The New Murrey and Blue blog

What was the sweating sickness and where did it come from….?

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The general belief is that the dreaded sweating sickness arrived in England along with Henry Tudor and his French army. Maybe it did. Certainly it became rife after Bosworth and he entered London. It was a fearsome disease, worse even than the Black Death, for you could be hale and hearty at breakfast and dead by supper. Sometimes within only two or three hours!

You can read much more about the sweating sickness at this link from which the above illustration is taken.

There is now a book on the subject, and the following small extract is from a review here. —

“The Sweating Sickness Epidemic: Henry VIII’s Great Fear by Stephen Porter tells the story. It traces its march across England, shows its impact on English life, and follows modern scientific studies of what caused the disease and why it disappeared.”

I confess I had no idea Henry VIII was so terrified of the disease.

Anyway, the book is published by Pen & Sword and is available at Amazon. And, I imagine, at many other outlets.

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  1. Anne Ayres Avatar
    Anne Ayres

    Henry’s fear of the Sweating Sickness was referred to quite often in Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” and the sequels…

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  2. Andrea Avatar
    Andrea

    Sweating sickness often proved fatal to young men of the upper class who were well-nourished and living in clean, well-lit quarters. Obviously, it was linked to something in the life style of privileged youth that made them vulnerable. I personally think that it was linked to the sumptuary laws that restricted the wearing of fur to the upper classes. Servants who handled clothing would, therefore, be at risk. I believe it was a hantavirus that was transmitted through contact with furs. When Henry Tudor invaded England, many of his soldiers had come from squalid surroundings and even prisons. The outbreak of sweating sickness first appeared at the time of Henry Tudors arrival. If sweating sickness originated among Tudors troops, the fact Stanley was suffering from at the time of Richard III’s campaign against Henry Tudor indicates that Stanley had contact with Tudor troops before the Battle of Bosworth.

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  3. More about the sweating sickness…. – murreyandblue

    […] What was the sweating sickness and where did it come from….? – murreyandblue […]

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  4. More about the sweating sickness…. – murreyandblue

    […] What was the sweating sickness and where did it come from….? – murreyandblue […]

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