PRIVATE LIVES - Episode 2; EUROPEAN MONARCHS

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[00:00:03]It's a nightmare being famous nowadays.

[00:00:06]The press and the paparazzi follow your every move and record your every indiscretion.

[00:00:12]>> I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

[00:00:17]>> In the past, those who ruled over us had no such problem. They didn't have to worry about journalists or cameramen exposing their dodgy and disgusting behavior. They were safe from the headlines and gossip columns until now.

[00:00:35]This series gives the modern media its chance to dig the dirt on some very famous figures from history as it exposes the stories of a mad king, a crazy queen, and one of history's most unfortunate monarchs.

[00:00:57]A murder mystery, a royal scandal, rumors of bizarre behavior by a mad king. This tale has them all. And they all took place without the unwelcome intrusion of the newspapers. Although nowadays they would have to take their place in the queue in the race to let the people know what was really going on.

[00:01:16]>> It's very hard now to know where you first find out about something. I mean, you could be in your car, you could be watching TV, you could be on the phone to a friend, you could be on your mobile, you could be on the internet.

[00:01:26]The newspaper is actually the almost the last place where you find out the news for the first time.

[00:01:42]How the press would have loved to have been around in Bavaria in June 1886.

[00:01:47]It was then in the grounds of the castleberg that the body of Ludwig II, King of Bavaria was discovered.

[00:01:57]To this day, no one knows how the king died, mainly because no autopsy was ever carried out.

[00:02:05]>> The royal family is very Catholic, so they don't believe in autopsies. Um, and to this day, um, the coffin of King Ludvik is guarded by the Google Manner.

[00:02:16]Um this is a King Ludvy fan club. Um they bit dressed like the Kluks Khan but of course there's no other similarity and um they're very protective of him and uh they don't want anyone near the coffin. So we don't know.

[00:02:30]>> The circumstances surrounding the king's death were even more suspicious because he had been deposed in a dramatic coup only a few days previously.

[00:02:40]Not only that, but the king's political enemies had declared him to be insane and had imprisoned him in Castleberg under guard.

[00:02:50]With or without the media, Ludwig's mysterious death turned him into a glamorous heroic figure.

[00:02:58]It still happens when the famous die young.

[00:03:02]>> If you want to become a hero, you have to die under tragic circumstances. you have to be beautiful like Kennedy, Diana and Ludvig. Of course, at that time he wasn't that beautiful anymore, but the myth about him is that he was this glamorous figure. And I think Ludvik had has a lot in common with Diana. I mean, they both um went out at night. They um went out incognito. They did charitable things. There are lots of myths about Ludik II.

[00:03:30]Ludwig's problems in later life have their roots in his difficult relationship with his parents, who virtually pretended he didn't exist. In fact, things were so bad between Ludwig and his mother that after he became king in March 1864, he took to referring to her as the widow of my predecessor.

[00:03:52]Life must have been very confusing indeed for poor Ludwig. He had been almost completely ignored by his parents. Yet as king he was surrounded by forning servants who dropped their eyes in his presence and addressed him as your royal highness.

[00:04:09]All his life he had been denied contact with anyone outside the aristocracy or the royal family. And now he had developed a very unhealthy sense of his own superiority.

[00:04:22]It was enough to turn a young man's head. And turn his head it certainly did.

[00:04:27]>> His behavior was quite odd. He had these enormous outbursts. He was ordering servants around. Um he was hitting them.

[00:04:35]Um he was he had this brutal side to his character. I mean that showed very early with his brother. For example, poor Otto was gagged by him. Um and when he didn't show enough deference, he he bossed him around. And um okay, one could have said the man had quite a temper, but it wasn't just that.

[00:05:00]There were early signs of a fragile mental state.

[00:05:04]Ludwig often retreated into a fantasy world of ancient kings, fairy tale castles, and the heroic knights of Tutonic legends.

[00:05:16]It was a world in which he Ludwig ruled unchallenged and unquestioned.

[00:05:23]He was in short the modern cartoonist's dream.

[00:05:31]Ludwig was gripped by an unshakable belief in his own superiority over mere mortals. In his own eyes, he was simply God's anointed.

