Paleopathologists have encountered difficulty in finding skeletal evidence of treponemal disease in premodern European cemeteries. Perhaps they would do better to study the remains of the royals and nobles housed in great cathedrals and abbeys. It seems possible that their luck will improve. If the remains of Edward IV could be examined, for example, they might reveal evidence of treatment with mercury. When used in doses that were too high or frequent, mercury was dangerous and could cause death. Among other conditions, it could provoke apo-plexy. It is entirely possible, then, that mercury poisoning contributed to the death of Edward IV by causing a stroke. His physicians and advisers would have understood this, which helps to explain why some people believed the king had been poisoned.

The skeleton of Henry VIII, who suffered at the end of his life from leg ulcers that may have caused painful periosteal infections or even necrosis of the leg bones themselves, might also be instructive. Even more so might the remains of his children, eight of whom were stillborn or died in infancy. As Montiel and his co-authors have taught us, cases of congenital syphilis are most likely to bear the stigmata of the disease. In addition to these lost children, two of Henry's sons, Edward VI and the illegitimate Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond and Somerset, died in their teenage years, Edward supposedly of tuberculosis and Fitzroy of a pulmonary infection. We have good information about the condition of Edward's lungs because an autopsy was performed. According to the surgeon's report, “The disease whereof his majesty died was the disease of lungs, which had in them two great ulcers, and were putrefied.” The previous year, Edward had suffered from a bad case of measles and smallpox, as he described his rash to a correspondent. His health never recovered. It certainly is possible, then, that he died of complications from congenital syphilis. His half-brother Fitzroy may have done so as well, for pulmonary infections are completely consistent with the disease. In any event, their cases are worth reconsidering, and perhaps their teeth and bones as well.