![]() ![]() In addition to inbreeding due to unions between close relatives, ancestral inbreeding from multiple remote ancestors makes a substantial contribution to the inbreeding coefficient of most kings. The inbreeding coefficient of the Spanish Habsburg kings increased strongly along generations from 0.025 for king Philip I, the founder of the dynasty, to 0.254 for Charles II and several members of the dynasty had inbreeding coefficients higher than 0.20. In this article, this hypothesis is checked by computing the inbreeding coefficient (F) of the Spanish Habsburg kings from an extended pedigree up to 16 generations in depth and involving more than 3,000 individuals. In the historical literature, it has been suggested that inbreeding was a major cause responsible for the extinction of the dynasty when the king Charles II, physically and mentally disabled, died in 1700 and no children were born from his two marriages, but this hypothesis has not been examined from a genetic perspective. The kings of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty (1516-1700) frequently married close relatives in such a way that uncle-niece, first cousins and other consanguineous unions were prevalent in that dynasty. The nature of his upbringing, the inadequacy of his education, the stiff etiquette of his court, his dependence upon his mother and his superstition helped to create a mentally retarded and hypersensitive monarch.Ī new paper in PLoS One offers a more precise genetic framework for understanding the decline of the Spanish Hapsburgs, The Role of Inbreeding in the Extinction of a European His body remained that of an invalid child. Even then, he was unable to walk properly, because his legs would not support him and he fell several times. He had been fed by wet nurses until the age of 5 or 6 and was not allowed to walk until almost fully grown. Carlos’ family was anxious only to prolong his days and thought little about his education, so that he could barely read or write. His brief life consisted chiefly of a passage from prolonged infancy to premature senility. His tongue was so large that he was barely able to speak. ![]() His Habsburg jaw stood so much out that his two rows of teeth could not meet he was unable to chew. The Habsburg King Carlos II of Spain was sadly degenerated with an enormous misshapen head. Here is an excerpt from an online biography of Charles II: ![]() France’s position as the unchallenged power of Europe ended due to the fiscal and military overextension necessitated by Louis’ war to secure the Spanish throne for his grandson.īut this a story of genetics as well as history, because historians have long assumed impressionistically that there was something rotten in the gene pool of the Spanish Hapsburgs. 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. In the painting above is 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. 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. ![]()
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