[00:05:42]He was also acutely aware of his good looks. In fact, he was vain. Extremely vain. A court barber attended him every morning to make sure the king always looked his best. Young women are said to have blushed as he passed by. What was more, he rode, swam, and danced superbly. The handsome Ludwig with his fine social skills would have been the darling of the media today.

[00:06:16]However, the cultivated exterior concealed an emotional wreck who could not bear to be touched and who had come to realize to his utter horror that he was homosexual.

[00:06:29]Now torment and self-loathing were added to his ever growing list of personality disorders.

[00:06:38]You have to remember Bavaria is a Catholic country and um of course uh to this day um people adore the king and don't want to know anything about his homosexuality. Um that's more or less mentioning it as treason for these Ludvik fans. um and homosexuality was of course um forbidden.

[00:07:00]So he could have gone to prison for it.

[00:07:02]Um there was a sort of gentleman's agreement that one didn't talk about it and I think he nobody would have um testified against the king.

[00:07:11]>> Modern European society and a more tolerant media would probably readily accept a gay king, but Ludwig would have made himself a very juicy target for the press.

[00:07:26]I think his homosexuality couldn't have been swept under the carpet because um he had affairs with so many people and um of course he wrote all these letters and um they were published in 2001 um letters to one of his servants. The servant had to organize boys for him and these letters are quite crude. I mean, we always have this fairy tale image of Ludwick II being such a delicate person, but in these letters, you know, he's comparing body parts, and it's not very romantic.

[00:07:55]>> Ludwig's diaries are full of his efforts to subdue the senses, to resist sensual kisses, and to conquer the evil.

[00:08:05]Again and again, he vows never to yield.

[00:08:08]But over the years, a succession of stable boys, grooms, actors, and handsome young soldiers proved too great a temptation.

[00:08:18]Still, at least there were no cameras or scandal hungry newspapers for Ludwig to worry about.

[00:08:25]All of these desirable young play things were discarded without a moment's thought when Ludwig became bored, of course. But promiscuity comes at a cost.

[00:08:36]One of them gave him syphilis.

[00:08:40]Ludwig tried to deny his sexuality and do the right things with the opposite sex, but his relationships with women were almost all disastrous.

[00:08:52]The exception was his beautiful cousin Elizabeth. He wrote her passionate letters, but she was happily married to Fans Joseph of Austria and she was 8 years older than Ludwig. She posed no threat to his frail sexuality.

[00:09:10]Despite his difficulties with the fairest sex, in 1876, King Ludwig did his duty and became engaged to his young cousin Sophie.

[00:09:22]From the outside, it probably looked a perfect match.

[00:09:35]They seem such an ideal couple. Two beautiful young people or both Bavarians. Even though that was political, it was a bit of a problem that um she wasn't um a match from a better royal family. They were on all the teacups already. It's a bit like the the royal wedding. She was very popular with the people. And she had this um terribly ambitious mother Ludovvika who had married off one of her daughters to the king of Austria, another one to the um the king of Naples and then one to turn in taxes. So um the family was pushing for it.

[00:10:09]>> But sadly there was to be no fairy tale wedding or happy ever afters with Sophie. The engagement was called off.

[00:10:17]and a reason >> in a letter to her he more or less said that um the only person he really loved was Raad Vagna and um that um he had to fulfill his mission he had to be alone he couldn't make her happy I mean it was in a way I think it's very honest of him I mean he knew about his tendencies and why should he make this poor woman unhappy so I I think that that was quite a good move.

[00:10:49]So Ludwig had fallen in love with Richard Vagnner.

[00:10:53]That's right, the composer, the musician whose work attracted either total agilation or blind hatred.

[00:11:04]Something that continues to this day.

[00:11:08]In fact, Ludwig became Vagnner's greatest patron, which was very good news indeed for the hardup composer who milked the relationship for all it was worth. And it was worth plenty, nearly a million golden.

[00:11:32]It was like a modern monarch throwing the country's cash at a rockstar.

[00:11:37]It's hard to believe Ludwig could have gotten away with it had he been under modern media scrutiny.

