Haemophilia in European royalty

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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 haemophiliac, and the probability of her mother having had a lover who suffered from haemophilia is minuscule as, in the Nineteenth Century, male haemophiliacs tended to die before they could sire children.^{[citation needed]} Descendants of Victoria's maternal half-sister, Feodora, are not known to have suffered from the disease.

The royal families' history of haemophilia. Those who suffered from or carried haemophilia are enclosed in a box.

The disease passed on to

• Alice, who passed it on to at least three of her children:
  • Prince Frederick of Hesse and by Rhine, who, after a fall, began to suffer from bleeding on the brain and died before his third birthday.
  • 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 and
    • Prince Heinrich of Prussia
  • Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine (later Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia), who passed it on to her only son:
    • Tsesarevitch Alexei

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 the whole family were executed while the children were still young. 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 daughter and maternal grandmother to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who does not appear to have inherited the mutation; or, 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), who may or may not have been a carrier. It is unknown as she was childless when killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
  • Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, who may or may not have been a carrier. She died of diphtheria at the age of four.
• Leopold, a sufferer (one of the rare male haemophiliacs of this early era to survive to adulthood and have children), who passed it 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

The younger son, Prince Maurice of Teck, died in infancy, so it is not known if he was a sufferer.

• Princess Beatrice, who 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 and
    • Infante Gonzalo

Her two daughters, Infantas Beatriz and Maria Cristina of Spain, may have been carriers, but none of their descendants have had the disease as of 2006, although one of Beatriz's grandsons, Paul Weiller, son of her daughter Olimpia, died as a child, but from an unknown cause of death.

• • Prince Leopold of Battenberg (later Lord Leopold Mountbatten)
  • Prince Maurice of Battenberg (This is disputed by various sources, although the fact that he was killed in battle in 1914 suggests that he was allowed to serve—unlikely for a known haemophiliac)

It is unknown if Victoria's third or fourth daughters, Helena or Louise were carriers. Louise died without giving birth to any children. Helena had two healthy sons, but also two younger sons who died in early infancy and two daughters who both died childless, so there may have been a possibility that either of the younger sons could have been sufferers or the daughters could have been carriers.

[edit] In Popular Culture

In the British science fiction television series, Doctor Who, the existence of the disease in Queen Victoria is said to come from a werewolf bite in Tooth and Claw.