they indicated an excess of black
12:49bile and a need for more aggressive purgation. They prepared a new round of emetics and laxatives,
12:56this time even stronger than before. They also decided to administer diuretics, substances designed
13:03to increase urine production. The logic seemed sound. If the king wasn't producing enough urine,
13:11they would force his kidneys to work harder. This was precisely the wrong approach. Charles' kidneys
13:19were already failing. They needed rest and support, not chemical stimulation. The diuretics the doctors
13:26administered included juniper berries, canthorides, the same substance that had blistered his skin,
13:34and alcohol, all of which placed additional stress on the failing organs. Charles' urine output did increase
13:41briefly. But the urine that emerged was darker than before, almost brown. It contained visible sediment
13:49and had a foul odor. These were signs of acute kidney injury. The organs were beginning to break down,
13:56releasing cellular debris into the urine. The doctors also noticed that Charles had developed a fever.
14:03His skin felt hot to the touch, and he alternated between chills and sweating. In reality,
14:10this fever was likely due to the infection that had triggered his original collapse,
14:15now worsening due to his weakened state. The physicians interpreted it differently. Fever,
14:20they believed, was another form of excess heat that needed to be cooled and expelled. They bled him again.
14:28Another sixteen ounces of blood flowed from his veins into silver basins. Charles was now dangerously
14:35anemic. His organs were starved for oxygen. His blood pressure was critically low. But the doctors
14:42saw his pallor and weakness as signs that their treatments were drawing out the disease. Next came
14:48a procedure called scarification. The physicians took small blades and made dozens of shallow cuts across
14:56Charles' shoulders and back. They then applied heated glass cups to these cuts, using the vacuum effect to
15:03draw out even more blood. This technique was thought to remove localized poisons while preserving the
15:10patient's overall blood volume better than simple bloodletting. It didn't work that way. Charles lost
15:17several more ounces of blood, and the wounds became painful sites where infection could enter.
15:23In an era before antiseptics, every cut was a potential death sentence.
15:29Desperate measures. Exotic remedies. As Charles' condition continued to deteriorate,
15:35the physicians became increasingly desperate. They turned to the exotic remedies that filled the
15:40pharmacopayas of the 17th century, substances derived from far-flung corners of the world, from ancient
15:48texts from folklore and superstition. One of the most disturbing treatments they employed was the king's
15:54drops, a medicinal preparation made from human skull. The recipe called for the skull of a person who had
16:03died a violent death, preferably a young person executed for a crime. The skull would be pulverized into a
16:11fine powder, then dissolved in alcohol to create a tincture. The theory behind this grotesque remedy
16:19was the doctrine of signatures, a belief that God had marked natural substances with signs indicating
16:25their medicinal uses. A skull from a person who died violently, it was thought, contained vital spirits
16:33that could be transferred to the sick patient, revitalizing them. The physicians administered
16:3940 drops of this skull extract to Charles, forcing him to swallow the alcohol and bone mixture while he
16:45gagged and choked. There is no evidence that it had any medicinal effect whatsoever, though it may have
16:52provided a small amount of calcium and phosphate. They also gave him bezaur stone, a mass that forms in the
17:00digestive system of certain animals, particularly goats and deer. Bezaur stones were believed to be
17:07universal antidotes to poison, capable of neutralizing any toxic substance. The physicians ground the bezaur
17:14into powder and mixed it with wine, which Charles was forced to drink. In reality, bezaur stones are
17:22composed primarily of indigestible hair and plant matter. They have no antidotal properties. But they were
17:29extraordinarily expensive, traded along the Silk Road, and valued as highly as gemstones. The fact that the
17:37royal physicians were willing to use such precious substances demonstrated their growing panic. The
17:43physicians also administered extracts of viper flesh, pearls dissolved in acid, and a preparation called
17:50goa stone, a mixture of animal parts, herbs, and minerals believed to have been brought from Portuguese
17:56India. Each remedy was more exotic and expensive than the last, and each was utterly useless.