[00:11:48]>> Those very public excesses like the Romans, like the the Boures, like in the past, the sort of very manifest and out there kind of corruptions. Yes, I think the media absolutely could have checked whether it's through ridicule or whether it's through full frontal attack. And I think the media is very powerful in a sense that it it it has the power to keep people to some degree on their toes. I mean I don't think that you would you know that parliament will bother to have things like you know commissions of standards and privileges like the parliamentary register if there wasn't a constant media demand for okay we want to know what perks MPs are getting. We want to know who's paying them and they've jolly well got to sign up to this and we're going to read it every year and we're going to publish anything that looks a bit bit off color here. That is really important.

[00:12:37]>> On one occasion Ludwig instructed the Bavarian treasury to pay 40,000 golden to Vagnner in one go. Not only that, but Vagnner was extravagant with the cash and chose to meddle in Bavarian politics. So needless to say, he became deeply unpopular.

[00:12:56]At one stage, he even had to disappear to Switzerland to escape the hostility of Bavarian society.

[00:13:05]I think there wouldn't have been Vagnner without Lud and no Ludvik without Vagna.

[00:13:10]I mean, they needed each other um because Vagnner was um constantly broke.

[00:13:16]He was um on the run from his creditors most of the time and Ludwig was his absolute saver. Um but on the other hand um I think Vagna was very important for Ludvik as well because at the end of the 19th century monarchs didn't have that much power anymore. The state becomes more and more powerful. So um the idea that he should create himself as a cultural king um and um built this legacy together with Vagna was a solution.

[00:13:41]>> During his frequent depressions the king often told Vagnner he wanted to abdicate.

[00:13:47]He knew he was unpopular, but simply couldn't understand why people weren't keen on a king whose grip on reality was clearly becoming less firm by the day.

[00:13:58]Poor Ludwig just couldn't face up to the demands made on him as a constitutional monarch. He hated military affairs, although he quite liked the uniforms, and he hated formal occasions. He often cried off complaining of fictional ailments.

[00:14:22]Soon Ludwig was refusing to have anything to do with affairs of state.

[00:14:26]Papers were piling up on his desk and government officials couldn't get in to see him. In effect, the king was in hiding.

[00:14:35]By 1886, Ludwig's behavior had gone beyond mere eccentricity, and the Bavarian government had simply had enough. They were, for example, very fed up about Ludwig's porch for constructing splendid castles.

[00:14:52]>> The king was obsessed with with building castles. That's what the Bavarian state is still profiting from. Um, to this day, without Novanstein, um, there wouldn't be this enormous tourist industry. The problem was, of course, that um, he sort of himself as a medieval king, but um, the Bavarian state was very powerful. The government was very powerful and um people had made um sure that um the king was under strict control from the government and um it had already killed his um his grandfather when he spent too much money on Lola Montes. Um um and in a way the story repeated itself.

[00:15:31]>> And so an august commission of doctors was appointed to judge whether the king was sane enough to remain as king.

[00:15:39]However, none of them thought it necessary to actually interview the king himself.

[00:15:45]Instead, they examined his letters and diaries and took evidence from staff, some of whom had been treated badly by Ludwig in the past, and were grateful for the opportunity for a little revenge.

[00:15:58]To no one's great surprise, the commission's report concluded that the king was insane.

[00:16:12]The report grandly asserted that the king was gripped by the illusion that he holds absolute power in abundance and is made lonely by isolation.

[00:16:22]He stands like a blind man without a guide on the brink of a precipice.

[00:16:27]It was powerful stuff considering they hadn't actually examined the man that they had concluded was mad.

[00:16:34]Deciding it was unwise for a lunatic to be left in charge of the asylum, the commission ordered the king's arrest and Ludwig was whisked away to Castleberg where he arrived on Saturday the 12th of June 1886.

[00:16:50]By nightfall on the 13th, he was dead and his brother had been proclaimed king in his place.

[00:16:59]Ludwig was just 40 years old.

[00:17:04]The official report that was supposed to uncover the truth about the king's death rire of a cover up. Key witnesses mysteriously disappeared or were paid to remain silent or died convenient deaths.

[00:17:19]Somehow they got away with it in part because there was nothing approaching a modern media to ask questions and call them to account. It was all in sharp contrast to the media today.

[00:17:33]Just ask certain ex-presidents of the USA.

