EPISODE · Jun 12, 2026 · 1H 8M
The Mad King Charles
from The Fevered Past · host WatchtowerLabs
Patreon Link: https://www.patreon.com/TheFeveredPastIn 1392, the King of France rode out of a forest near Le Mans, killed four of his own knights, and had to be wrestled to the ground by his uncle. He was twenty-three. He had been on the throne for twelve years. He would remain on it for another thirty.Charles VI of France, called the Beloved by his people and the Mad by history, suffered the first documented episode of what would become a lifelong illness in that forest. There would be more than forty further attacks over the next three decades. He would, at various points, fail to recognize his own wife, refuse to bathe for months, and run through the corridors of his palace howling like a wolf. He would also, famously, become convinced for a period that he was made of glass — and have iron rods sewn into his clothing to prevent himself from shattering.The court physicians of medieval France could do nothing for him. Six hundred years of subsequent diagnosis has only recently done much better.
What this episode covers
Patreon Link: https://www.patreon.com/TheFeveredPastIn 1392, the King of France rode out of a forest near Le Mans, killed four of his own knights, and had to be wrestled to the ground by his uncle. He was twenty-three. He had been on the throne for twelve years. He would remain on it for another thirty.Charles VI of France, called the Beloved by his people and the Mad by history, suffered the first documented episode of what would become a lifelong illness in that forest. There would be more than forty further attacks over the next three decades. He would, at various points, fail to recognize his own wife, refuse to bathe for months, and run through the corridors of his palace howling like a wolf. He would also, famously, become convinced for a period that he was made of glass — and have iron rods sewn into his clothing to prevent himself from shattering.The court physicians of medieval France could do nothing for him. Six hundred years of subsequent diagnosis has only recently done much better.
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The Mad King Charles
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