It’s a lot less impressive when you look at the whole body of knowledge they drew their treatments from. A lot of such treatments were ineffective or harmful, but were believed to do good.
Assuming that it would be possible to get a meaningful life expectancy for a group as small as the royal family, I’m not sure it is correct that the life expectancy for the average middle class person would be expected to be very close. Life expectancies for rich and poor neighbourhoods of London apparently vary by at least 25 years. Some rich London neighboorhoods have life expectancies in the low or mid-nineties. The life expectancy for the UK as a whole is 81.5.
I read this book some years ago: http://www.amazon.com/When-Illness-Strikes-Leader-Dilemma/dp/0300063148/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420577977&sr=8-1&keywords=when+illness+strikes+the+leader
The authors make the interesting point that, depending on the nature of the government, the politics of the day, the personalities of courtiers, staff and physicians, and the level of the doctors’ skills, national leaders are often get worse healthcare than those they govern. An ailing leader might be cared for by quacks more skilled at politics than medicine, or have “treatment” that is more about keeping up appearances than genuine healing.
I don’t remember any British monarchs serving as examples in the book, but FDR, the Shah of Iran, various Soviet gerontocrats and Mao, among others, were all interestingly discussed.
Do read before you type. We are talking about “Royals”, not “rich people”. Royals usually had personal physicians following them around everywhere they went. Unlike the average rich man, Royals were expected tio (and did) partake in combat with its attendant dangers. Not to mention have others trying to kill them. So they should have lower life expectancy now.
Despite this many lived to be quite aged. Ramses II (3500 years ago) was over 90. George III lived to be 82. George II to 77. Louis XIV to 77. Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb to 89. Elizabeth I to 69.