- or to be a King of Britain - but it doesn't seem to count much against you either. Here's a quick list of some of the more prominent of England's madder monarchs.

1) Edward II - well , it depends what you mean by madness, but Edward showed near insanity in the way he handled - well, pretty much everything after becoming king. His alleged homosexuality, or perhaps bisexuality is no sign of madness whatsoever, however his promotion of his favourites against the wishes of the whole sourt, and in particular his resourceful wifeshows frankly that he was not all there, as the saying goes.

2) Edward III - interesting this one. Premature senility, according to contemporary reports. He became king following the deposition of his father Eward II, and was , until his majority, the puppet of hs mother, Isabella, and her lover , Roger (!)Mortimer.A well known story has it that , on the King's death, his lover, Alice Perrers, proceeded to steal the rings off his corpse.

3)Richard II - again, depends on how you define insanity. A messiah complex, and megalomania seem pretty conclusive to me. Poor boy. Coming to the throne when he was little more than an embryo - alright, a little exaggeration here - but he knew littel else than a time when he was king. In only his teens, Richard's quick thinking and bravery proved the decisive act in the Peasants Revolt. No wonder he thoguht he was something special. If you look at the Wilton Diptych you can see what I mean about the messiah complex. On one side of the diptych we have Richard, in finery, kneeling, in the company of Edward the Confessor, and St. Edmund ( the martyred Anglo Saxon king of East Anglia ) and opn the other side, a benevolent Virgin Mary, with attendant angels, who is holding the White Hart, Richard's heeraldic symbol. There's not much doubt about how Richard saw himeslf in this. Arguably , Richard's sense of his own divine right and pre ordained destiny led to him behaving so despotically in the last years of his reign, leading to his deposition by Henry Bolingbroke.

3) Henry VI - not so much controversy about this one. Modern theory has it that Henry suffered from clinical depression. Interestingly, Henry was also a minor when he came to the throne, only a few weeks old.Do we see a link coming here ? King as a kid, guaranteed fruitcake.

4) Henry VII - there is a school of thought that , in the last years of his life, Henry showed signs of madness, and this is reflected in his exceptional greed in the last years of his reign, and his remarkable plan to marry KAtherine of Aragon himself, after the death of Arthur, his eldest son, which only the most strenuous efforts of all of his advisors was able to prevent.


Following the Tudors, the throne of england was inherited by the Stuarts, the Kings of Scotland, and descendants of Henry VII through his daughter Margaret. Modern historians believe that the genetic disease porphyria came into the english royal line through the Stewarts. Mary Queen of Scots herself has been diagnosed as a potential sufferer

5) James Ist and VI of Scotland - or the wisest fool in Christendom. James was prone to bouts of uncontrollable rage during his life - hence his well documented outburst at the Hampton Court Conference. He too was another King with distinctly homosexual tendencies . This of course is no sign of madness at all, I hasten to add. However, the way that he flaunted this in the court, and promoted a man such as robert Carr to influence speaks of a lack of judgement at the very least. Allegedly James' head was far too big for his body, and he was prone to drooling.

6) Queen Anne. - Although you can make out a case for either of the Charles, or for James II, let us just say that they had their own particular obsessions - which were, respectively, the Divine Right of Kings, extra marital sex, and Roman Catholicism. However, as for James' daughter Queen Anne, well, she was barking. 14 pregnancies. Only one child survived to the age of 7, and then he died too. This is all put down to porphyria. Anne is alleged to have had lesbian tendencies- certainly the great friend of her early years as queen, Sarah Chuchill, Duchess of Marlborough thought so - but then she could be a very nasty person when she wanted to be. No proof of madness in this anyway. However the queen suffered from serious physical and mental illness for most of her reign, according to even contemporary writers.

7)King George III - is the most famous, and probably the most sympathetic of our list of mad monarchs. Actually, the whole house of Hanover had a reputation for being, as we Brits would say, a sandwich short of a picnic. His great grandfather, George I, kept a string of mistresses. Having found his wife, Sophia Dorothea to be unfaithful, he divoced her, then locked her away in one of his castles for the rest of his life. Then he went back to his mistresses, never quite getting round to learning English, despite being King of the country. George II was a wildly eccentric man. According to one source, he hid behind a screen in his daughter's bedroom on her wedding night, so that he would watch the proceedings.
As for George III, there's probably enough evidence for a medical diagnosis of porphyria to be generally accepted. If the disease, which can be excruciatingly painful and debilitating, hadn't been enough to drive him mad, the treatments would have probably finished the job. Those of you who have seen the film can rest assured that nothing in it is exaggerated. He was bled, given blisters, purged by laxatives, and strapped into a special chair which bound legs, arms, neck , and mouth, for hours at a time. George had several attacks of dementia. The final one, from which he never recovered, began in 1810/11, following the death of his favourite daughter , Princess Amelia. So the rumour mill would have it, Amelia died giving birth to the illegitimate child of a member of George's household. George never regained his wits, and apparently became blind as well, living out the last 9 years of his life in a virtual prison sentence in the gloom of Windsor.

8) Kng George IV - a theory currently gaining ground is that George also suffered from Porphyria, although not as severely as his father. Certainly there were times during the Prince's life when he was struck by an unidentified condition, which led the over dramatic prince to tell all around him that he was dying. Some have put his sexual behaviour , and wilfulness down to this as well. of course, it might just have been that he was a spoiled brat.

9) Victoria and the Windsors
At the risk of getting carted off to the Tower - Victoria wasn't mad, and prided herself on being compos mentis past the 60th year of her reign. HOWEVER - porphyria has been passed on into the Windsors. The elder brother of the current Duke of Gloucester, who died in a plane crash was a sufferer, as may have been prince john, youngest son of king George V. Note, porphyria and madness, or dementia are not one and the same thing. Madness is just one potential result of one type of porphyria.

Victoria, though, did engage in bouts of behaviour which caused Prince Albert to confide in his diary that he feared that she might well be going the same way as her grandfather. She had a hell of a temper, apparently. Also, if you look at her life, you can see that she had the high sex drive ( even her bowdlerised papers make this quite plain) and the inability to get on well with her eldest son which are quite typical of all of the Hanoverians.

This unreasonable temper seems to be a trait which has been passed down the Windsor line. George V was proud of the fact,
"I was terrified of my father, and I'm damned sure that my children will be terrified of me." - or words to that effect, and his bullying ways possibly led to his son, George VI's very pronounced stutter. George VI - by repurtation a most mild and reasonable of men, was givent o irrational bouts of massive rage, or gnashes - a trait which apparently his grandson, Prince Charles shares.