The parentage of Queen Victoria has been the subject of speculation.
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Princess Charlotte of Wales was the only daughter and heir of the Prince Regent (later King George IV). Her death in childbirth in 1817 set off a battle between the Prince Regent's brothers to see who could father a legitimate heir. Some of the brothers had been previously involved in scandals. Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the second in line to the throne, was amicably separated from his wife, Frederica Charlotte of Prussia. The sixth son, Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, had contracted two marriages in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act (as had the Prince Regent before his marriage to Charlotte Augusta's mother). Three brothers, the third, fourth and seventh in line to the throne, William Henry, Duke of Clarence, Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Adolph Frederick, Duke of Cambridge all married in 1818. The fifth son, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, was already married.
The Duke of Clarence had married Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. Though he had been able to father ten illegitimate children, none of his children by his wife survived childhood. The second daughter, Elizabeth, lived the longest, being born on 10 December 1820 and dying on 4 March 1821. The next son to produce an heir was the Duke of Cambridge, whose son George was born on 26 March 1819. He would be displaced two months later by the birth of a daughter to the Duke of Kent and his wife, Viktoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Their first and only child was called Alexandrina Victoria but was known to her family as "Drina". She was born on 24 May 1819, just three days before the son of the Duke of Cumberland, also called George, who consequently was never more than seventh in line to the throne. Both George III and the Duke of Kent died in January 1820. The Prince Regent became George IV and Drina was third in line to the throne after her uncles, the Duke of York and Duke of Clarence (the future William IV). She would ultimately take the throne as Queen Victoria in 1837.
Rumours about Victoria's parentage centred on a controversial Irish soldier and adventurer called John Conroy who was her mother's private secretary and the comptroller of her household. The Duchess of Kent was the same age as Conroy, whereas she was nineteen years younger than her husband and the court gossiped openly about their relationship. After the Duke's death Conroy assumed a parental role towards Victoria that she bitterly resented. This caused a near permanent rift between Victoria and her mother, as well as between the Duchess and her brother-in-law, William IV. Conroy expected that when Victoria became queen he would be made her private secretary, but instead one of her first acts as monarch was to dismiss him from her household.
The belief that the Duchess and Conroy were lovers was widespread. When asked by Charles Greville whether he believed they were lovers, the Duke of Wellington replied that he 'supposed so'. The Duke later recounted a story, suspected to have come directly from Victoria. According to him, when Victoria was young she had caught Conroy and the Duchess engaged in what were diplomatically called 'familiarities'. Horrified, she told her governess, Baroness Lehzen, what she had witnessed. Lehzen in turn told her close ally, Madame de Späth, who confronted the Duchess about her behaviour. The Duchess of Kent was furious and promptly dismissed de Späth. She could not, however, dismiss the Baroness, who was protected by George IV and later William IV. Regardless, dismissing de Späth had already strained relations between the Duchess and her daughter, dismissing Lehzen could have created an irreparable breach.
Two pieces of evidence are sometimes mentioned to suggest that Victoria's father could not have been the Duke of Kent.
Both arguments are easily countered. Since hæmophilia is X-linked, in order for a father to transmit it he must have the condition himself, but Conroy was healthy. Nor is there evidence of hæmophilia in either Conroy's ancestors or descendants. While hæmophilia is usually inherited from the mother, in this case it is more likely that the mutation arose spontaneously because Victoria's father was in his 50's when Victoria was conceived. Hæmophilia arises more frequently in the children of older fathers,[1] and spontaneous mutations account for about 30% of cases.[2]
With regard to porphyria (which famously George III may have had), it apparently continued among descendants of Victoria. One of her granddaughters, Charlotte, Duchess of Saxe-Meiningen, is believed to have suffered from it.[3] In the 1970s, Prince William of Gloucester, who was killed in an aeroplane crash, was reliably diagnosed with variegate porphyria by three different specialists. However William was also descended from Victoria's uncle, the Duke of Cambridge, and could have inherited it from him.
The belief that Victoria may have been Conroy's daughter has been generally dismissed by historians as a legend based solely on rumour and innuendo, often from sources hostile to the House of Hanover. Only one recent writer, A. N. Wilson, has given the claim any credence, an action criticised in book reviews by his peers.[4]