Talk:Charles II of Spain

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The "John of Austria" who was the illegitimate brother of Carlos II is *not* identical to Don John of Austria.

Contents 1 Charles/Carlos 2 underbite 3 Anglicization of Names 4 Incontinence v Impotence 5 He may well have been incontinent... 6 Testicles 7 Acromegaly 8 Ancestors 9 Inbred Family Tree 10 Yet another image 11 Mentally retarded?

[edit] Charles/Carlos

I added (Carlos) to the title at the head of the article because I got confused when the article started referring to him as "Carlos." Thought a note should be made at the very beginning that Charles = Carlos, but I wasn't quite sure about the best way to do it.

[edit] underbite

Did he have an underbite and was he unable to chew? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.122.44.100 (talk • contribs)

Yes apparently, he had the aptly named "Habsburg jaw". Charles 02:57, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

What about a 'Habsburg Nose'? ArdClose 14:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anglicization of Names

Before the Sixties, it was quite common for the names of famous/notorious foreigners to be Anglicized. However, practice has always been inconsistent and continues to be so--despite the current fads of "ethnic" studies that have waste some much academic time and energy. For example, Wilhelm II Hohenzollern, the last "Kaiser" or Emperor of the German Empire, is sometimes referred to as William II. This, however, invites confusion in the English-speaking world with a number of English monarchs and Dutch monarchs (i.e. of the the House of Orange which still "rules" the Netherlands in the person of Queen Beatrix) who are quite prominent. Additionally, young Prince William of Britian will accede to the British throne as William V in the not-too-distant future.

Essentially, the matter rests with the individual historian. Personally, I find referring to the last Hohenzollern as "William II" to be rather pedantic. The propaganda of WWI has, for better or worse, permanently cemented the use of "Wilhelm II" rather than its anglicization as William. Similarly, while it would be entirely accurate to refer to the greatest Habsburg ruler, Charles I (of Spain) & V (as Holy Roman Emperor), as Carlos Primero, it would be unnecessarily confusing. To the Anglo-Saxon world Charles I brings to mind, firstly, the ill-fated second Stuart monarch. For five hundred years this man has been known as Charles in the English world. Francis I of France is Francois le Premier in French, but, he has been known as Francis so long, to revert to the French spelling would also invite confusion. Few modern historians (say, arbitrarily, those after Gibbon), therefore, have done so.

By extending the principle of strict adherence to the native name to nations whose languages are even more distant from English than Spanish or French, we invite even greater confusion. Peter the Great is Pyotr (Петр) in Russian but few English readers would recognize that and it would be pure pedantry to insist on using the original; the corollary would be referring to Ivan the Terrible as "John" The Terrible, as technically accurate as it would be. Without repetitive and distracting translations, almost no one would know who you were talking about.

In my opinion, the best way to avoid confusion is to use the form most commonly known, (an example of the confusion created by insistance on the use of the native origian would be calling the the third Roman Emperor--commonly known as Caligula--by his proper name Gauis. This is because that was also the name of the great Gaius Julius Caesar). The approach Britannica uses (see: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9108537&query=Peter%20the%20Great&ct=eb) is, to my mind, the best. The subject in this article in indexed according to the anglicized form, while the header of the article gives the "correct" Spanish form. Thus both problems are solved: his "correct" name and his "common" name are both given. Accuracy is maintained, confusion avoided. Therefore, referring to the last Habsburg as Charles II and including the Spanish original is the best way to go, it avoids inelegance as well as confusion with Charles II Stuart of England. PainMan 07:27, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Intellectual snobbery is a vastly more powerful force in the world than Political Correctness. A lot of folks just love to show off their knowledge of foreign languages, and one of the simplest ways of doing it is to call foreigners by their foreign names. Bastie 08:41, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Incontinence v Impotence

He was also impotent and drooled.

are we sure that shouldn't be "incontinent"? it would make more sense in context, i think

YggdrasilsRoot 15:24, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] He may well have been incontinent...