[00:17:42]I mean, the media, don't forget, got Nixon, and you could apply that, I think, probably to figures in history who have done equal things. I mean, Nixon was a criminal and they got him on criminality and they got him through dogged sleuth and investigation and hard sheer bloody minded persistence and I find that very satisfying that he was brought down for what seems to be the right reasons.

[00:18:07]>> While he lived, there was always a danger that Ludwig might become a figurehead for anti-government sentiment. That danger at least disappeared with his death.

[00:18:18]But was Ludwig merely an eccentric fantasist, an absurd, unimportant romantic royal living in a very unromantic age? Well, he was very useful um for Bismar um to form the the German Reich um in in that way. Um he he was instrumental and um of course he was paid by Bismar for this and he needed the money for his castles. But um apart from that um politically he was not very important and it's it's a cultural king that he's remembered.

[00:18:50]>> Whatever the truth, the cultured Ludwig will always be remembered as the mad king of Bavaria are common as we look back on the private lives of European monarchs. In the past, such unpleasantness was usually swept under the carpet. Today the media ensures that these things are brought into the open.

[00:19:12]>> Something that was always interested me about where the media was say earlier in last century what was about you know members of the royal family that that were not quite right in the head and that you know ended up having appalling lives living in homes that nowadays and I think this is a very good thing about nowadays that would not have happened.

[00:19:32]And I think shocking things like that that that ability to brush that sort of stuff under the counter um was awful.

[00:19:39]And if if that had happened, that kind of thing, even though the issue is very sensitive, then I think it's quite right that the media should know about it.

[00:19:46]>> Madness looms large in the story of Joanna, Countess of Fllanders and Queen of Castile. In her case, a policy of deliberate inbreeding combined with a spectacular natural mental instability to make her infamous as Joanna the Mad.

[00:20:11]Joanna's parents, the powerful King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, were only second cousins, but the houses of Aragon and Castile had intermarried many times before.

[00:20:27]Joanna was born to them in 1479.

[00:20:31]>> Joanna was very close with her father, but much less so with her mother, who basically was largely responsible for her very strict upbringing.

[00:20:41]And she was also not on the best of terms with her siblings. Uh in general, she felt um unaccepted and unloved as a child. Uh she was very much the play thing of those who depended on her.

[00:20:55]>> As the young girl grew up, it became very important to find her a suitable husband.

[00:21:02]>> Well, she was certainly a very cultured woman. U she was fluent in French and Latin, which was even more surprising for a noble woman at at that age. and um she played several instruments as well.

[00:21:13]So extremely talented young woman, also a beauty, judging by the contemporary accounts, very much the the family beauty.

[00:21:21]The man her parents eventually found for her in 1496 was called Philillip the Hamsom.

[00:21:29]Now, Philillip was a member of the powerful Habsburg dynasty and he had a reputation as something of a hellraiser and a womanizer.

[00:21:38]He was a natural athlete, very handsome, very energetic, very sociable, very generous. That's what his friends say, but also um one could say not the sharpest tool in the royal shed.

[00:21:52]>> Of course, Ferdinand and Isabella saw Philip and Joanna's marriage merely as a very useful political alliance. Thoughts of love was probably the last thing on their minds.

[00:22:04]But lo and behold, when the young couple first met each other on the eve of the wedding, they just couldn't keep their hands off each other. Long before the official wedding ceremony, the marriage had been well and truly consummated.

[00:22:29]This was to be the happiest time of Joanna's troubled life. She was a queen.

[00:22:35]She had a husband she adored. And within a few months, she was pregnant.

[00:22:42]But then things started to go wrong.

[00:22:45]Philillip began to live up to his reputation, and rumors of his little indiscretions began to circulate. Rumors that would have provided wonderful material for today's cruel cartoonists.

[00:22:59]There were plenty of women at court who were eager to jump into bed with the handsome young king. And Philillip saw no reason to disappoint them just because he was married.

[00:23:13]Not surprisingly, Joanna was furious when she found out and she flew into jealous rages.

[00:23:21]At first, Philillip probably found this display of passion for him rather a turnon.

[00:23:27]He only knew one way to make it up to her and so he did. His ar must have satisfied Joanna because she forgave him. But eventually she had to face up to the unpleasant truth that Philillip was a serial philanderer.

