Queen Victoria and Haemophilia

[Mapple]

I thought the disease came through the mother's line, so what would a hemophiliac lover have to do with it?

There is a theor,y which has some adherents here, that Victoria was not the Duke of Kent's daughter, and the introduction of haemophilia into the royal family is frequently cited as a proof.

 

[iowabelle]

There is a theor,y which has some adherents here, that Victoria was not the Duke of Kent's daughter, and the introduction of haemophilia into the royal family is frequently cited as a proof.

I thought that the father was irrelevant as the disease is carried through the female line but that's not completely true.

• If a woman is a carrier, she has a 50% chance that her sons will have hemophilia. Likewise, she has a 50% chance that her daughters will be carriers of hemophilia. This assumes that the woman’s partner is not a hemophiliac.
  
  A man who has hemophilia has a 50% chance that his daughters will be carriers, although his sons will not be affected if the mother is not a carrier.

 

[selrahc4]

There's never been any indication that the Duke of Kent had hemophilia, though. The symptoms would have been difficult to ignore in that time and in his life-style.

 

[iowabelle]

My factoid was in response to the possibility that the Duchess of Kent had a lover who was Victoria's father (I just wasn't understanding what a hemophiliac lover had to do with Victoria being a carrier).

But still, I doubt that the Duchess was unfaithful to her husband during his lifetime.

 

[selrahc4]

Ah, yes, I see now. Thanks.
Still, it would have been quite rare for any hemophiliac at that to time have survived to an age to father children, not to mention to have been chosen as the Duchess's lover!!

 

[Mapple]

Indeed. It was not impossible--look at the Duke of Albany, Victoria's son, but highly unlikely.

 

[iowabelle]

Still, it would have been quite rare for any hemophiliac at that to time have survived to an age to father children, not to mention to have been chosen as the Duchess's lover!!

Absolutely true. When you look at the efforts that the Romanovs and the Spanish Bourbons went through to protect their sons, those children still had accidents which might have proved fatal. Earlier in the 19th century when the disease wasn't understood, it's even more unlikely that a hemophiliac male would have had a very long life.

 

[Dane]

Hemophiliea

Hey,

Who was the last royal in the european monarchies known to have Hemophiliea? and whats the chance of HM The Queen or William, Harry, Beatrice, Eugenie, Zara or peter having it? and if one of them did, would we know?

 

[kelly9480]

The last that I can think of off the top of my head was one of the sons of Irene of Hesse-Darmstadt -- the one that bled to death around the time of WW2.

There's no chance of any of the current royals having hemophilia unless George VI or Philip had/has it (they don't). Unless your father has it, your mother has to be a carrier. EIIR's mother wasn't a carrier and her father didn't have it, so she doesn't have the gene to pass down to her descendents. Philip doesn't have it, so he can't pass it down either. Therefore, there's no way for any of their descendents to have it or be carriers.

Of course, it's still rumoured to be floating around in the distant branches of Borbon family tree, but that's unsubstantiated. (At least one Borbon female descendent had inquiries made about her ability to carry the gene, but I don't know whether the question was answered.)

If someone's a hemophiliac, we'd know about it simply because they'd be in and out of hospital for treatment. If someone's a carrier, we wouldn't know for sure because they wouldn't display the symptoms. But you can tell whether or not someone has the ability to be a carrier by looking into their family tree and seeing whether there's a history of hemophilia. That's how we can dismiss the current royals as carriers -- there's no hemophilia in their direct ancestors back to Victoria (this obviously dismisses the Hesse-Darmstadts, the Albanys, etc, relatives they aren't descended from).

The general assumption is that there was a genetic mutation that occurred in Victoria's DNA. Most mutations occur in the "junk genes" (the ones that won't cause serious harm) but maybe not this one.

 

[Chris922]

I presume that is the borish oaf who is married to Caroline of Monaco????????

Yes. And you've described him correctly!

 

[marian]

I know that Milford Haven died of cancer. Is true is?

 

[Iluvbertie]

If someone's a hemophiliac, we'd know about it simply because they'd be in and out of hospital for treatment. If someone's a carrier, we wouldn't know for sure because they wouldn't display the symptoms. But you can tell whether or not someone has the ability to be a carrier by looking into their family tree and seeing whether there's a history of hemophilia. That's how we can dismiss the current royals as carriers -- there's no hemophilia in their direct ancestors back to Victoria (this obviously dismisses the Hesse-Darmstadts, the Albanys, etc, relatives they aren't descended from).

Actually the present royals are descended from the Hesse-Darmstadts - Queen Victoria - Princess Alice (married Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt) - Victoria (married Louis of Battenburg)- Alice (married Prince Andrew of Greece) - Philip - Charles etc - William etc


However there has been no evidence of haemophilia coming through this line of descent unlike the line of descent through Alice and Louis youngest daughter Alix who took it to Russia.

 

[Anonymoose]

I'm pretty sure Victoria was the daughter of the Duke of Kent, in some of the later protraits and photographs she even looks a lot like him!

