Professor Alice Roberts is helping to rewrite the history books after helping to determine the cause of death of multiple monarchs from over the centuries. The academic, TV presenter and author last year revealed how King Charles II and
Queen Elizabeth I met their ends , with the assistance of practising Home Office Pathologist Dr Brett Lockyer. Through state-of-the-art reconstruction based on contemporaneous medical records, they are back again for the second season of TV series Royal Autopsy, in which they conduct autopsy simulations on each of the monarchs using a blend of prosthetic bodies, actors, toxicology testing and forensic analysis. Their findings, together with Professor Roberts’ interpretation of historical eyewitness accounts, now shed startling new light on the final days of George IV, Mary Tudor, King Henry IV and Queen Anne. Over centuries, some of the causes of death listed for these monarchs have been completely wrong, as with Queen Mary, who was said to have died after gout travelled from her foot to brain. The real cause of her death will be revealed in the second episode. ‘We are not really interested in what various historians have reckoned over the centuries and instead we are going back to those original sources,’ Professor Roberts told Metro.co.uk . ‘It is important to do this because we’ve ended up with very strange diagnoses enshrined in the history books, because that what was written about at the time, but they don’t make any sense today and we are faced with suggested causes of death such as gout travelling to the brain, which doesn’t exist. ‘It’s important to go back and revisit and come up with something more robust and reasonable an explanation.’ Using documents that listed the ailments and symptoms these royals faced throughout their lives and in the lead-up to their deaths, Professor Roberts said it was time to ‘use modern medical science to shed some light on these stories’. The first episode focuses on King George, who ruled the Kingdom of Great
Britain and
Ireland from 1820 until his death a decade later. Although he was responsible for iconic architecture projects like the building of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and remodelling Buckingham Palace, the monarch was largely ridiculed. Living a life of extreme luxury and excess, the morbidly obese King was forced to marry his cousin Caroline of Brunswick after accumulating debts that totalled around £75 million in today’s money. By 1797, his weight had reached 17 stone and his waist later measured 50 inches. He had gout, arteriosclerosis, peripheral edema and possibly porphyria and spent whole days in bed with acute and serious spasms of breathlessness. In the last three years of his life the King became a recluse and was eventually killed by a huge bleed in his stomach, which followed issues with his heart and liver that were caused by a lifetime of excessive drinking. Nostradamus' eerie prediction about King Charles’s reign in 2024 Why King Charles will 'sit apart' from the
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cancer news video King Charles' distant cousin on the run after saying n-word in McDonalds As Lockyer explains in the show, it was a ‘rapid but not nice way to die’. Although the autopsy element of the series might have made some viewers shudder, Professor Roberts said including that helped the show stand out. ‘People absolutely loved it, and we are not shying away from showing it,’ she said. ‘When you see autopsies being represented on television, you don’t actually see anything, but we didn’t want to sanitise it and instead make it as realistic as possible.’ Across the four episodes, the team conclude a cause of death for each monarch. After ‘picking through every single last scrap of evidence’, Professor Roberts said she was hopeful the work done for the show was recognised. ‘Yes, it is entertainment and TV but there is something very serious happening here as well.’ Royal Autopsy returns tonight at 9pm on Sky History. Got a story? If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you. MORE : A scandal is rocking Europe’s most fascinating royal family MORE : Charles urged to end royals’ ‘reticence’ on speaking out over LGBTQ+ inclusion MORE : King Charles greets Royal well-wishers who tell him ‘Happy Easter’ on his return to duties