The Netflix series The Crown featured numerous scenes, some even quite graphic, about Princess Diana’s bulimia. The same was seen in Spencer (2021), a film that earned Kristen Stewart an Oscar nomination. Rumors of Lady Di’s eating disorder began to circulate in the 1980s, but she only broached the subject later, in a speech addressing the insidious nature of eating disorders, at the BJHM conference in 1993. Two years later , in an interview with the BBC. , the “princess of the people” corroborates her struggle: “I suffered from bulimia for years. It is a secret disease. We inflict it on ourselves because our self-esteem is so low and we feel worthless or useless. We fill our stomachs four or five times a day, sometimes even more, and that gives us a feeling of well-being,” she confessed. According to her biography Diana: Her True Story (1992), Lady Di’s eating disorder, which took nearly a decade to overcome, began a week after her engagement, when Carlos commented that her wife “was chubby girl”.

Mental health does not choose social strata, reaching the entire population, and the court is no exception. Diana’s bulimia confirms it, but not only. It is perhaps no coincidence that Prince William, his wife Kate and his brother Harry have launched the Heads Together campaign, through which they encourage their compatriots to discard prejudice against mental illness. Mental disorders are inscribed in the history of the monarchy, as they always were. These were the most mentally ill kings at court.

King George III of the United Kingdom (1760-1820)

It was night at Windsor Palace when King George III emerged from his chambers wearing nothing but a nightgown, clutching a pillow like a newborn baby. He ran through the corridors and shouted that London was flooded and that the one he was holding was Prince Octavius, who had just been born. The strange scene no longer frightened royal advisers and members of the court. It was unanimous that the kingdom was ruled by a mentally weakened king, who did not react to any kind of treatment. George III underwent aggressive treatments, including incisions in the brain and the use of strong purgatives. The story goes that he was able to speak for 60 hours uninterruptedly and to swallow his food without chewing it, it is said that he couldn’t keep his hands still for even a second and lived wrapped in sheets – he spent about 40 a day. . Shoots began to register after his coronation. Gradually, he began to show difficulty concentrating, swore a lot, and was easily irritated. In 1788, his physician, Richard Warren, declared: “Our king is mad.” Jorge reigned like this, crazy, until his last days, when he was isolated in a wing of the palace.

In 2003, a remarkable exhibition came to light. Hidden in the vaults of a London museum was a piece of paper containing a few strands of hair. The newspaper said: “Hair of the late Majesty of him King George III.” For Professor Martin Warren, this was the clue that would ultimately help him solve the mystery of King George’s illness. The investigation appears in the BBC documentary Medical Mysteries. “King George III is remembered for the episodes in which he lost his temper. But it has been difficult to explain the attacks, he was eager to analyze that hair sample,” Warren said.

When the Harwell International Business Center for Science & Technology in Didcot, Oxfordshire, analyzed the hair, the results were surprising: the hair was loaded with arsenic: it contained more than 300 times its toxic level. “This is a level that is way above anything we could have expected, it took us completely by surprise,” he concludes.

King Henry VI of England (1422-1461)

According to The History of Bethlem (1997), contemporary reactions to the mentally ill in the fifteenth century included the belief that “insanity was a punishment inflicted by God for one’s mistake.” Considering that Henry VI was an avid supporter of peace, and evidently religious, this was a trial that did not suit him. But at the time, there was no other explanation. Another theory held that Henry was being punished for the sins of his family.

The UK mental health organisation, Mind, points to, in addition to genetics, the many stressful events in that king’s life as the main triggers of his schizophrenia. Among them, losing much of France and having to face an internal rebellion. To make matters worse, both his grandfather and great-grandmother suffered from similar delusions: Charles VI, King of France and also known by the nickname “the madman”, believed that he was made of glass and could break at any moment, while his great-grandmother Joanne he had “visions”. Thus, and according to biological factors, schizophrenia was identified as the main cause of the king’s disorders. Since the disease was never discovered, he was not treated. The official story is that Henry died of “melancholy” while imprisoned in the Tower of London in May 1471.