The above gentlemen have the infamous Habsburg chin on full display. It means they are definitely not going to win a World’s Handsomest Man competition any time soon. Their chins and general looks are the result of generations of inbreeding, the aim being to keep the royal blood pure.
Well, there’s pure and there’s downright adulterated, and I fear that the latter variety is what did for the Habsburgs. The ever dwindling gene pool rendered some of them pathetically deformed and infertile. When it came to marrying their nearest and dearest, they were on a par with the Ptolemys and other pharaonic dynasties of Ancient Egypt, and they were certainly given to “keeping it in the family”.
Given all these actual sexual misdeeds by generations of historical ruling families, I find it incredible that a LIE about poor old Richard III considering marriage to his niece, Elizabeth of York, has everyone throwing up their hands in horror, reaching for the garlic and the nearest wooden stake. IT WASN’T TRUE, people! Richard was arranging royal Portuguese marriages for Elizabeth and for himself. The thought of incest appalled him, yet he was still forced to publicly deny it. It just isn’t correct that sticks and stones can break bones but names can never hurt anyone. Words certainly hurt Richard, and they still hound him to this day.
And what do we hear about the Habsburgs and Ptolemys et al? A few knowing tut-tuts (not Tut-Tuts…sorry) and that’s it. Does anyone try to verbally crucify them? No. But the mere thought of Richard III seems to goad them like red-hot pokers up the—um, er, pins in the arm.
Can we blame the Tudors for this merciless battering of a good man’s honour and reputation? Well, their spin machine could have run the show in today’s ruthless world, let alone the 16th century!
So let’s consider the Tudors. No, I’m not going to suddenly claim they committed incest (there was, of course, the jiggery-pokery about Catherine of Aragon being the wife of both Arthur and Henry Tudor Mark II). But it’s been pointed out to me that “it was once thought that Henry VIII’s illegitimate son was looking for a dispensation to marry his half-sister [Mary]”. Really? Um (picture my hand cupped to ear) helloooo? Historians? Where are you? Why aren’t you giving his chap the Richard III Treatment? Oh, but of course….he may be on the wrong side of the blanket, but he’s still a Tudor. So he can be forgiven everything. And if it’s untrue about him anyway, stand up with your megaphones and start shouting the odds!
You won’t, you hypocrites, because he’s not Richard III. Bah!
To read more about the Habsburgs and their inbreeding tendencies, go to this site and this one. An article about the pharaohs and incest can be found here. There are many more such sites too.
And the story of Henry Fitzroy potentially being married to his half-sister Princess Mary isn’t a new one. You can read about it here.
murreyandblue 
I don’t understand why so many people think the Tudors were wonderful, so many name their favourite historical figure as Henry Vlll. Why?
Henry Vlll was a vile murderer, and killed thousands of people, so what is there to idolise about that? Not me, I favour a man who was noble and true, who loved his wife and son and who wanted the very best for his people and his kingdom. Why would anyone choose Henry Vlll over Richard lll? I don’t know and like I said, I really don’t get it. Maybe people being so fickle think they’re better off with a monster rather than a decent human being. I say they’re wrong.
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Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive of the Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire once remarked “We all marry someone who is our cousin many times over. The result is that half of the children born are either epileptics or imbeciles.”
He, very famously, married someone of noble but not royal blood and whose children would not have succeeded him on the throne if his assassination (and his wife’s) had not started the First World War which ended the Empire. But all three of his children were healthy.
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UTubing the Hapsburg (& some other( dynasties, I was amazed by the number of double cousins marrying. “Double cousins” occur when, say, the Smith siblings marry the Jones sibs. Their children will be legally first cousins, but genetically the same as siblings. Give the 15-16th century royals the benefit of the doubt, though; they were pre-Mendel.
Carrying on with an in-law had no genetic effect, unless the parties were closely related otherwise, but it might be frowned on for other reasons.
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