[00:23:45]Maybe today we've tired a little of the media's obsession with the sex lies of the great and good. Strange goings on in the US Oval Office. British princes with long-term mistresses. Perhaps the newspapers would have left Philillip and Joanna alone.

[00:24:01]>> And actually, I think that quite honestly with Prince Charles and Camila, had we not had that wacko tape, I think people wouldn't really have done that much speculation about them as well. I think they'd have just been left as this rather sort of odd couple who kind of got on with each other.

[00:24:15]>> Or perhaps the media just wouldn't have been able to resist it.

[00:24:25]Come on now.

[00:24:26]>> As one affair followed another, the royal couple began to quarrel continually. Soon, Philillip became thoroughly cheesed off by it all and began to sleep alone. Joanna could sometimes be heard screaming and wailing, hammering on his bedroom wall.

[00:24:41]Sometimes she collapsed in fainting fits.

[00:24:49]News of their daughter's odd behavior eventually reached the ears of Ferdinand and Isabella, who began to suspect that Joanna was too mentally unstable to ever inherit the Spanish throne. They were probably right, but that's exactly what she ended up doing.

[00:25:06]>> In 1498, uh Joanna's older sister, Isabella, had died. And within 2 years um less than 2 years in the year of 1500 her son Miguel died as well. So there were no male heirs left to succeed to the throne.

[00:25:21]>> In the modern era Joanna and Philillip would never have survived the scrutiny of the media. Surely they would have joined the ranks of those brought low by sex scandals.

[00:25:34]Or could it be that times are changing?

[00:25:38]I always feel very ambivalent when people are brought down for sexual reasons that at the end of the day, how much have they really hurt people? I mean, if we go to Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, okay, maybe Monica had a hard time, but at the end of the day, she knew what she was doing and she probably will die out on it forever.

[00:25:57]>> In 1501, Ferdinand and Isabella tried to improve matters by asking their daughter and son-in-law to come and live with the folks for a while.

[00:26:07]It didn't really work out.

[00:26:10]Ferdinand was glad to have his daughter back in the bosom of the family, but Isabella, a deeply devout woman with high expectations of her children, treated Joanna with cold contempt. When the poor young thing needed sympathy, a little tender loving care, all she got was her mother's disdain.

[00:26:29]It didn't do much for her fragile mental state.

[00:26:33]Meanwhile, Philillip was bored witless by life at the Spanish court. All that stifling formality and ceremonial duty.

[00:26:42]Worst of all, the men were fiercely protective of their women folk.

[00:26:48]It was no life for a playboy king. There was no one but his moody wife to share the bed, and having already delivered him of a son and two daughters, she was soon pregnant again.

[00:27:01]It was the final straw. Philillip fled back to Fllanders, leaving Joanna in the hands of the midwives.

[00:27:08]Joanna was furious. She accused him of wanting to return so he could visit his favorite [ __ ] which was about right.

[00:27:21]The whole episode unhinged Joanna even more.

[00:27:25]And so the kindly Queen Isabella locked her crazy daughter up in the castle at Lamata for the remainder of her pregnancy, presumably for her own good.

[00:27:37]Joanna Julie gave birth to a son there, but her mental state deteriorated rapidly.

[00:27:44]Servants crept about in fear of their lives. Priests who were sent to minister to her were showered with abuse.

[00:27:52]What would today's newspapers have made of it all?

[00:27:55]I think she would have encountered very she would have encountered problems very similar to those encountered by many celebrities or royalty today in the sense that she would have had a real problem. She would have had real difficulty in um portraying herself as the person that she really was. I think um the media would have loved this um this image of her as a mad deranged queen roaming the countryside. the media would have picked up on the on the mad side. Um, and she would have had huge problems coping with that.

[00:28:30]>> Over here, over here.

[00:28:41]Eventually, Joanna's parents gave up on her, and in 1504, they allowed Joanna to return to Fllanders, where her worst fears were confirmed.

[00:28:53]Philillip had indeed taken up new mistresses, lots of them. In fact, the court was gripped by new rumors virtually every day of new women in Philip's life and in his bed.

[00:29:14]>> So, it was hardly surprising that the rouse between Philillip and Joanna began again.

