An Apology to the Ugly
Charles II of Spain
From the curves of Venus to the delicateness of Empress Sisi, we humans have been for centuries now, enchanted by beauty. We’ve turned beautiful people into icons, making them symbols of prestige, power or perfection. Beauty is a currency, a catalyst for destruction and a timeless obsession.
But what about ugliness? What about those who were, in a way, cursed by bad luck, hated, repulsed and even ostracized by society? Why must they suffer because of something that they had no control over? We both already know the answer to that, but how unfair is it.
I've always been fascinated by those who are remembered in history as "ugly." Not just for their physical uniqueness but also for how complex the social construct of ugliness is, how it has been built and evolved through time. On one side, we have those who turned this ugliness to their advantage, Socrates or Danton, for example, who used their appearance to draw attention from crowds. On the other, there are those who were victims of their ugliness, suffering their whole lives because of it. Such is the case for Charles II, King of Spain.
I’ve always felt a certain sadness for him, not only because of how he was treated during his life, but also because of how he’s remembered today. People reduce him to the “imbecile who ruined his country” or a grotesque example of inbreeding at its worst. Today, I want to make you remember that he was more than the product of this so called shame but also a man, a king, living a life he never asked for, under circumstances most of us could never endure.
A prominent jaw, a heavy lower lip that seemed to always hang, and eyes that appeared tired and sunken, this is a face that I believe many of you have seen. Charles II is not a face you can forget easily. His face will be remembered in history as a symbol of decline, failure, and shame.
Born in 1661, he was described as a big-headed, sickly child. He breastfed until the age of four and only began walking at six. His heavy physical and cognitive delays made him the subject of court gossip and ridicule, he was called El Hechizado, the Bewitched.
The Spanish Habsburgs were so obsessed on preserving their royal blood, that their family tree was abnormally empty. Generations and generations of inbreeding reduced the once-mighty dynasty to a feeble and fragile descendance culminating in Charles II, the final, tragic king.
Charles’ mother was also his first cousin, and his father, his great-uncle. His grandmother doubled as his aunt. His entire genetic legacy traced back to a single couple, Philip I of Castile and Joanna of Castile, who lived over 150 years before his birth, they were his 6th grandparents. Where he had 2 ancestors, people usually have 64…
Throughout his life, Charles II suffered from many physical and physiological problems. He was always sick, had weak muscles, and was chronically tired. He likely had an intellectual disability, suffered from kidney failure, and experienced epileptic seizures. He was also infertile and impotent. Some mentioned that his jaw was so pronounced that his teeth could not even meet, preventing him from chewing and forcing him to swallow his food whole.
Throughout his life, his family made every effort to hide his deformities from the world. His portraits were undoubtedly heavily euphemized, concealing as much as possible any signs of his condition in order to project the image of a strong, unyielding Spanish crown. Sadly for them, it didn’t fool anyone.
When visiting the Spanish court, the French ambassador, Marquis Harcourt, wrote to Louis XIV :
"He is so weak that he cannot be out of bed for more than one or two hours"
"he must always be aided when getting into or out of his carriage"
"he has swollen feet, legs, abdomen, face and sometimes even his tongue so that he cannot speak"
Despite his frailty, he surprisingly lived to 38. He ruled in name for nearly 35 years in a court that mocked him, even as they relied on his authority. A king reduced, in many ways, to a pawn, exploited by those around him and burdened by a crown he could never fully wield. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he was, in every way, incapable.
I think what is even more ugly that his appearance is the relentless dehumanization he endured. His life was a series of insults to his dignity. Some claimed his intellectual disability meant he wasn’t always aware of it, but I would argue that Charles felt everything. Intellectual disability is far more complex than that. Near death, he confessed the following :
Ya no soy nada
I am nothing now
The fact that one of the most powerful men of his time was would think that of himself proves the injustices tied to his physical deformity. He wasn’t seen as a human being but as something to be ashamed of, a monster.
Even in death, he was denied the mere dignity of resting in peace. The court exhumed his body and performed an autopsy. The autopsy, marked by cruelty and heavy exaggeration, revealed the following:
[he had] a very small heart of the size of a grain of pepper, the lungs corroded, the intestines putrefactive and gangrenous, in the kidney three large stones, a single testicle as black as coal, and his head full of water
Yes, I’m sure fascinating medical observations were made from Charles II’s corpse. In fact, this is precisely how many discoveries were made in the Middle Ages and even before that. But one would never open up none other than the King of Spain without an excellent reason to do so, and certainly not just for the fun of doing a dissection.
Charles II was not ugly, those around him were. They mocked his deformities, whispered of curses. His body bore the sins of his ancestors, and his legacy reflects the ugliness of our obsession with perfection.
The monster is the one who cannot conform to society’s image, and yet, they are sometimes the most human of all.
– Guillermo del Toro
That poor man. Thank you for writing a piece that humanizes him. And unfortunately people today continue to judge one another on similar things- if not on deformities, then on weight, or what their face looks like, or their skin color. No one in the world “is ugly” - they make themselves ugly.
This is a really great post. Thank you for sharing Charles II in a new light. I agree completely. I also wonder if it ever dawned on the Hapsburgs that their inbreeding could be causing these issues.