18:04Meanwhile, Charles' actual condition continued to worsen. His face had begun to swell, particularly
18:10around the eyes. His skin took on a yellowish tint, signs of jaundice caused by the buildup of bilirubin
18:17in his blood. His kidneys could no longer filter waste products effectively, and those toxins were
18:22accumulating throughout his body. The heavy metals. On the third day of treatment, the physicians decided
18:30to employ what they considered their most powerful weapons, heavy metal compounds. Mercury, arsenic,
18:38and antimony were the chemotherapy of the 17th century. Toxic substances administered in the hope that
18:46they would kill the disease before they killed the patient. Mercury had been used in medicine since
18:52ancient times. In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was the primary treatment for syphilis, applied topically
19:01or taken internally to purge the disease from the body. The treatment often caused mercury poisoning,
19:08but physicians believed the resulting symptoms, excessive salivation, tremors, tooth loss,
19:14were signs that the medicine was working. The royal physicians prepared a mercury-based compound
19:20and administered it to Charles both orally and through enemas. The effect on his already damaged
19:27kidneys was devastating. Mercury is a nephrotoxic substance, meaning it directly damages kidney tissue.
19:35It interferes with the organ's ability to filter blood and can cause acute kidney failure even in
19:42healthy individuals. For Charles, whose kidneys were already compromised, the mercury was essentially
19:48a death sentence. The tubules of his kidneys, the microscopic structures responsible for filtering waste,
19:56began to die. Dead kidney cells sloughed off into his urine, turning it even darker and giving it a thick,
20:04muddy consistency. Arsenic was administered as well, in the form of arsenious oxide mixed into a liquid.
20:12Like mercury, arsenic is profoundly toxic to the kidneys. It causes necrosis of renal tissue
20:19and can lead to complete kidney failure. The physicians had no understanding of these mechanisms.
20:27They only knew that arsenic was a powerful substance that caused visible changes in the body,
20:32which they interpreted as therapeutic. Charles began to experience the full spectrum of arsenic poisoning,
20:39burning sensations in his throat and stomach, severe abdominal pain, muscle cramps and confusion. His skin
20:46developed a grayish tone. His breath took on a metallic odor. The doctors observed these changes and nodded in
20:54agreement. The poisons were being drawn out of his body, they assured each other. The fact that Charles was
21:01growing weaker, not stronger, did not shake their confidence in the correctness of their approach.
21:07Kidney failure
21:09By the fourth day, Charles II was dying of acute kidney failure. His urine output had decreased to
21:16almost nothing. What little urine he did produce was black and thick with sediment. His body was swelling
21:22with retained fluid, a condition called edema. His face became puffy and distorted. His legs and feet swelled
21:31so much that they had to cut away his stockings. The buildup of waste products in his blood, a condition
21:37called uremia, was now poisoning every system in his body. Urea, creatinine, and other nitrogenous compounds
21:46that should have been eliminated through urine were instead circulating through his bloodstream, reaching
21:52his brain, his heart, his lungs. Charles began to experience uremic encephalopathy, brain dysfunction caused by
22:01kidney failure. He became increasingly confused and disoriented. He didn't recognize the people around him. He spoke in
22:10nonsensical sentences. He experienced visual and auditory hallucinations, crying out about
22:16demons and shadows that only he could see. The smell in the room became overpowering. Uremia produces a distinctive
22:24odor, a sharp, ammoniac scent that emanates from the patient's breath, sweat, and skin. It's sometimes described as a fishy
22:33or urine-like smell. The courtiers who entered Charles' chamber had to hold perfumed handkerchiefs to their faces to
22:41tolerate the stench. Charles' breathing became labored and irregular. Fluid was accumulating in his lungs,
22:50a condition called pulmonary edema caused by the kidney's inability to regulate fluid balance. Every breath
22:57was a struggle. He gasped and wheezed, his chest rising and falling with desperate effort. The physicians
23:05recognized that something was terribly wrong, but they couldn't identify what.
