23 Feb: MANTLE OF MALICE: Aspects of Tudor life: 7. The Sweating Sickness

Until I began my research for The Tudor Enigma series, I did not know that “the sweat” as the sweating sickness was called was a Tudor phenomenon. It was not known in England before 1485 when Henry VII killed Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth and took the crown and it was unknown after 1551. The Europeans called it “The English Disease”, although there is one incidence of it travelling, by ship, to Hamburg in 1528. Those opposed to the Tudor monarchs never failed to point out that it came to England with Henry VII and it is certainly true that six weeks after Bosworth, the new King’s entourage brought it to London where it killed 15,000 people in six weeks. But, because it never reappeared after 1551, there is no clear diagnosis as to what, exactly, the sweating sickness was.

Symptoms began with a sense of dread and unease, followed by shivers, dizziness, headaches, pain in the arms, legs, shoulders and neck, breathlessness and fatigue or exhaustion. A sufferer could be in excellent health at breakfast and dead by dinner. It is interesting to note that the rich suffered from it more than the poor and there is a theory that those in good health were more susceptible than those who were already ill or the very young or very old. It is certain that it was not plague - the Black Death - or typhus, the two other great killers. Notable victims of the sweating sickness are both sons of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk and close friend of Henry VII. The boys died within a day of each other. The court painter, Hans Holbein was another victim and many historians have suggested that Henry’s older brother, Arthur, also died of the sweats. Whilst she was being courted by Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn also caught the disease, but recovered.

Medical research now suggest that the disease may have been a novel strain of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome with the added symptom of sweating, that evolved in medieval Europe. The only way to find out for sure would be to exhume known sufferers although whether there would be anything left of the virus after 500 years is open to question.

Mantle of Malice, Book 3 in The Tudor Enigma will be published on 23rd February 2015.

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