[00:29:19]Somehow though, Joanna always ended up forgiving him despite his constant womanizing.

[00:29:26]>> I wouldn't even say a lovehate relationship. Um, it was more like a like a love versus indifference relationship. Um, she clearly loved him very much. She fell in love with them the moment she met him in adverb.

[00:29:39]It turned out that um, it was very much a case of unrequited love. She was useful to him. Obviously, they went through these patches of extreme hostility and even physical fist fights and then patched things up again and fell out fell out of love again.

[00:29:56]>> In November 1504, Queen Isabella died and Joanna became queen of the Spanish kingdoms. Although everyone agreed that she was unfit to rule. So, Philillip was brought back to rule in her place, sharing power alongside King Ferdinand.

[00:30:14]But in September 1506, Philillip suddenly caught a fever. Joanna, who was pregnant yet again, nursed him day and night, never leaving his bedside. But her loving care was not enough to save him. His condition worsened rapidly. And on the 25th of September, he died, aged just 28.

[00:30:38]Philip's death pushed Joanna over the edge into complete insanity.

[00:30:44]She was overcome by grief, and at first she couldn't bear to be parted from Philip's corpse. The mad queen visited it every night and threw herself weeping upon it.

[00:30:55]By the time Joanna could bear to send her husband's body for final burial in Granada, it had been 3 months since his death.

[00:31:04]Who knows what the poor, deranged woman thought she saw when she looked upon his features? Who knows what she felt when she cuddled the grizzly contents of the coffin?

[00:31:18]Joanna could not bear to be parted from Catherine, the daughter to whom she gave birth after Philip's death.

[00:31:25]But this was no natural maternal bond.

[00:31:28]It was because Joanna believed that Philillip was speaking to her through the babbling of the infant child.

[00:31:43]In the end, Ferdinand decided that enough was enough and he ordered that his daughter be detained in the castle at Torasillas. What we do know for sure is that um there was this myth of her being mad and that was a very convenient myth to be used by u by those who whose own power depended on her being in prison. So um she was emotional yes and she was maybe even hysterical but whether she was clinically mad uh for a long extended period of time is very very uncertain. In a final cruelty, Joanna's lonely, deranged nightmare there lasted for a further 46 years.

[00:32:24]She existed rather than lived in her own world of deep melancholy, completely hidden from the outside world, out of sight and out of her mind.

[00:32:36]>> Her son, who kept her in prison for over 40 years, uh was in correspondence with her guard, the the guy who looked after her in jail. And if you look at their correspondence, there's not much in it that suggested that she was mad. I mean, being imprisoned in a windowless room for over four decades would be enough to make any of us, shall we say, upset.

[00:32:59]If Joanna's faith survived the years of grief and madness, she must surely have believed that one day she would be reunited with the handsome husband that, despite everything, she had loved so deeply.

[00:33:13]On April the 12th, 1555, she had to wait no longer.

[00:33:25]Had the tabloid press been around in 17th century Spain, they'd have had to deal with a royal prince that was a genetic catastrophe.

[00:33:34]Charles II was the last of the Spanish Hapsburg kings and he became known as El Heshazardo the bewitched.

[00:33:46]The popular belief was that only sorcery could have bestowed Charles's physical misfortunes upon him.

[00:34:00]But it was not black magic rather than years of relentless inbreeding that meant that Charles's were not exactly film star looks.

[00:34:08]>> Just just like that. Yeah.

[00:34:13]>> Yeah. I like I like that.

[00:34:15]>> How would cartoonists today, for example, have portrayed him?

[00:34:18]>> We know for a fact that he was physically disabled, mentally [ __ ] Um he had a huge tongue which made it very difficult for him to speak. So somebody who who from from day one never really had a chance to develop physically or or psychologically into a balanced human being.

[00:34:37]The media would have been faced with what to make of a man that was simply born a poor wretch.

[00:34:43]>> Either the royal family would make it very easy on themselves and they would have hidden him from the media completely. Um all the media in a in a very ironic sense would have been very lenient in the sense that um despite all the um the vicious attacks that one can sometimes read in the media today or hear about the media today um they would have stopped short of of um picking on on on a severely disabled and [ __ ] person.

