How Inbred were the Habsburgs? Part 1: The Spanish Line

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Royals throughout history are notorious for inbreeding. But the European royal family by far infamously incestuous were the Habsburgs (Hapsburgs). The royal house ruled Spain from 1506 to 1700 and held the Holy Roman Empire from 1452 until 1806. These two branches of the family vollied brides back and forth like ping pong balls. Cousins married cousins and uncles married nieces. All in the name of keeping wealth and power in the family and keeping their blood blue. They were oblivious to the havoc all this intermarrying was playing on their genetics. The tragic results were numerous family members with mental illness, intellectual disability, vulnerability to diseases, and a famously unusual continence which came to be known as the Hapsburg Jaw. Just how inbred where the Habsburgs? Short answer, very. Long answer, well, lets get into it!

Ferdinand & Isabella
Juana I (Joanna I) the Mad & Philip the Handsome
Carlos I (Charles I)
Felipe II (Philip II )
Felipe III (Philip III)
Felipe IV (Philip IV)
Carlos II (Charles II)

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[baxoutthebox]

“Your majesty, shut your mouth! The flies in this country are insolent.”

Imagine shouting a burn so epic it is written into the historic record.

[michaelhowell]

The portraits of the Habsburgs makes me wonder how messed up they really looked. I mean, those portraits were made to flatter so it makes sense they looked way rougher in person. And Charles having a water head?

[lauriesmith]

"He baffled his physicians by continuing to live" That's definitely an understatement.😖

[clerieginus]

I'm from the Philippines. There's this story that after the Philippines was colonized, and Spain established a government, there was an incident that the Spaniards hung a portrait of their king, Philip II, in one of the town offices. The pinoys took one look at the portrait, and started laughing in jest, calling him "Babalu" (long chin). The portrait was removed the next day.

[landonhagan]

The fact alone that they were so inbred that it took multiple videos to fully explain is absolutely hysterical.

[bearVshark]

“He baffled his physicians by continuing to live”. That’s a hell of a sentence.

[sarahd.]

Wild that for like 150 years, multiple generations, you had plenty of peasants who knew better than to breed horses like that ... but the royals didn't seem to know that was the reason for all their misfortunes. Instead of consulting mystics and priests they should have just asked the nearest ostler. So sad that so many people suffered so horribly.

[genevieve.w]

I can't help but cry for poor Charles. 38 years spent on this earth suffering, being made fun of, and having people trying to exorcise nonexistent demons from your body.

[myeshakhan]

"After which he rose from his coffin"
"and went to have lunch."

[victoriasewell]

The craziest part is that the church already had rules on consanguity, which seemed to have been completely ignored by royals unless it was convenient to get rid of an unwanted spouse.

[sofiesusi]

Charles having almost every disease as a kid and living through all of them is like the "Task failed successfully" Meme.
It's like his body should have in no way lived though even one of them but because the genes were so broken any virus or bacteria just couldn't kill him

[marianabobadilla]

Juana's "disease" is widely disputed by historians and it is widely believed that it was greatly exaggerated to take her power away from him.

[Replicaate]

I did read once that Charles II was just intelligent enough to know that he was seriously messed up, and that everyone was basically just waiting for him to die. That probably did no favors for him mentally either.

[chestersnap]

You know it's bad when you have to list the _multiple_ familial relationships a husband and wife had before they ever married

[ProfoundKrab]

19:08 “He baffled his physicians by continuing to live.”

Finally, someone else who I can spiritually relate to

[picklesthewise]

My three reactions to this video:
"She was his third cousin-"
Me: Oh, thank god.
"Remarkably, she was outside the bloodline!"
Me: Yes! There we go!
"He next married his niece..."
Me: NO! NOOOO!

These poor damn kids never asked for this nonsense, it's a shame so many of them were too diseased to live, or lived horrible lives.

[sophroniel]

Joanna the "mad" has always struck me as a desperately tragic story. As someone who has struggled with mental illnesses myself, I am well aware that I'm not stupid, just because I'm depressed, and that lack of sleep and loneliness are enough to drive anyone to some pretty wild things they would not normally do. She deserved so much better.

[shugaintech]

I'm from Kazakhstan (the country in Central Asia), and since childhood we are taught to know the name of our 7 ancestors in order to avoid inbreed marriages, because it's strictly prohibited. Personally in my family I know the lineage of both parents, and as I know, we are allowed to get marry above ten ancestors. I studied a little bit and found out that the system was suggested by medical scientist Oteyboydak Tleukabyl uly in XIV century. And it's not muslim thing, because for example some arabs and turkish people marry their cousin. So, if it was well known here in Europe - who knows maybe poor women wouldn't suffer of having stillborn babies and miscarriages so often.

[algini]

8:01 "The queen demanded that the funeral party travel only at night so that no women would see her dearly departed and be overwhelmed with desire for him." This is so bizarrely hilarious that you can almost ignore how deranged it is.

[annesane]

I don’t know if it’s only me but i think that it was really stupid of the court and the nation to blame Marie Louise for not having a child when her husband Charles II was literally the proof of her inability in conceiving a child. It baffles me how even when the husband had many signs of weaknesses and not being able to perform in the bed, the wife was still the one to blame for it all.