Charles II was the final monarch of Spain from the House of Habsburg, often viewed as a tragic symbol of the nation's decline ...

Charles II of Spain, born in 1661, suffered a number of serious ailments throughout his life as the House of Habsburg, hellbent on keeping power, refused to marry outside of the family from 1550.

But this a story of genetics as well as history, because historians have long assumed impressionistically that there was something rotten in the gene pool of the Spanish Hapsburgs. Here is an excerpt ...

England's King Charles II, like other European kings, completely ignored the presence the Native Americans on the land that he granted. "Carolina" was a version of Carolus, the Latin name for Charles.

Despite renouncing his Scottish loyalties, Charles II was forced into exile in France and later Spain, while Cromwell ruled the British Commonwealth under military rule until his death in 1658.