She certainly wasn't Jonh Conroy's daughter since the Duchess of Kent didn't even meet him until after she was pregnant. Also Conroy was a solider, which would be a pretty dangerous occupation for a hemeophiliac! It was rather amazing that Leopold managed to live and have children, seeing as back then there was no treatment at all for the disease.

The Duke of Kent was rather old when he fathered Victoria, which would make it more likely that a genetic mutation could occur. Or of course, Victoria's mother could have been a carrier and passed it to her daughter.

As for the porphyria, I saw a documentary that investigated whether George III actually had it, and they pointed out that in a lot of cases people who have the gene don't actually suffer many symptoms. They studied locks of George III's hair, they couldn't find any DNA, but they found a lot of arsenic, about 300 times the normal amount. It's theorised that either the arsenic brought on his porphyria like symptoms (which first occurred rather late in life), or his madness was caused by arsenic poisoning.

Porphyria seems more likely though, because many of George III's children suffered from strange illnesses through out their lives, particularly George IV. The Duke of Kent doesn't seem to have had it, in fact he was considered the healtiest of his brothers and his death was very unexpected, so it's possible he didn't have the gene and so didn't pass it on Victoria, so it died out in the British Royal family.

 

[fee]

To clear up some of the confusion of "sane" carriers and silent genes and inheritance laws:
As someone has already stated the gene carrying Haemophilia is located on a X-chromosome, of which women have two and man only have one.
So if a woman has a "defunct" part on one of her X-Chr. the healthy correct part on the other X-Chr. takes over and no visible illness can be seen.
If a man has a defect in his X-chr. there is no counterbalancing, since he only has one.
A woman gives one X-chromosome to her offspring, this is partnered by the fathers X-chr. making it a daughter or with the Y-Chr. making it a son.

Now imagine the mother being a carrier of HP, one of her X-chr. would be sick shown here as X)
XX + XY =
XX or XX (the latter girl would be a carrier just like her mother)
or XY or XY (the latter boy would be sick)
If the father was a sufferer of HP his chromosomes were XY
All of his daughters would be carriers but none of his sons would inherit the disease from him.
Now if the strange case would arise that a daughter would inherit a defect gene from both her XY father and XX mother, she would be sick too, however she would not survive her first menstruation... (or at least back in those days)

As to Victoria being a love child or not, difficult question, however, the persistence of Prophyria seems to contradict this.
(BTW, it does seem strange that Victorias father managed not to have any children by his former partner of (what?) 20 years.)
A random mutation of the Haemophilia gene would statistically be 1:25000 to 1:100000.

 

[marian]

Royalty and Haemophilia

I want to know about this. If some prince has this haemoplhilia, will be a secret?

 

[EmpressRouge]

Haemophilia is a lot more treatable today than in the past, so it's will be less apparent.

 

[Gita]

Are there any royals alive today with the condition? I mean any European Royals? I have not heard of any.

Thank you to anyone who can answer my question.

 

[Fashionista100]

In as far a European Royals, I doubt they would hide it. It does not have the stigma it did over 100+ years ago. Medical Science now understands it and can treat it. Medical Science understands how it is passed and I believe can screen for it.

To my knowledge no European Royals have it. Marrying non royals has helped this out a great deal. Part of the problem with hemophilia before was everyone was marrying their cousins. So the chances of getting the disease were even higher and higher. When you keep marrying w/in a family your chances of passing on genetic abnormalities is extremely high.

 

[acdc1]

Well, Robert K. Massie, in Nicholas and Alexandra, stated that hemophilia could reappear in a future prince, since there's still that gene, but not marrying first cousins has really, really helped. And it probably wouldn't be a secret, since it's much more treatable than it was 100 years ago.

King Juan Carlos I think is the most closely related person to a hemophiliac, I think that two of his uncles had it and died a couple of years before his birth.

 

[BeatrixFan]

Potentially it could appear in any of the Royal Families of Europe.

 

[Marengo]

About the heamophelia, I once read that Princess Sybilla of Luxembourg has a brother who suffers from it,. Is there any truth in this? Her mother is a direct descendant (female line) of Queen Ena of Spain, so she could be a carrier, as could Princess Sybilla herself.

 

[BeatrixFan]

I thought that any female related to Queen Victoria could potentially carry the disease? So in effect, Prince Charles could have had it?

 

[Marengo]

One can only inherit threw the female line. Prince Charles doesnt descend through females only from Queen Victoria, Princess Sybilla does however:

Queen Victoria -- Princess Beatrice -- Queen Ena of Spain, nee Pss Battenberg -- Infanta Beatriz of Spain, Pss Torlonia -- Dona OlympiaTolornia, mrs Weiller -- Princess Sybilla of Luxembourg, nee Weiller.

 

[BeatrixFan]

Of course! Queen Sofia also could be a carrier couldn't she?

Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld>Princess Feodora of Leiningen>Princess Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein>Queen Frederike>Queen Sofia

 

[morhange]

Well, there wasn't any evidence that any of Princess Feodora's children suffered from it, I think it was solely Victoria, because their brother Carl didn't suffer from it.