23:09They had no concept of kidney function as we understand it today. They didn't know that the
23:15kidneys filtered blood, removed toxins, and regulated fluid and electrolyte balance.
23:22They saw the king's urine problems as a symptom, not as a sign of systemic organ failure. Their response
23:30was to administer even more diuretics, trying to force the kidneys to produce urine. They gave Charles
23:36preparations of squill, a Mediterranean plant that acts as a powerful diuretic and cardiac stimulant.
23:44They gave him juniper oil and turpentine. Each substance placed additional stress on the dying
23:51organs. Charles' kidneys were literally dissolving inside him. The combination of infection, dehydration,
23:59blood loss, toxic medications, and chemical damage had destroyed the delicate filtering apparatus.
24:05The nephrons, the functional units of the kidney, were necrotic and non-functional. The organs had
24:12become swollen, inflamed masses of dying tissue.
24:17The final agonies. On February 5th, the fifth day of his ordeal, Charles II experienced a brief period of
24:24apparent improvement. He became more alert and lucid. He was able to speak coherently and recognize his
24:32family members. The physicians celebrated this as evidence that their treatments were finally working.
24:38In reality, this improvement was likely a terminal lucidity, a phenomenon sometimes observed in dying
24:45patients where they experience a brief rally before death. It's thought to be caused by a final surge of
24:52stress hormones or a temporary metabolic change. It is not a sign of recovery. Charles used this window of
24:59clarity to put his affairs in order. He asked for his illegitimate children to be brought to his bedside
25:06so he could bid them farewell. He requested that his wife, Catherine of Braganza, be told that he had
25:12always loved her and begged her forgiveness for his infidelities. He asked his brother James to care for
25:19his mistresses and ensure they were provided for. Most poignantly, Charles asked to be received into the
25:26Catholic Church. This was an extraordinarily dangerous deathbed conversion. Catholicism was illegal in
25:34England, and the King's conversion could have triggered a constitutional crisis. A Catholic
25:40priest was smuggled into the palace in disguise, and Charles received the last rites of the Church in
25:45secret, surrounded only by his most trusted confidants. After this brief period of lucidity,
25:53Charles's condition deteriorated rapidly. The toxins in his blood had reached critical levels.
25:59His brain was being poisoned from within. He began to seize again, violent convulsions that
26:06racked his body for minutes at a time. It took four strong men to hold him down and prevent him from
26:12throwing himself from the bed. Between seizures, Charles screamed. Witnesses later described the sounds as
26:20inhuman, animal howls of pure agony. The pain he was experiencing was total and overwhelming. His back
26:28arched in opus the tonus, a severe muscular spasm that bent his body backward like a bow. His teeth clenched
26:36so tightly that his jaw muscles bulged. Saliva and blood foamed from his mouth. The physicians watched
26:43helplessly. They had exhausted their arsenal. They had bled him, purged him, blistered him, and poisoned
26:49him with every toxic substance in their pharmacopoeia. Nothing had worked. The King was dying despite,
26:57or more accurately, because of, everything they had done. On the evening of February 5th,
27:02Charles experienced a massive seizure that lasted nearly fifteen minutes. When it finally ended,
27:09he did not regain consciousness. He lay in a coma, his breathing shallow and irregular, his pulse
27:15thready and weak. The court gathered around his bed. His wife, Catherine, knelt beside him,
27:21holding his hand and weeping. His brother, James, stood at the foot of the bed, his face ashen.
