Was being a medieval queen was hazardous to your health? Given the push for queens to have many babies, did most medieval queens die in childbirth? To find out, I put 139 years of late medieval and Tudor English queens — from 1400-1503 – in a table to compare their causes of death.

Depending on how you slice and dice it, the answer is: Yes. (But, the usual disclaimers apply.)

Baby machines

It is no secret that medieval queens and noblewomen were baby machines.

In general, the average medieval peasant woman appears to have born roughly 4 to 8 children. In contrast, it is not unusual to see medieval queens and noblewoman who bore over ten children. Elizabeth Woodville bore 12 children. King John’s wife, Isabelle of Angouleme, birthed 14 children. And, Edward IV’s maternal grandmother, Joan Beaufort, also bore 14 children.

Compared to the average (peasant) woman who typically married much later — on average at age 23 (if at all), the typical medieval noblewoman married in her teens and appears to have given birth to significantly more children. I write appear because medieval birth, census, and archaeological records are not strictly reliable; events relating to women were underreported and archaeological issues persist.

Although having lots of children created problems (for example, between rival “second sons” and the need to find good marriages), having lots of children appears to have been a goal. Wet nurses were employed, in part, to shorten the time it took for elite women to re-conceive.

Still childbirth was a dangerous business. In medieval Florence, roughly 20% of mothers died as a result of childbirth.

Late medieval queens and their cause of death

Only five English queens in this period died of natural causes such as “old” age or for reasons other than child birth. Their average age was 48.6 years, but some like Henry IV’s second wife, Joan of Navarre, lived to be as old as 67. Richard III’s wife Anne Neville was the youngest queen to die from natural causes, at 28. (Anne of Cleves was the next youngest and she died at 40.) Incidentally, an old person in late medieval England could be considered anyone over roughly 43 , and I’m using the term “old age” as a catchall for age and natural causes since the reasons queens died often were not recorded.

Out of thirteen queens, nearly 40% died during or immediately after childbirth. Out of the queens who died directly from childbirth or its after effects, only one died during childbirth and the other four died in the days following it from puerperal fever (also known as “childbed fever” or genital-tract sepsis).

If you include childbirth-related causes, this number jumps as high as 54%. It is pushing the envelope, but you could argue that Anne Boleyn and Anne Neville also died of issues indirectly related to childbirth, which increases the total to half. (In Anne Neville’s case, the envelope might rip since I’m speculating she acquired tuberculosis from her sister, who may have contracted it during pregnancy.)

The trend of medieval queens dying in childbirth does not hold true, however, if you include English queens from before 1409. From 1291 to 1369, no English queens died from childbirth and two lived into their sixties.

Late Medieval Queens: Age and Cause of Death

Queen Age Date of Death Cause # of Births Queen Isabella. Wife of Richard II; Charles (Duke of Orleans). 19 13 September 1409 (aged 19) Childbirth (died during birth of first child) 1 Queen Joan (or Joanna) of Navarre. Wife of John V (Duke of Brittany); Henry IV. 67 10 June 1437 Old age? 9 Catherine of Valois. Wife of Henry V; partner of Owen Tudor. 35 3 January 1437 Childbirth (died shortly after birth of sixth or seventh child) 6 or 7 Margaret of Anjou. Wife of Henry VI. 52 25 August 1482 Old age 1 Elizabeth Woodville. Wife of Edward IV. ~55 8 June 1492 Old age 12 Anne Neville. Wife of Richard III. 28 16 March 1485 Tuberculosis (aka “consumption”) 1 Elizabeth of York. Wife of Henry VII. 37 11 February 1503 Childbirth 7

Tudor Queens: Age and Cause of Death

Queen Age Date of Death Cause # of Births Queen Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII. 50 7 January 1536 Heart cancer, poisoning, or old age (embalmers discovered her heart was black) ~6, only 1 survived Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII. ~28-35 19 May 1536 Execution. Indirectly, childbirth – “failed” to give king a son 2 (one survived) and one miscarriage Queen Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII. ~28-29 24 October 1537 Childbirth (puerperal fever) 1 Queen Anne of Cleves, fourth wife of Henry VIII. Anne outlived the rest of Henry’s wives. 40 16 July 1557 Death after a long illness. Possibly cancer. 0 Queen Katherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII. 19 13 February 1542 Execution 0 Queen Catherine Parr, sixth wife of Henry VIII. 36 5 September 1548 Childbirth, died six days after from puerperal fever 1

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