[00:35:11]Charles's father, King Philip IV, was already 44 years old when he married Mariana of Austria in 1649.

[00:35:20]At just 15, she was a good age for childbearing in those far-off days. She was also Philip's niece.

[00:35:28]Naturally, he didn't let this deter him, and she bore him five children. But the only son who survived past infancy was Charles, who was born in November 1661 to great joy among the Spanish people.

[00:35:49]Sadly, the old king only lasted another four years. And when he died, Mariana was named regent until the weak and sickly Charles reached the age of 14 and could assume the mantle of kingship.

[00:36:03]Today's media, which so loves to expose powerful people on the make, would have had a feeding frenzy.

[00:36:13]It's quite obvious that her her husband did not really trust her to run this huge and complex empire that Spain was developing into at the time. Um she was certainly a formidable woman but also politically very inexperienced.

[00:36:29]>> By the terms of Philip's will, Mariana was supposed to share power with a governing ga of grandees and representatives of the church. But she reckoned that this would never do.

[00:36:42]So she promoted her favorite Nitard, an Austrian Jesuit who was also her confessor to the position of inquisitor general. In effect, he became her prime minister.

[00:36:57]He was a friend and a confidant. They they had known each other for many years. And he he came he moved to the to the Spanish court with her from Vienna.

[00:37:07]So he was by her side from from day one which made him very valuable to her.

[00:37:13]>> Today's newspapers would have been all over her like a rash. Could a free powerful press have made a difference?

[00:37:21]>> Yes is the answer. I think that when you have a media that is as powerful as it is today and that power derives from money essentially that newspapers make money and therefore newspapers have a freedom to do and say what they want regardless of what people say and do to them more or less I mean they have a lot of freedom um without a doubt I mean the media has been able to affect huge changes to what has happened and it's made people it's broken people But there was no media to change things and Spain's grandees were very unhappy.

[00:37:59]The arrogant Nithard was not a popular fellow. He was certainly an able churchman, but a foreigner, inexperienced in politics, not at all the qualities the establishment were looking for. Nitard's enemies also suggested that there was a little more to his relationship with Mariana.

[00:38:18]It all made him very vulnerable to plots which was a pity because people were soon plotting against him.

[00:38:33]The plots were centered around Don Juan Jose of Austria who as the illegitimate son of the late King Phillip was Charles's halfb brotherther. Don Juan was the illegitimate child of Philip IV and the actress Maria Calderon and he was lucky enough to be recognized as an illegitimate child by his father otherwise um things would have been much more difficult for him. So his father lavished offices on him and he had a regular income but at the same time he was excluded from his father's will. So politically he was basically um an outcast I would say and throughout his life he was always very aware of his secondass status at court. He was never fully accepted into the royal family that made him a very ambitious and potentially very dangerous man.

[00:39:27]>> 1668 and 1669 he started a vicious propaganda campaign against Neut from Aragon where he was staying at the time. But really problems started much earlier. He never really got on with Nitart and he never trusted him. So the stage was set for a disaster from from day one. And then in early 1669 he made his move against Nitheart with a couple of hundred mercenaries and Nard was banished from the country.

[00:40:00]>> So Nithard was out on his ear.

[00:40:02]>> Just want one shot. Just one just one shot. It was a nasty shock for Mariana, who might have taken the hint about employing unpopular favorites and putting them in positions of power. But Mariana simply hadn't learned her lesson. Instead, she took a new favorite, Fernando Valenuela, the handsome son of an obscure army officer, and showered him with appointments.

[00:40:30]How the cartoonists would have lapped it up.

[00:40:41]Valenuela was actually married to one of the queen's maids of honor, but that didn't prevent him from enjoying intimate relations with the queen.

[00:40:50]So rather like before, Mariana's lover was also her prime minister.

[00:40:58]Once again the enraged grandees plotted and once again in 1675 Don Juan was called upon to march on Madrid.

[00:41:09]The threat was enough to concentrate Mariana's mind. She promised to get rid of Venuela and eventually the dust settled.

[00:41:18]Meanwhile Charles was now old enough to ascend the throne and rule in his own right. But he was a sickly feeble-minded creature. And when his mother presented him with a document to sign, which extended her powers by a further two years, Charles agreed, although only after a bitter row, which left him in tears.

