What Really Happened When an English King Went Mad?

Every mad English king, explained: in 1453 Henry VI stopped speaking for seventeen months — and England kept running without him. So who actually decided when a king of England was mad? Never the doctors. It was always the lords around the throne. This animated history follows six centuries of English kings judged unfit by the people who bowed to them every morning: Edward II and his favourite Piers Gaveston, the boy king Richard II and the Peasants' Revolt, the silent Henry VI and the Wars of the Roses, Henry VIII's jousting fall, James I and the North Berwick witch trials, Charles I and his two shirts, George III and the arsenic in his medicine, and George IV, who told his dinner guests he had led a charge at Waterloo — in front of the Duke of Wellington. Chapters: 0:00 Henry VI, the king who stopped speaking 1:06 Edward II and his favourite 2:18 Richard II, the boy king 4:14 Henry VI and the silent year 5:43 Henry VIII and the jousting fall 6:53 James I and the witches 7:58 Charles I and the two shirts 8:40 George III and the poisoned medicine 11:20 George IV and Waterloo 13:08 Who decides when a king is mad Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica and standard biographies (Seymour Phillips, "Edward II"; Nigel Saul, "Richard II"; Bertram Wolffe, "Henry VI"; J. J. Scarisbrick, "Henry VIII"; Andrew Roberts, "The Last King of America"). The 2005 hair analysis of George III (Cox, Jack et al., The Lancet) for the arsenic findings; Wellington's remark about George IV's Waterloo story as recorded by his contemporaries. The Regency Act 1937 for the modern rules. The oak tree story about George III is a later legend and is presented as such; causes of death for Edward II and Richard II are disputed and presented as such. #EnglishHistory #militaryhistory #SketchyWarfare #EnglishKings #GeorgeIII #HenryVIII #HenryVI #WarsOfTheRoses #CharlesI #Wellington #HistoryExplained #AnimatedHistory #BritishMonarchy #MadKings #History