Vial deeds
TRACY BORMAN is enthralled by a dark journey through the history of poisoning in Europe’s royal courts
The Royal Art of Poison: Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicines and Murder Most Foul by Eleanor Herman Duckworth, 320 pages, £14.99
In July 1553, a 15-yearold boy lay dying at Greenwich. His emaciated body was covered with scabs and sores, his hair had fallen out in clumps and his fingernails and toenails had turned black. Barely able to breathe, he coughed up mucus that one eyewitness described as “sometimes coloured a greenish yellow and black, sometimes pink, like the colour of blood”. When the poor wretch died on the sixth of that month, the London clothier Henry Machyn noted that he “was poisoned, as everybody says”. The boy was Edward VI, king of England.
The agonising death of Henry VIII’s “precious jewel” had all the hallmarks of a classic poisoning case. He had been racked by pain and vomited frequently. Little wonder that many of his subjects suspected foul play. In fact, Edward almost certainly had tuberculosis, a disease that was rampant at the time.
Rumours of poison often attended a royal death, particularly one involving someone so young. As Eleanor Herman proves in this fascinating book, many other high-profile figures were thought to have met their ends as a result of a toxic substance administered by sleight of hand. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that enormous trouble was taken to test anything that touched the royal lips – or posterior. Servants tasted their masters’ food, tried on their undergarments and even tested their chamber pots.
It is ironic that, in a society obsessed with the idea of poison, many people imbibed it with unknowing alacrity in the form of medicine, cosmetics and living conditions. Elizabeth I liberally plastered her face, neck and hands with white lead every day in order to attain the ethereal, pale-faced beauty that was favoured at the time. Many other women followed suit, while men smeared faeces on their bald spots. Some of the most lethal potions were administered by physicians and apothecaries: arsenic skin cream, mercury enemas and drinks of lead filings.
The author’s fascination with the subject is infectious. Her painstaking research has included scientific papers on the exhumation of royal bodies, a plethora of Renaissance beauty bibles and even accounts of 16th-century autopsies and embalming. With barely concealed relish, she takes the reader on a darkly absorbing journey through the princely courts of Europe, tracing the history of poisoning – both deliberate and accidental.
The first part of the book considers the various forms of poison and their perceived antidotes and detectors, including diamonds and unicorn horns. Herman then applies modern scientific analysis to a host of royal poisoning cases, which reads like a who’s who of medieval and early modern Europe: from Ivan the Terrible to Mozart and Napoleon. Perhaps most disturbing, though, is the final part of the book, which brings the story right up to date by exploring how poison is still used as a tool for political assassination.
Endlessly fascinating and beautifully crafted, this is not a book for the faint of heart – or stomach.