[00:41:45]By 1677, however, the whole situation had changed again. Mariana had finally overreached herself by reinstating Valenuela.

[00:41:56]So her enemies once more called upon the ubiquitous Don Juan. And this time for Mariana, there was no escape.

[00:42:05]>> George, this time Don Juan came with a much stronger army, about 15,000 men.

[00:42:12]>> Down with Mariana.

[00:42:13]>> And uh Mariana was banished to Toledo.

[00:42:17]Venezuela was less lucky. He was sent to the Philippines where he served a a prison sentence for about 10 years and then he was allowed to to leave the Philippines and move to Mexico.

[00:42:29]>> Don Juan had finally seized power. But was he content to share it with the real king, his poor, sickly halfb brother? To the outside world, the answer was yes.

[00:42:40]Donan and Charles were sharing power and ruling together. It was an early form of news management or to give it its modern name, spin.

[00:42:52]>> That's a beauty there.

[00:42:53]>> Everybody liked to think that the spin doctor got invented in 1997. U which was really very stupid because spin doctors have been there as long as history's been there. A spin doctor is someone who has enormous influence on the person in power and who decides how stories are going to be presented. I mean the royal family has always had spin doctors.

[00:43:15]>> Pers has always been a closely knit family and a happy one >> you know to the level of they would manage the time of day that you would announce the death of someone so that it then fitted in with the newspaper schedules and that they they've always been there.

[00:43:34]Medieval spin notwithstanding the wretched Charles was a virtual prisoner.

[00:43:40]Every move he made was watched. Every public appearance he made was stage managed. Every audience he gave was closely supervised. Every letter he dictated was opened and scrutinized.

[00:43:54]Had the newspapers known the truth, they'd have pounced.

[00:44:00]Trump page that mate.

[00:44:07]And so it might have continued if Don Juan had not died in 1679, aged 50.

[00:44:15]So Charles was finally king.

[00:44:20]But he played virtually no part in government and in truth wasn't particularly inclined to do so. In a report written for the pope some years later, the papal envoy in Spain wrote, "He is as weak in body as in mind. Now and then he gives signs of intelligence, memory, and certain liveless. Usually he shows himself slow and indifferent, torpid and indolent. One can do with him what one wishes because he lacks his own will.

[00:44:50]What Charles did need to do was produce an heir. And so in 1679, the same year as Don Juan's death, he married Mar Louise of Olon, the niece of Louis the 14th of France.

[00:45:05]Quite what she made of her physically repulsive new husband, none can say. She was told to lie back and think of anything but to get on with the job of producing a male heir to the Spanish throne.

[00:45:19]Sadly, despite his best efforts, Charles could not make his wife pregnant.

[00:45:26]In 1689, Mar Louise tragically died in a riding accident. But within 3 months, Charles had married again.

[00:45:34]In this case, change was not as good as arrest. The results, or lack of them, were the same.

[00:45:47]The wretched Charles came to believe that he was cursed and that he was possessed by evil spirits.

[00:45:54]So, confessors, exorcists, and every artifice at the disposal of the church were deployed to rid him of the devil.

[00:46:01]Of course, it did no good.

[00:46:05]The years passed and a new century loomed. Now in his late 30s, Charles was a prematurely aged wreck, lame, deaf, toothless, and virtually blind. He became virtually helpless and increasingly detached from reality.

[00:46:22]"Many people tell me I am bewitched, and I well believe it. Such are the things I experience and suffer," said the king.

[00:46:31]A sadder, more tragic specimen is somehow difficult to imagine.

[00:46:36]>> Well, Charles II died after a lifetime of physical and mental decay really. And his reign was a very very difficult time for Spain indeed. We had a a stagnant economy, widespread famines, and Spain was well on its way towards losing its world power status. So, it was a very difficult time for for Spain indeed. And again, he never really had a chance from day one. The odds were against him. Um, severely handicapped, mentally unstable, disabled, [ __ ] There was no chance for him.

[00:47:14]>> Charles the Bewitched, a man who had been punished by his inbred relatives even before he was born, died on the 1st of November, 1700.

[00:47:25]The final exhausted whimper of the degenerate Hapsburg dynasty in Spain.