Queen victoria family tree of hemophilia
Queen Victoria's other daughter, Alice, had a carrier daughter, Alix. She passed the gene to the male heir to the Spanish throne. Beatrice's daughter married into the Spanish royal family. Of her children, one son, Leopold, had hemophilia B, and two daughters, Alice and Beatrice, were carriers. Queen Victoria's gene for hemophilia was likely caused by spontaneous mutation. This is because the hemophilia gene was passed from Queen Victoria (hemophilia B carrier), who became Queen of England in 1837, to the ruling families of Russia, Spain, and Germany. Hemophilia has been called a "royal disease". They were given Roman numeral names in 1961 to avoid confusion. Eleven other blood factors were recognized in the 1950s. Conrad Otto who described an inherited bleeding condition affecting males who he called “bleeder.” It was not until just before World War II that doctors learned that hemophilia A was caused by a problem with a protein in the blood, later called factor VIII. The first modern description was in 1803 by Dr. But they knew very little about how blood can clot. They could see that some people bled differently. 1 However Queen Victoria came to be a carrier of the gene, it sure caused a lot of suffering.People in ancient times wrote about blood and bleeding problems. Tests on the remains of the Imperial Family of Russia (who were related to Queen Victoria through her daughter Alice) show that Victoria’s great-grandson the Tsarevich Alexei suffered from the relatively rare Haemophilia B, while his sister Anastasia was a carrier of the gene.
Of their three sons, one was a haemophiliac, while their only daughter Victoria Eugenie was a carrier of the gene.īut how did Queen Victoria end up with the haemophilia gene? Her father certainly wasn’t a haemophiliac, so it is likely to have been a spontaneous mutation of the gene. Princess Beatrice married Prince Henry of Battenberg in 1885. Of her five daughters, two were definitely carriers- Alix, the future Tsarina of Russia and Irene, who married Prince Henry of Prussia – of the gene as they passed it on to their children. Of Alice’s two sons, one suffered from haemophilia and the two-year-old Friedrich died after a fall. Princess Alice married the future Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse in 1862 and they went on to have seven children together. She gave birth to a son named Leopold Charles Edward George Albert a few months later. Leopold died after suffering a fall in 1884, leaving behind a pregnant Helena. They had a daughter named Princess Alice of Albany in 1883, and she too was a carrier of the gene for haemophilia, and she passed to her son Rupert who died in a car crash at the age of 20. Leopold married Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont in 1882. This unfortunate defect… is often not outgrown & no remedy or medicine does it any good.” He continued to have accidents and resorted to wearing a knee-pad. It is very sad for the poor Child – for really I fear he will never be able to enter any active service. Victoria wrote, “Your poor little namesake is again laid up with a bad knee from a fall – which appeared to be of no consequence. Queen Victoria first mentioned a “defect” in a letter to the King of the Belgians on 2 August 1859 – there had clearly been a diagnosis though it is unknown if they were aware of the hereditary aspect. When Leopold began to walk, it was noticed that he bruised easily. In addition to Prince Leopold, two of Queen Victoria’s daughters – Princess Alice and Princess Beatrice – carried the gene for haemophilia and passed it on. In 1891, researchers finally showed that the blood of haemophiliacs took longer to clot. She once wrote, “No one knows the constant fear I am in about him.” Yet at the time, it was thought he simply had weak veins or some kind of male menstruation. Queen Victoria’s youngest son Prince Leopold turned out to have the so-called “royal disease” and Victoria lived with continuous guilt. When the future Queen Victoria was born in 1819, no one knew that she was the carrier of a blood disease that would go down in history as the “royal disease.” Haemophilia was quite misunderstood in Queen Victoria’s day, and few haemophiliacs were expected to live to adulthood.