Portrait Lives: Charles II of Spain

The King Charles II of Spain was born into his ancestral inbreeding. His closely related parents had celebrated his birth and certainly had not expected that Charles was going to be called 'bewitched' by his contemporaries. Maybe he was labeled this because of the physical and mental disabilities he was tortured by. He wasn't able to walk well until he was over nine and fought off countless diseases as he did. He also experienced many seizures throughout his lifetime.
Charles tried but he couldn't change those many developmental issues he had, neither could he his appearance which was supposed to be so 'ugly as to cause fear'. Without any heirs when he died he ended the Spanish Habsburg dynasty.

" The worst thing a man can encounter is something he can't control." ---anonymous

Charles Ready to Take Over the World at aged  about four by anonymous

Charles on a Rocking Horse aged abt.10 by S. Barnuevo

aged 14 by de Miranda

all dressed up with no place to  go aged 16 by de Mirand

aged 24 by de Miranda

aged 24 by de Miranda

Swelling? at aged abt. 37

 On 1 November 1700, just a few years less than forty he died, caused by his health condition decreasing when he was given a religious remedy to cure his impotence.



Every Wednesday Portrait Lives will now be posted!

Sources:

CHARLES II: FROM SPELL TO GENITOURINARY PATHOLOGY by
Ángel García-Escudero López, A. Arruza Echevarría, J. Padilla Nieva and R. Puig Giró
http://scielo.isciii.es/pdf/urol/v62n3/en_02.pdf 

Check out 

The Fall of the House of Habsburg by Edward Crankshaw!

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