Fascinating Story
Was Prince Albert Killed By Crohns Disease?
by Rebecca English
His sudden death 150 years ago this week propelled his adoring wife, Queen Victoria, into life-long mourning.
And until now it had always been thought that Prince Albert’s unexpected passing on December 14, 1861 - at the age of just 42 - had been caused by a virulent bout of typhoid fever.
Now an acclaimed historian, who has spent the last three years researching the death of the Prince Consort, believes he actually succumbed to a very modern affliction – Crohn’s Disease.
Crohn’s is a serious – and sometimes fatal - form of inflammatory bowel disease that today affects one in 500 people.
While the exact cause is unknown, the condition is linked to a problem with the body’s immune system response.
A person’s genes and environmental factors seem to play a role in the development of Crohn’s disease, but it usually occurs in people between ages 15 - 35.
Symptoms can come in waves and include debilitating and crampy abdominal pain, fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, chronic diarrhoea, liver inflammation and weight loss.
So were the Royal Family simply mistaken about Albert’s death or was there a cover up?
According to author Helen Rappaport - who has been given unrivalled access to contemporary records including both Albert and Victoria’s private letters, the Royal Archives and records of the Royal Household – the Queen’s husband had been chronically sick on and off all his adult life and suffered from long-standing gastric problems.
This was never verified by doctors after his death, however, as grieving Victoria refused to allow a post-mortem to be carried out on her beloved husband.
So Rappaport took her findings, contained in a detailed 14-page medical dossier, to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where Dr Chris Conlon, consultant in infectious diseases including typhoid, and Dr Simon Travis, consultant in gastroenterology, examined them in detail.
Having looked at the evidence, both doctors dismissed typhoid fever and cancer as possible causes of death and concluded the evidence for Crohn’s looked very strong.
They pointed out that there are a number of similarities between the symptoms displayed by those suffering from typhoid fever and Crohn’s disease, including fever and severe abdominal pain, which may have accounted for confusion at the time.
The hospital will be holding a seminar into the issue entitled ‘What Killed Prince Albert?”’ next month.
The author then went to a Crohn’s specialist in Belgium, Philippe van Hootegem of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Leuven.
In his written reply, he says: ‘You were able to collect from letters and diaries a lot of details concerning the health problems of the Prince. These data clearly demonstrate the presence of a chronic condition with several years of intermittent episodes of symptoms such as fatigue, abdominal cramps, inability to eat for several days, attacks of diarrhoea etc… leading eventually to a more serious situation of acute illness with rapid deterioration and death at the age of 42.
‘A chronic inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn’s disease could certainly explain a lot of the symptoms, with episodes of intestinal (sub-)obstruction, diarrhoea, also the “rheumatic” joint symptoms … and finally a complication such as a bowel perforation and sepsis leading rather quickly to the lethal outcome.
‘The hypothesis of Prince Albert suffering from Crohn’s disease looks very attractive and seems to be more likely than the “official” cause of death : typhoid fever.’
In the last weeks of his life, Albert suffered from terrible muscular pains and insomnia.
A visit to the new Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in the pouring rain added to his woes, as did highly emotional a meeting at Cambridge two days later with his son, Bertie, the future King Edward V11, over his scandalous affair with a young actress, Nellie Clifden.
He returned to Windsor tired, emotional and in enormous pain where doctors made their diagnosis of typhoid fever.
He died at 10.50 p.m. on December 14, 1861 in the castle’s Blue Room in the presence of the inconsolable Queen and five of their nine children.
Fortunately bowel conditions such as Crohn’s, which were a mystery to earlier science, are treatable today thanks to advances in modern medicine.
But Miss Rappaport hopes her new findings, outlined in her book, Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy, [must keep in] will add to our knowledge of his ‘highly underrated man’.
She said: ‘“Crohn’s disease doesn’t necessarily kill people, but there is a direct correlation between stress and flare-ups.
‘All the anxiety and stress about Bertie and politics seem likely to have caused a major flare-up.
‘Crohn’s disease was a totally unknown condition in the Victorian period, so the doctors had nothing to go on. And of course they were desperate for a diagnosis.
‘What actually killed him though, in the last few days, was what killed so many people at the time, especially when weakened by illness: congestion of the lungs and pneumonia.
‘It’s time this highly underrated man was given the credit he’s due. Prince Albert was King in all but name, and had been for many years before 1861.
‘But ironically, his sudden death was the making of Victoria as a Queen.
‘Although it took her many years, she did recover from his death, went on to lead the nation and Empire and set her seal on a whole generation.’
by Rebecca English
His sudden death 150 years ago this week propelled his adoring wife, Queen Victoria, into life-long mourning.
And until now it had always been thought that Prince Albert’s unexpected passing on December 14, 1861 - at the age of just 42 - had been caused by a virulent bout of typhoid fever.
Now an acclaimed historian, who has spent the last three years researching the death of the Prince Consort, believes he actually succumbed to a very modern affliction – Crohn’s Disease.
