Haemophilia in European royalty

Haemophilia figured prominently in the history of European royalty. Queen Victoria passed the mutation to her son Leopold and, through several of her daughters, to various royals across the continent, including the royal families of Spain, Germany and Russia. For this reason it was once popularly called "the royal disease".

Victoria appears to have been a de novo mutation, as her mother, Victoria, was not known to have a family history of the disease. Queen Victoria's father, Edward, was not a haemophiliac. The probability of her mother having had a lover who suffered from haemophilia is minuscule, due to the low life expectancy of 19th century haemophiliacs and the lack of any haemophiliacs in European royalty before Victoria. Descendants of Victoria's maternal half-sister, Feodora, are not known to have suffered from the disease.

Queen Victoria's daughter Victoria apparently escaped the haemophilia gene as it did not appear in any of her descendants. Victoria's fifth child, Helena may or may not have been a carrier; two healthy sons survived to adulthood but two other sons died in infancy and her two daughters did not have issue. Victoria's sixth child, Louise, died without issue. Her sons King Edward VII, Alfred, and Arthur were not haemophiliacs.

Three of Victoria's children were unlucky. The disease passed on to her daughters Alice and Beatrice and her son Leopold.

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Princess Alice

Alice, Victoria's third child, passed it on to at least three of her children:

• Prince Friedrich of Hesse and by Rhine. Died before his third birthday after a fall from bleeding on the brain.
• Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine (later Princess Heinrich of Prussia), who passed it on to two of her three sons:
  • Prince Waldemar of Prussia. Survived to age 56; had no issue.
  • Prince Heinrich of Prussia. Died at age 4.
• Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine. Alix had a marriage proposal from Prince Albert Victor, eldest son of the future King Edward VII; had she accepted, haemophilia could have returned to the direct line of succession in Britain. Instead she married Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and passed it on to her only son:
  • Tsarevitch Alexei. Murdered by the Bolsheviks at the age of 13. Alexei's haemophilia was one of the factors contributing to the collapse of Imperial Russia during the Russian Revolution of 1917 (according to Massey, Nicholas and Alexandra, 1967). It is not known if any of Alexei's sisters were carriers, as all four were executed with him before any of them had issue. One of Alexandra's daughters, Grand Duchess Maria, is thought by some to have been a symptomatic carrier, because she haemorrhaged during a tonsillectomy. (Ian Vorres, The Last Grand Duchess, 1965 p. 115.)

Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (later Victoria, Marchioness of Milford Haven), Alice's oldest child and maternal grandmother to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, apparently did not inherit the mutation. If she did, she does not appear to have passed it on to her descendants. Princess Elizabeth of Hesse and by Rhine (later Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia), may or may not have been a carrier. She was childless when killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, Alice's seventh and last child, may or may not have been a carrier. She died of diphtheria at the age of four.

Prince Leopold

Leopold, Victoria's eighth child, was a haemophiliac. Died from bleeding after a fall. He lived to the age of 30, long enough to pass the gene on to his only daughter:

• Princess Alice of Albany (later Countess of Athlone), who in turn passed it on to her oldest son:
  • Prince Rupert of Teck (died at the age of 20, bleeding to death after a car accident)

Alice of Albany's youngest son Prince Maurice of Teck, died in infancy, so it is not known if he was a sufferer. Her daughter Lady May Abel Smith, Leopold's granddaughter, apparently was not a carrier, as the disease has not appeared in her descendants.

Princess Beatrice

Princess Beatrice (later Princess Henry of Battenberg), Victoria's ninth and last child, passed it on to at least two, if not three, of her children:

• Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (later Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain), who passed it on to
  • Infante Alfonso of Spain, Prince of Asturias. Died at age 31, bleeding to death after a car accident.
  • Infante Gonzalo. Died at age 19, bleeding to death after a car accident.
  • Victoria Eugenie's two daughters, Infantas Beatriz and Maria Cristina of Spain, apparently were not carriers, as none of their descendants have had the disease.
• Prince Leopold of Battenberg. Later Lord Leopold Mountbatten. Died at age 32 during a knee operation.
• Prince Maurice of Battenberg. Killed in action in World War I in 1914 at the age of 23. Maurice's haemophila is disputed by various sources. It seems unlikely that a known haemophiliac would be allowed to serve in combat.

Today

As of today, haemophilia appears to be extinct in the royal houses of Europe. The last male descendant of Victoria to suffer from the disease was Infante Gonzalo (born 1914). Many sons have been born to European royalty since and none are known to have had haemophilia. However, since the haemophilia gene remains hidden in females with only one bad gene, and female descendants of Victoria exist in several royal houses today, there remains a small chance that the disease could appear again.

References and external links

• Potts, D. M. Queen Victoria's Gene. 1999, Sutton Publishing, ISBN 0750911999.
• "Hemophilia: The Royal Disease"
• Family tree of Queen Victoria and her descendants
• Another family tree