...as well as impotent, but the point is that he was incapable of fathering children. This is hardly surprisingly given his physical and mental infirmities. I've never read that he had bladder control problems. The man was tormented enough by his botched heredity, I certainly hope he wasn't afflicted by incontinence as well as everything else. PainMan 11:49, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Of that we may never be certain, but my opinion is that he was merely sterile. Otherwise, there would have been a bigger scandal and his second wife would not have suffered him either. Rotten Venetic 22:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Testicles

Should the line about his possibly having four testicles really be in here? It's presented as only a rumor (without a source), and it's somewhat of an off-putting one at that. Funnyhat 17:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's especially notable. I won't complain if it is removed. Charles 18:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I also don't think that it is notable, and it is an unsourced rumour. I have removed the text: "Perhaps humorously along this vein, he is rumoured to have had four testicles (although he was sterile)." If someone wants to re-add it, could you please cite a source? --  timc  talk   21:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Acromegaly

I don't think it is strictly accurate to refer to acromegaly as a "bone disease". Acromegaly is a hormonal disorder that has, among its many symptoms, disproportionate growth in certain bony areas. Paroche 00:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ancestors

Added that 4 generation ancestors table that seems to be all the rage in articles about monarchs. I'm presuming one hadn't been added here due to Charles's 'complicated' ancestry Lec CRP1 07:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Charles' mother Maria Anna was niece of Charles' father, being daughter of Maria Ana of Spain (1606-46) and Emperor Ferdinand III. Thus, Empress Maria Anna was simultaneously his aunt and grandmother

If the ancestry of Charles and Maria Anna is true, then I think that Maria Anna is the cousin and mother of Charles and not Aunt and grandmother.Aunt and grandmother is not possible in my mind. Can anyone work out the logistics of it? Charles' mother is his father's sister's daughter is Maria Anna then that is a 1st cousin and mother.

I've drawn a basic family tree of Charles's ancestors to show this:

Note : the two Annes of Bohemia and Hungary, and the two Maria Annes of Spain are different people (though no doubt closely related). Blame the unimaganative naming schemes of European Royalty. Lec CRP1 10:28, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

So I am right. Charles' mother is also his cousin and not his aunt or grandmother. So the article should be changed to mother and cousin from aunt and grandmother.

Your table is wrong - you have shown Maximilian II as being married to "Anne of Bohemia and Hungary," who was actually his mother. In fact, Maximilian II was married to Maria of Spain, daughter of Emperor Charles V and sister of Philip II. (And, of course, Maximilian and Maria were thus first cousins, and Philip II had married his own niece...there was some serious inbreeding going on in that family). john k 17:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, fixed that. You can understand some confusion with Habsburg geneology, though. A proper tree of the Spanish Habsburgs would need some real planning... They're inbred to hell. Which I suppose is what happens when you have two branches of a dynasty to exchange marriage partners between. Makes you wonder how Charles II was the only severely genetically-disabled family member Lec CRP1 18:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, among the Habsburg-Lorraines you have Emperor Ferdinand, who was retarded. his parents were, I believe, double first cousins (Ferdinand's father Franz II's mother, Empress Maria Louisa, was the sister of Ferdinand's mother Maria Theresa's father, King Ferdinand IV of Naples; Franz II's father, Emperor Leopold II, was the brother of Maria Theresa's mother, Queen Maria Caroline.) One would also imagine that the difficulty of the later Habsburgs-proper in producing heirs might have been a result of bad genes and a lot of miscarried monstrosities. john k 01:59, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

You mean like this?