Mystery solved: Historian Helen Rappaport who has uncovered details about the death of Prince Albert
While the exact cause is unknown, the condition is linked to a problem with the body’s immune system response.
A person’s genes and environmental factors seem to play a role in the development of Crohn’s disease, but it usually occurs in people between ages 15 - 35.
Symptoms can come in waves and include debilitating and crampy abdominal pain, fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, chronic diarrhoea, liver inflammation and weight loss.
So were the Royal Family simply mistaken about Albert’s death or was there a cover up?
According to author Helen Rappaport - who has been given unrivalled access to contemporary records including both Albert and Victoria’s private letters, the Royal Archives and records of the Royal Household – the Queen’s husband had been chronically sick on and off all his adult life and suffered from long-standing gastric problems.
Deep bond: Queen Victoria was distraught after Prince Albert's death at the age of 42
So Rappaport took her findings, contained in a detailed 14-page medical dossier, to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford where Dr Chris Conlon, consultant in infectious diseases including typhoid, and Dr Simon Travis, consultant in gastroenterology, examined them in detail.
Having looked at the evidence, both doctors dismissed typhoid fever and cancer as possible causes of death and concluded the evidence for Crohn’s looked very strong.
They pointed out that there are a number of similarities between the symptoms displayed by those suffering from typhoid fever and Crohn’s disease, including fever and severe abdominal pain, which may have accounted for confusion at the time.
QUEEN VICTORIA'S GRIEF
Her grief over the loss of her husband, Prince Albert, came to define her entire reign.
The extent of Queen Victoria’s despair has been laid bare in a previously unseen letter, in which she expresses the hope that she will go to an early grave.
The remarkably candid letter, which has been acquired by London auctioneers Argyll Etkin, is thought to be the first in the public domain in which the Queen yearns for her own death, so she can be reunited with her husband.
Victoria wrote the ‘astonishing’ letter in March 1863, some 15 months after Albert’s death, to 82-year-old Viscount Gough.
The extent of Queen Victoria’s despair has been laid bare in a previously unseen letter, in which she expresses the hope that she will go to an early grave.
The remarkably candid letter, which has been acquired by London auctioneers Argyll Etkin, is thought to be the first in the public domain in which the Queen yearns for her own death, so she can be reunited with her husband.
Victoria wrote the ‘astonishing’ letter in March 1863, some 15 months after Albert’s death, to 82-year-old Viscount Gough.
The author then went to a Crohn’s specialist in Belgium, Philippe van Hootegem of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Leuven.
In his written reply, he says: ‘You were able to collect from letters and diaries a lot of details concerning the health problems of the Prince. These data clearly demonstrate the presence of a chronic condition with several years of intermittent episodes of symptoms such as fatigue, abdominal cramps, inability to eat for several days, attacks of diarrhoea etc… leading eventually to a more serious situation of acute illness with rapid deterioration and death at the age of 42.
‘A chronic inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn’s disease could certainly explain a lot of the symptoms, with episodes of intestinal (sub-)obstruction, diarrhoea, also the “rheumatic” joint symptoms … and finally a complication such as a bowel perforation and sepsis leading rather quickly to the lethal outcome.
‘The hypothesis of Prince Albert suffering from Crohn’s disease looks very attractive and seems to be more likely than the “official” cause of death : typhoid fever.’
In the last weeks of his life, Albert suffered from terrible muscular pains and insomnia.
A visit to the new Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in the pouring rain added to his woes, as did highly emotional a meeting at Cambridge two days later with his son, Bertie, the future King Edward V11, over his scandalous affair with a young actress, Nellie Clifden.
He returned to Windsor tired, emotional and in enormous pain where doctors made their diagnosis of typhoid fever.
He died at 10.50 p.m. on December 14, 1861 in the castle’s Blue Room in the presence of the inconsolable Queen and five of their nine children.
Fortunately bowel conditions such as Crohn’s, which were a mystery to earlier science, are treatable today thanks to advances in modern medicine.
But Miss Rappaport hopes her new findings, outlined in her book, Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy, [must keep in] will add to our knowledge of his ‘highly underrated man’.
She said: ‘“Crohn’s disease doesn’t necessarily kill people, but there is a direct correlation between stress and flare-ups.
‘All the anxiety and stress about Bertie and politics seem likely to have caused a major flare-up.
‘Crohn’s disease was a totally unknown condition in the Victorian period, so the doctors had nothing to go on. And of course they were desperate for a diagnosis.
‘What actually killed him though, in the last few days, was what killed so many people at the time, especially when weakened by illness: congestion of the lungs and pneumonia.
‘It’s time this highly underrated man was given the credit he’s due. Prince Albert was King in all but name, and had been for many years before 1861.
‘But ironically, his sudden death was the making of Victoria as a Queen.
‘Although it took her many years, she did recover from his death, went on to lead the nation and Empire and set her seal on a whole generation.’