Announcement: On May 6th the time has come: King Charles III. will be officially and ceremoniously crowned and millions of people around the world will be watching. Petra Terdenge knows why we are so interested in the nobility:
Narrator: The royals and other royalty captivate us far more than any other public figure. Because there is a special feature for aristocrats, says Sonja Gibis from the pharmacy magazine:
O-Ton Julia Sonja Gibis 20 sec.
“We live with these people like almost nobody else, from their birth to their death. Take Queen Elizabeth, for example. Everyone knew her and we all associate her with memories of some kind. And of course, strokes of fate, scandals, are always particularly interesting and diseases. It’s like that in movies and in life.”
Narrator: The future king is 74 years old. The press is therefore also concerned with the question of whether he is healthy enough for the strenuous office:
O-Ton Julia Sonja Gibis 19 sec.
“So it was noticeable that his hands and ankles are apparently sometimes red and swollen. But there are no concrete indications of illness. On the contrary, one hears that he is a healthy, vital and also happy monarch. But that did not apply to every member of the British royal family. There are some spectacular cases of illness in history.”
Narrator: Because if you go back a little further, you come across a condition that is also called the royal disease, hemophilia or bleeding disorder. Numerous descendants of Queen Victoria suffered from it. In recent years there have always been members of the royal family whose health has been compromised:
O-Ton Julia Sonja Gibis 19 sec.
“With the living royals, we know from Prince Harry that he suffered from depression. Lady Di’s psychological problems are also well known, especially her bulimia. Queen Elizabeth was very healthy. Her sister Margaret suffered from lung cancer and cirrhosis of the liver, her father and grandfather also had serious lung diseases, all three of them smoked, by the way.”
Moderation: The press also suspected Prince Ernst August of Hanover to be ill. He is the great-great-great-grandson of King George III of Britain. This one, she writes pharmacy magazine, suffered from episodes of mental derangement during his reign. Historians suspect that George III. suffered from a hereditary disease called porphyria. However, the disease was only detected in William of Gloucester, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, whose successor Charles will take up in a few days.