27:28The royal physicians stood nearby, still clutching their instruments and bottles,
27:33as if they might yet find some remedy that would turn the tide. Death. At approximately noon on February
27:416th, 1685, King Charles II of England stopped breathing. His body, ravaged by six days of medical
27:50torture, finally surrendered. He was fifty-four years old. The immediate cause of death was listed as
27:57apoplexy. The actual cause was acute kidney failure induced by a combination of infection, dehydration,
28:05blood loss and toxic medication. The treatments that were supposed to save the King's life had instead
28:13destroyed it. An autopsy was performed, a rare procedure for a monarch, but one that the physicians
28:19insisted upon, perhaps hoping to vindicate their approach. What they found should have horrified them.
28:27Charles' kidneys were, in the words of the autopsy report, greatly mortified, meaning necrotic and
28:34decomposed. They were swollen to nearly twice their normal size, discoloured and filled with pus and
28:40bloody fluid. The tissue was so damaged that it fell apart when touched. These were not organs that could
28:47have sustained life under any circumstances. The autopsy also revealed significant damage to other organs.
28:54Charles' liver showed signs of toxic injury. His heart was enlarged and showed evidence of strain. His lungs
29:03were congested with fluid. His brain showed signs of edema, swelling caused by fluid accumulation. But
29:11perhaps most telling were the findings in his urinary system. A large kidney stone was discovered lodged in one of
29:17his ureters, the tubes that carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder. This stone, which had likely
29:25been the trigger for his initial collapse and infection, was completely treatable.
29:30If the physicians had simply identified it, managed the infection with supportive care, and allowed
29:37Charles' body to heal, he almost certainly would have survived. Instead, they had killed him.
29:44The physicians who conducted the autopsy drew no such conclusions. They wrote in their report that the king's
29:51death was inevitable, that the disease had been too severe, that no treatment could have saved him.
29:57They congratulated themselves on the thoroughness of their interventions and recommended their approaches
30:03for future cases. The aftermath and legacy. Charles II was buried with full royal honors in Westminster Abbey
30:12on February 14, 1685. His brother ascended the throne as James II, beginning a brief and tumultuous reign
30:22that would end in the glorious revolution just three years later. The medical treatment that killed Charles
30:28became a subject of both praise and criticism in the years that followed. Some physicians held it up as
30:35an example of comprehensive, aggressive intervention. Everything that could be done was done. Others began
30:43to question whether such extreme measures were truly beneficial. The great physician Thomas Sydenham,
30:50sometimes called the English Hippocrates, wrote a scathing critique of the treatment Charles received.
30:56Sydenham was an advocate of what he called expectant treatment, allowing the body's natural
31:03healing processes to work while providing comfort and support. He argued that many patients died not
31:10from their diseases, but from their doctors' treatments. Sydenham's views were considered radical at the time,
31:16but they represented the beginning of a shift in medical thinking. Over the following centuries,
31:23physicians would gradually move away from aggressive interventions like bloodletting, purging,
31:29and the use of toxic substances. They would develop a better understanding of anatomy, physiology,
31:36and pathology. They would learn to diagnose conditions accurately and treat them specifically,
31:43rather than following general theories about humors and balance. But this progress came too late for
31:50Charles Stewart. He died in an era when medicine was transitioning from medieval tradition to modern
31:57science, caught in the gap between ancient theory and evidence-based practice. What should have been done?
32:06With the benefit of modern medical knowledge, we can reconstruct what probably happened to Charles II,
32:12and what should have been done to save him. Charles likely had a kidney stone that caused a urinary obstruction.
32:19This led to a urinary tract infection that ascended to his kidneys, causing pyelonephritis,
32:26a serious but treatable kidney infection. The initial seizure was probably caused by a combination of severe pain,
32:34fever, and the systemic effects of infection. The appropriate treatment would have been simple.
