Mary, Queen of Scots--a Buxton patient.

Abstract

Mary, Queen of Scots, was one of the great invalids of history, and her illness has caused much discussion over the years as to its nature. For some 25 yr she suffered from attacks of severe abdominal pain and vomiting, sometimes associated with haematemesis (McNalty w1x believes these were due to ‘giant innocent gastric ulcer’). Sometimes she had such severe pain in her side, right arm and hips, that she could not write, walk, or even stand and had to be carried about. These attacks were sometimes associated with ‘swooning’, delirium and fits. A feature of these attacks was that, although they were very severe, she made a dramatic recovery and was able to go hunting, use her crossbow and even practice archery, which led some to think that she was malingering and others to think she had been poisoned. More recently, Macalpine et al. w2x suggested that she suffered from porphyia, in view of her attacks of abdominal pain, ‘chronic rheumatism’ and hysteria with rapid recovery, particularly as she was a direct ancestor of George III. When she escaped from Scotland in May 1568 she was imprisoned in England and moved around from place to place as Elizabeth feared plots centred on Mary. While she was in Sheffield Castle and Chatsworth under the charge of the Earl of Shrewsbury, she petitioned Queen Elizabeth to be allowed to ‘take the cure’ at Buxton where the waters had a high reputation of miraculous cures. The well at Buxton had been present since Roman times and had religious significance, being dedicated to St Ann. This had brought pilgrims from all over the country, ‘when persons that would not before go without the help of crutches came from there to Manchester on foot without them’. Henry VIII had closed the springs and pulled down the chapel there, but by Elizabethan times they were open again. Eventually, Elizabeth agreed and Mary was permitted to make the journey under guard and a building was erected in Buxton to assist in guarding her. Mary visited Buxton most years between September 1573 and 1584. The visits also allowed Mary to meet other people of the court— although she never met Elizabeth, she did meet Cecil, Lord Burghley and her one time suitor the Earl of Leicester. Some years the visits were curtailed if the political situation was difficult and in 1574 it was cancelled because there was a threat of war. In 1582 Mary stayed at Buxton for a month. However, in the end, Elizabeth became too apprehensive and the visits ceased in 1584. After Mary’s removal to a place of stricter confinement, her walking became worse and it seems she developed a chronic locomotor difficulty (McNalty w1x calls it osteoarthritis) so that small movements became painful and she spent a good deal of her time in bed. (As her skeleton rests in Westminster Abbey it may sometime be possible to discover if she had a chronic lesion of her bones or joints.) Under the Devonshires, Buxton continued to develop and in 1858 the Duke gave his riding school for the building of the Royal Devonshire Hospital to become the centre for the treatment of rheumatic disease. although at one time there was some debate on whether the spas should concentrate on water as a therapeutic agent (hydrology) or the disease they were treating ‘rheumatism’. It became clear that the war against ‘rheumatism’ was of major concern and the spas became the birth place of rheumatology. C. W. Buckley (MD FRCP 1874–1955), a physician to the hospital and Mayor of Buxton, was an early Rheumatology 2003;42:484–485 doi:10.1093/rheumatology/keg308, available online at www.rheumatology.oupjournals.org