Benutzer:Mr.Lovecraft/Artikelvorbereitung
If food was put in front of him he would eat, or if he was put to bed he would sleep, but most of the time he would simply stare into space seemingly incapable of recognizing the people around him or of responding to any conversation.[1]For almost eighteen months Henry remaind in this virtual coma. After six month of confusion awaiting the king´s recovery, the royal Council appointed Richard of York as protector of the realm.[2]
The French king’s madness was murderous: in his first fit he butchered several members of his entourage; he was possessed by the delusion that he was made of glass and wore iron bars in his clothing as a precaution against breaking.
Johnson suggests that it was more likely that Henry suffered from a depression so profound that he involuntarily shut down and withdrew from a reality that had simply become too intolerable to endure.[3]
Henry's mother died at the age of 36 having `lost her wits' in her terminal illness. Her father, Charles VI of France, had 44 episodes over 30 years of psychosis, mania, and depression
Charles' wife, Henry's grandmother was `timelessly dissolute'. Henry's maternal great grandmother, was perhaps psychotic.[4]
fell by a sudden and accidental fright into such a weak state of health that for a whole year and a half he had neither natural sense nor reason capable of carrying on the government and neither physician nor medicine could cure that infirmity'[5]
After the major illness he talked appropriately, was not considered ill, and was physically healthy but he was never again active as King. The following are contemporary descriptions:
…the king was simple and led by covetous counsylle…the queen with such as were of her affynte revolved the reaume as her lyked.'[6]
He had definite paranoid and grandiose behaviour but it is not clear that he had definite delusions. He appears to have had religious visual hallucinations (with delusional interpretation) but these carry little weight because they could equally be considered culturally appropriate examples of piety. Some auditory hallucinations, religiously interpreted by Henry, were considered `vain wanderings' by his chaplains. The description of his almost constant `conversation in heaven' is given a religious interpretation by his hagiographer, but is much more like the behaviour of a person with schizophrenia, internally preoccupied and hallucinating, than that of an extremely pious person.
In his initial illness symptoms of catatonia are described: mutism, extreme negativism, no interaction, and perhaps immobility
His early years with friends, interests, pleasures, and social abilities preclude a diagnosis of schizoid personality disorder. The change in personality in his 20s with paranoia, grandiosity, vindictiveness, and indecisiveness or ambivalence is not uncommon in someone developing schizophrenia.
The changes in the life of Henry VI are characteristic of schizophrenia: from precocious youth with friends and interests, ambitiously founding and designing Eton and King's Colleges, marriage and love, to increasing grandiosity, paranoia, ambivalence, and vindictiveness in his later 20s, leading to a sudden severe mental illness with withdrawal and mutism, followed by deterioration in function, apathy, and loss of interest. Henry's story demonstrates that schizophrenia is a devastating disease, occurring in all ages and classes, able to destroy personality, family, and life, and able to change the course of history.[7]
He emerged from his prolonged vegetative state at Christmas 1454 to discover that his French queen, Margaret of Anjou, had miraculously produced a son and heir during his vacuity after eight childless years of marriage. Henry declared that the father must have been the Holy Ghost, but rumour was more cynical, crediting paternity to Margaret’s favourite, the Duke of Somerset.[3]
- ↑ Peter Burley, Michael Elliott, Harvey Watson: The Battle of St Albans.
- ↑ W. M. Ormrod: The Kings and Queens of England.
- ↑ a b The madness of King Henry VI. In: New Statesman. 7. Juni 2021, abgerufen am 28. Oktober 2021 (amerikanisches Englisch).
- ↑ B. Clarke: Mental Disorders in Earlier Britain.
- ↑ David Nutt: The Wars of York and Lancaster 1450–1485. English History by Contemporary Writers.
- ↑ B. Wolffe: Henry VI.
- ↑ Nigel Bark: Did schizophrenia change the course of English history? The mental illness of Henry VI. In: Medical Hypotheses. Band 59, Nr. 4, 1. Oktober 2002, ISSN 0306-9877, S. 416–421, doi:10.1016/S0306-9877(02)00145-7 (sciencedirect.com [abgerufen am 28. Oktober 2021]).