32:40Rest, fluids to maintain hydration and kidney function, pain management, and possibly some of the herbal
32:48antimicrobials available at the time, such as bareberry or birch bark extract. If the stone could be passed
32:56naturally or removed, the infection would likely have resolved. Charles' kidneys, given time and support,
33:03could have recovered. Instead, the physicians did everything wrong. They bled him, causing hypovolemic
33:10shock that reduced blood flow to his kidneys. They dehydrated him through violent purging, further
33:16impairing kidney function. They administered nephrotoxic substances like mercury and arsenic
33:22that directly destroyed kidney tissue. They failed to identify the underlying problem,
33:28and instead treated imaginary imbalances based on flawed theory. Every intervention made the situation
33:36worse. Every treatment pushed Charles closer to death. The physicians, operating with the best
33:43intentions and the full confidence of their professional training, systematically destroyed
33:48their patient. This is the true horror of Charles II's death. It wasn't a case of medical ignorance. It was a
33:57case of medical knowledge that was completely, catastrophically wrong. The physicians knew exactly
34:04what they were doing. They followed established protocols and respected authorities. They did everything their
34:11education and experience told them to do, and they killed a king. Reflections on medical history. The death of
34:20Charles II serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of medical dogma and the importance of empirical
34:26observation. The physicians who treated him were not incompetent or malicious. They were highly educated, experienced
34:35practitioners following the best medical knowledge of their time, and that knowledge was lethally incorrect.
34:43This raises uncomfortable questions about contemporary medicine. We look back at 17th century treatments
34:50with horror and disbelief. We wonder how educated people could believe that draining blood would cure
34:57their illness or the toxic metals were therapeutic. But in 2025, there are certainly medical practices that will seem equally
35:07barbaric to physicians of the future. The history of medicine is littered with treatments that were widely accepted,
35:15vigorously defended, and completely ineffective or actively harmful. Lobotomies for mental illness,
35:22radical mastectomies for breast cancer, thalidomide for morning sickness. Each of these interventions
35:30was supported by respected authorities, taught in medical schools, and performed by conscientious physicians
35:37who believed they were helping their patients. The key difference between then and now is not that modern
35:44physicians are smarter or more ethical than their predecessors, it's that we have better systems for testing our
35:52assumptions. Randomized controlled trials, peer review, evidence-based medicine, these tools help us
35:59identify what works and abandon what doesn't. They're not perfect, but they represent a fundamental shift
36:06from authority-based medicine to empiricism. Charles II died because his physicians trusted authority over
36:14observation. They saw that their treatments were making him worse, but they couldn't question the
36:19fundamental theories that guided their practice. Challenging those theories would have meant admitting
36:25that everything they had learned, everything they believed, was wrong. That's a difficult admission
36:32for anyone to make, especially when a patient's life hangs in the balance. Conclusion
36:37On February 6th, 1685, King Charles II of England died screaming in agony as his kidneys failed and his body was consumed by the toxins his organs could no longer filter. He did not die from the illness that first struck him down. He died from the cure. For six days, the most skilled physicians in England tortured their king with every tool at their disposal. They bled him until he was anemic.
37:05They purged him until he was dehydrated. They blistered his skin, poisoned his organs, and filled his body with toxic substances. They believed with absolute conviction that they were saving his life. They were wrong.
37:21Charles' death was not an aberration. It was standard medical practice for the era.
37:25Countless other patients received similar treatments and suffered similar fates. Most of them were not kings, so their deaths went unrecorded and unmourned. But they were just as real, just as agonizing.
37:40The story of Charles II's final days reminds us that good intentions and sincere belief are not enough. Medical practice must be grounded in careful observation, honest assessment of outcomes, and willingness to change course when evidence demands it.
37:59It must be humble enough to admit uncertainty and flexible enough to abandon cherished theories when they prove false. Charles Stewart deserved better. He deserved physicians who would observe his symptoms carefully, identify the underlying cause, and provide supportive care while his body healed.
38:22Instead, he got physicians who followed their logical conclusion, regardless of the suffering they caused.
38:29In the end, medical knowledge killed the Merry Monarch. The very learning and expertise that should have saved him became the instruments of his destruction. He died not in darkness and ignorance, but in the full light of 17th century medical science. And he died screaming.
38:49He died screaming.
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