Has a pleasing symmetry but god knows what it did to the gene pool. Still, I thought Ferdinand's disabilities were caused by Hydrocephalus, rather than inheritance? Lec CRP1 08:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Not sure. Hydrocephalus isn't genetic? The real winners on the genetic front were the children of Duke Robert of Parma and his first wife, Maria Pia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies - most of them were mentally retarded. But those two don't seem to be that closely related - only first cousins once removed. Obviously there are more relations than that, but they don't seem nearly as inbred as some. Apparently, at present the most inbred royal family in Europe are the Bourbon-Orleans - and, indeed, the Comte de Paris' eldest son is mentally retarded (or something similar - I'm not quite sure on the exact details). john k 12:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking on that family tree, it seems likely that Ferdinand's 'issues' were more a result of his Spanish Bourbon heritage. Looking at Charles III of Spain and his children (13, only 7 reached adulthood and one of those was an 'imbecile') and his grandson and Ferdinand's father Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor who fathered 13 children also, and also only 7 survived (one was Ferdinand, and another was Maria Anna who I've read was kept locked away). For once, the Habsburgs are seemingly not to blame. The last Habsburg Emperor, Karl I of Austria had 8 children, 4 of whom are still alive aged (IIRC) 87, 88, 92 and 94. The Habsburgs seem to have done some serious treatment of their formerly polluted gene pool. Lec CRP1 16:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the Spanish Bourbons seem too have inherited the Spanish Habsburgs' penchant for inbreeding. That only cleared up when Isabella II started having the children by people other than her husband, which worked wonders. I would concur that the early pollution of the Habsburg-Lorraine genetic pool came largely out of the close alliances with the Spanish/Neapolitan Bourbons, whose genetic problems I am at something of a loss to explain - the Farnese marriage, one might have thought, would have provided a bit of hybrid vigor, and Maria Amalia was not all that closely related to Charles III. I'm not sure what happened for the Habsburg-Lorraines to put them back on the right track. Looking back at the ancestry chain of Archduke Otto, his mother was a Bourbon-Parma, his paternal grandmother was a Saxon princess (wife of Archduke Otto the Elder), and continuing back along the paternal line we have a 2 Sicilies princess (wife of Karl Ludwig), a Bavarian princess (Sophie, Franz Joseph and Karl Ludwig's mother), and then to the aforementioned Maria Theresa of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Sophie of Bavaria would perhaps be the key, as neither the Zweibrücken Wittelsbachs nor the Baden-Durlachs (her mother's family) were very closely related to the Habsburgs. The others were, however, reasonably close relations. Archduke Karl Ludwig and his second wife were second cousins; Archduke Otto the Elder and his wife were also second cousins; Emperor Karl and Zita were 2nd cousins once removed. john k 13:31, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, just started work on my latest grand project - a tree detailing the dynastic links between the Habsburg-Lorraines and Spanish Bourbons. Looking at it after some preliminary work, the tree of Charles II was easy compared to this one. By the looks of things Charles III of Spain and Maria Theresa of Austria must have met at some point to arrange lots of marriages between their children and nephews/neices, with the express purpose of counfounding future amateur geneologists having to draw up family trees. I'll be as mad as a Spanish Habsburg by the time I get it finished... Lec CRP1 21:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Charles' mother Maria Anna was niece of Charles' father Then Charles' mother is his COUSIN! Not Aunt or Grandmother!It is impossible to be aunt/mother/grandmother to the one person. (the above has been written by some anonymous writer)

It seems to me, from the genealogy, that EMPRESS Maria Anna was Charles' aunt and grandmother, simultaneously. Of course, Charles' own mother, also named Maria Anna (or Mariana, the same name in different languages) was not Empress. Marrtel 19:25, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Including birth and death dates may help. Charles 19:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inbred Family Tree

I've done a better version of the image above and put it on the page. It was more difficult than it looks. Lec CRP1 12:19, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The title needs to be changed to something more NPOV and accurate. How about, "Ancestry of Charles II of Spain"? Charles 18:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

POV? I chose that title because Charles *was* unfortunate, in many ways, as the article says. Lec CRP1 20:27, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Maybe* so, but encyclopedias don't title figures as such. At any rate, the title is incorrect. It is his ancestry, not just his Habsburg ancestry. Charles 15:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I have updated the image with the appropriate title. Charles 15:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yet another image

[edit] Mentally retarded?

Can anyone elaborate on this? It isn't given nearly as much ground as it should. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.255.11.143 (talk) 04:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)