The medical condition that may have turned an English king into a serial killer

He is widely considered to be England's most bloodthirsty ruler with his insatiable appetite for murder. King Henry VIII killed up to 70,000 people during his 36 year turbulent reign over England, famously including two wives and various previously trusted friends, aides and relatives.

But was the terrible Tudor monarch a "pampered resentful little boy" who became "a psychopathic sadist", or a weary middle-aged man suffering from a chronic brain disorder brought on by repeated head injuries?

That's the question experts will attempt to answer in the first of a new six-part TV documentary, Killer Kings, starting tonight on Sky History.

Henry's grim death toll surpasses ruthless Roman emperors, terrible Russian Tsars and Biblical baby killers. However the ground-breaking true crime documentary series argues that his brutal actions don't paint the full picture of a complicated and ultimately tragic man.

It explores how the troubled king's repeated brain injuries and a little known genetic condition may explain his increasingly tyrannical and erratic behaviour in later life.

"It is estimated Henry killed tens of thousands of people during his reign by burning, boiling, stretching, crushing or decapitating them. He was a bloated, blood-thirsty temperamental wife killer," explains Tudor historian Dr Elizabeth Norton.

"When he becomes King in 1509 aged 17, he is young, he is good looking and he is sporty but early on in his reign there are hints at ruthlessness. He has his father's servants executed. These are judicial murders but are they just a fledgling king flexing his muscles?"

Dr Donna Youngs, an investigative psychologist, believes the answers to Henry's murderous tendencies began in his childhood when the "resentful spare to the heir" is brought up in a separate household to his older brother Arthur.

"Henry is brought up in a very female environment, he is pampered, he is cosseted," says Dr Youngs, associate director of the International Research Centre for Investigative Psychology at the University of Huddersfield. "He is a beautiful young boy who is over familiar with women and becomes contemptuous of them."

But in 1502 when Arthur dies of the sweating sickness, Henry, then aged 10, finds himself heir to the throne. Seven years later his father Henry VII dies of tuberculosis and the teenage tearaway suddenly finds himself King of England.

"He is brought up in the shadow of Arthur and there is this festering resentment. Then he steps into his shoes as monarch," says Dr Youngs.

But Kyra Kramer, a medieval anthropologist and American academic living in Wales, believes the young Henry was a completely different character to the killer king of his later years. "He was a polymath, who spoke several languages, and could hold his own with the intellectuals of the day demonstrating great mental acuity. He was like a Hollywood actor, 6ft 2ins, young and energetic but there was brains behind the brawn. He was smart and he could hold his own with the likes of Erasmus and Sir Thomas More."

After marrying his brother's widow Catherine of Aragon, Henry came under increasing pressure as the only surviving Tudor to produce a male heir. Instead he fathered a daughter, Mary, and began to tire of his wife especially after her lady-in-waiting Anne Boleyn caught his eye. A lengthy courtship of Anne followed during which she refused to become his mistress.

A besotted Henry broke with the Catholic Church in Rome and made himself head of the Church of England in order to marry Anne. During the English Reformation, Henry oversaw the execution of hundreds of monks and heretics. Those who didn't align with his religious policies, like the monks were hung, drawn and quartered and their hearts cut out of their chests while they were still alive.

Following their deaths Henry ordered their heads be placed on spears as trophies to warn other dissenters.Dr Youngs says: "The sadism involved in this act is beyond comprehension."

During one of the most turbulent periods in English history, any clergy, nobles or ordinary citizens that took part in the many uprisings and protests up and down the country were executed on Henry's orders.
Victims of his terrifying reign, who were either executed by him or killed in his name, fell into three principal categories - Heresy, Treason and Denial of his Royal Supremacy as Head of the English Church. But the killer king did not stop there. Even his most trusted and relied upon advisors and allies were not safe. They included mentor and Lord Chancellor Thomas More and Bishop Fisher of Rochester who were both executed for failing to recognise Henry's marriage to Anne. Eventually even his loyal right-hand man Thomas Cromwell was killed, beheaded at Tower Hill, and his head displayed on London Bridge after being accused by the increasingly paranoid and brutal king of treason and heresy.

However some historians argue it was the jousting accident Henry suffered at Greenwich in January 1536 that caused the aggressive behavioural changes in him that led to his later killings. During that fateful joust Henry was knocked off his horse unconscious and was out cold for two whole hours.

Even before the 1536 incident, Henry had already endured several other head injuries including one he suffered while jousting after he had forgotten to put his visor down in 1524. He endured another while attempting to pole-vault over a brook.

Anne was so distressed by Henry's accident that she miscarried their unborn son having previously borne him another daughter, Elizabeth.

"The monarch rages against those around him but we must consider what has triggered this ever increasing paranoia and irritability," says Kramer. "He used to be patient in debate. He is not the person he was before. His behaviour changed so drastically after that jousting accident. There is widespread support that he had a frontal lobe injury that changed his personality and contributed to his mental deterioration."

Dr Young agrees, adding "his spoiled psychopathic tendencies come to the fore, his manner becomes more unsophisticated and barbaric".

Frustrated with Anne for failing to give him a son Henry eventually accused her and her brother George Boleyn of treason and adultery with each other. They were found guilty leading to their executions by beheading on May 15 and 19, 1536, respectively.

The programme suggests that by the time Henry has Anne and George executed he is already suffering from CTE - chronic traumatic encephalopathy - a brain disorder caused by repeated head injuries.

Kramer indicates his violent tendencies may also have been triggered by McLeod Syndrome, a genetic disorder in midlife that triggers personality changes. This is based on the theory that he was Kell positive, an antigen carried in the blood of people with the syndrome, which could explain his impaired fertility, mental decline, and other health issues. However Dr Youngs is less sympathetic, arguing that Henry "shows a disproportionate level of violence that is the key mark of a psychopath".

Have the experts reached an agreed verdict? Not yet, but at least no one risks losing their head over it.

*Killer Kings starts tonight at 9pm on Sky History.