Incomplete Prescription: Maladies and Medicine in The Tudors

Issues of health and well-being factor frequently in Showtime’s series about the Tudors or, more correctly, about Henry VIII.As written by Michael Hirst with historical consultation from Justin Pollard, blood, gore, and pestilence dominate several episodes in the four seasons of The Tudors,but there are as many sins of omission in the medical narrative as sins of commission. The real Henry—played onscreen by Jonathan Rhys Meyers—performed an active role in establishing a regulated profession ofhealers, encompassing both elite doctors and barber-surgeons, thereby influencing the course of medicine in the kingdom for generations to come. The king used the services of several university-trained physicians, some of whom figured prominently in his administration, and generally followed their advice.At the same time, the monarch relied on the ancient belief in a “royal touch: to bolster his own authenticity as God’s chosen ruler and—like many who worried about sickness incapacitating them and their families—heself-prescribed from a cabinet full of folk medicines.1