‘A BOY WITH BAD TEETH’

Born in 1435 to an armourer, the boy’s father worked his way up from a humble blacksmith’s apprentice to specialise in making swords for King James.

The family could afford to buy wheat bread, wine and good meat, but the boy was sickly as a child and his mother was fretful and overprotective of her first-born. She tried to feed him up with large bowls of porridge.

His father was determined that the boy should follow him into the armoury trade and took him as an apprentice from the age of 12, although the boy did not take to the work well and preferred to spend his time reading instead.

As he reached his teens he began to experience growing problems with his teeth, which were caused by the soft mulch of the porridge he was still fond of. He suffered toothache for months, prompting his mother to try to use oil of cloves to dull the pain.

He even tried burning a candle close to the tooth so that the “worm” which was said to cause the pain by gnawing at the tooth would fall out.

He tried to chew on the other side of his mouth, but eating became increasingly difficult, with porridge and beer the only things that he could manage. Eventually the pain got so bad that his face began to swell on one side, he became feverish and began to have trouble breathing and swallowing.

The infection spread through his system and he weakened quickly, passing away at the age of just 15.