 

[Russophile]

I picked up an interesting book last week on blood types.
In one of the chapters it says that Queen Elizabeth II & Prince Charles are Type O blood types & suggests a type O bleeding disorder blood connection in regards to thier family history. Type O's have naturally thin blood, hence the bleeding suggestion of a possible hemophelia connection.

The Romanovs were type A. And the girls (OTMA) were known to have thin blood and were "bleeders" but not full blown haemophilia. I think I read that in Massie's N & A. But I distinctly remember that they had type A.

 

[iowabelle]

Porphyria seems more likely though, because many of George III's children suffered from strange illnesses through out their lives, particularly George IV. The Duke of Kent doesn't seem to have had it, in fact he was considered the healtiest of his brothers and his death was very unexpected, so it's possible he didn't have the gene and so didn't pass it on Victoria, so it died out in the British Royal family.

I have read that as recently as Prince William of Gloucester and his father, the late Duke of Gloucester, both had porphyria. (I have also read that Princess Margaret suffered from it, but I am skeptical of that information.) So porphyria may not have died out as completely as we have been led to believe.

 

[wbenson]

That may also have came through Queen Mary's genetics. She descended from George III through Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge.

 

[J Kendrick]

Forget claimants. This is not about claimants.

This is entirely about the fact that the popular story of hemophilia in the Royal family line is clearly flawed from the very start, as was so accurately pointed out by the professors Malcolm and William Potts in their book "Queen Victoria's Gene". The Potts brothers had even gone so far as to try and explain away the most obvious of all the flaws in the haemophilia story by questioning the identity of Queen Victoria's father and claiming in their 1995 book that she may have been illegitimate.

Recent DNA research into the question of how haemophilia starts -- research that is completely unrelated to the Romanov investigation -- has now raised even more serious doubt about the story that the disease had started with Alexei's great-grandmother Victoria.

Just two weeks ago (Dec. 18th, 2008), the following article was published on the Philadelphia Inquirer website:
Beginning to crack the code of 'junk DNA' | Philadelphia Inquirer | 12/18/2008

The key part of this article is found in the following paragraphs, which very neatly explain just how a "spontaneous mutation" can happen in the Factor VIII Gene... not first in the mother ... but in the birth of the first son to carry the disease. This explanation and others like it stemming from the same research would pretty much put the crimp on any of those now popular but totally unproven claims that the suspected "spontaneous mutation" that started it all had happened first in Victoria and not in her son.

"(Prof.) Kazazian had come across three genetically unusual cases - boys with haemophilia whose Factor VIII gene was disabled by an invading piece of stray DNA. The invading DNA belonged to a specific category of the junk DNA called a transposable element. These had been observed in plants, where they had the power to act like a virus, copying themselves and jumping to new parts of the genetic code."

"Using what is called a genetic probe, he was able to find the same sequence in a line1 element in the boy's mother, but it was in a different place, on Chromosome 22. (Human chromosomes are all assigned a number except the sex chromosomes, which are labelled X and Y.) In her case, it caused no problem. Kazazian said he suspected that the line1 element jumped from her Chromosome 22 to the X chromosome either in the mother's egg cell or during an early stage in the development of the embryo that became the boy."

There is even more similar evidence from the same researchers in a paper from 1994 titled "Factor VIII gene inversions causing severe haemophilia A originate almost exclusively in male germ cells": Factor VIII gene inversions causing severe hemophilia A originate almost exclusively in male germ cells -- Rosslter et al. 3 (7): 1035 -- Human Molecular Genetics

... the key words there being... of course... "originate almost exclusively in male germ cells" which, for all intents and purposes, would practically rule out any likelihood that the "spontaneous mutation" had happened first in Victoria... or that she was ever a carrier... even if her fourth son Leopold was a sufferer of the disease.

... and if Victoria could not be a carrier... because Leopold's disease would have been caused by either a gene inversion or the phenomenon now known as "jumping DNA"... which "originate almost exclusively in *male* germ cells"... then his sisters and nieces -- including Alexandra -- could *not* have been carriers either.

Therefore, Alexei could not have been a haemophiliac.. and if they have now found Alexei, as they now claim, then they must also now follow through and test those same remains for that same genetic evidence that will now settle those still unresolved questions once and for all.

The truth about the long-suspected blood disease is now there just waiting to be found in that "New Information on Two Pits Found July 2007"... and the leading investigator from Ekaterinburg, Nikolai Nevolin, has now publicly committed the researchers to completing all of the tests that are now necessary to uncover that same truth.

Happy New Year! ;-)

JK

 

[Elspeth]

... the key words there being... of course... "originate almost exclusively in male germ cells" which, for all intents and purposes, would practically rule out any likelihood that the "spontaneous mutation" had happened first in Victoria... or that she was ever a carrier... even if her fourth son Leopold was a sufferer of the disease.

Why would it rule out that she was a carrier? If the mutation could have happened in her son, why could it not have happened in her father? As well as the Russian royal family, haemophilia seems to have afflicted the Spanish royal family, and Leopold wasn't an ancestor of that family.