Carlos II "The Bewitched" of Spain (1661-1700) 

Due to the incestuous marriages of his ancestors the Habsburg king Carlos II of Spain was sadly degenerated with an enormous misshapen 
head. His Habsburg jaw stood so much out that his two rows of teeth could not meet; he was unable to chew. His tongue was so large that he 
was barely able to speak. His intellect was similarly disabled. His brief life consisted chiefly of a passage from prolonged infancy to premature 
senility. Carlos' family, who was anxious only to prolong his days, thought little about his education, so that he could barely read or write. He 
had been fed by wet nurses until the age of 5 or 6 and was not allowed to walk until almost fully grown. Even then he was unable to walk 
properly, because his legs would not support him and he fell several times. His body remained that of an invalid child. The nature of his 
upbringing, the inadequacy of his education, the stiff etiquette of his court, his dependence upon his mother and the psychology of his religious 
beliefs helped to create a mentally retarded and hypersensitive monarch. 

In 1675 Carlos was presented with a decree to prolong the powers of his mother on the grounds of his own incapacity. Carlos refused to sign 
the document and he secretly wrote a letter to his bastard half-brother, Don Juan. Later, he was forced to pay a visit to his mother. After two 
hours, he emerged crying from her room. Once and for all Carlos' act of rebellion had ended. 

Charles suffered one further disability, politically more significant than all the rest: his inability to consummate his marriages was evident from his 
birth. Nevertheless, he was married twice. His first bride was Marie Louise of Orléans (1662-1689). It seems that although Carlos attempted 
intercourse, he suffered from premature ejaculation, so that he was unable to achieve penetration. Marie Louise confided in the French 
ambassador, that "she was really not a virgin any longer, but that as far as she could figure things, she believed she would never have children." 
The French ambassador even managed to get a pair of the Carlos' drawers and had them examined by surgeons for traces of sperm, but the 
doctors could not agree about their findings. Marie Louise had been raised at the gay French court and couldn't get used to the rigid Spanish 
court etiquette. She became increasingly corpulent and died in 1689 after a riding accident. Her death made a deep impression on Carlos; he 
demanded the opening of the coffins containing the decaying relics of his predecessors. Nevertheless, he was remarried within three months to 
Maria Ana (1667-1740), a daughter of the Elector Palantine. She was exorcised to promote her fertility, but she couldn't cure Carlos' sexual 
defects either. 

Carlos' invalidity could have been afflicted by a bone disease, acromegaly, the result of an inherited endocrine dysfunction. This illness would 
explain his strange physical appearance, his over-large head and his impotence. The illness gave rise to fits of dizziness and what seem to have 
been epileptic spasms. The description of the numerous ailments that afflicted him from birth - suppurating ulcers, diseased bones and teeth, 
nervous difficulties - can also suggest congenital syphilis, the quite probable result of his father's frequent visits to the brothels of Madrid. A 
serious attack in 1627 and the syphilitic symptoms marking his final illness sustain the hypothesis of syphilis. 

Over the years Carlos grew steadily worse. He was lame, epileptic and bald at the age of 35. His hair had fallen out, his teeth were nearly gone 
and his eyesight was failing. In 1698 he had three fits and became deaf. The doctors put freshly-killed pigeons on his head to prevent dizziness 
and applied the streaming entrails of mammals to his stomach to keep him warm, but he died nevertheless. "Many people tell me," Carlos once 
said, "I am bewitched and I well believe it; such are the things I experience and suffer." His death started the War of the Spanish Succession. 

Copyright © 1996, 1997 by J.N.W. Bos. All rights reserved.