Royal Hemophilia Sufferers in Queen Victoria’s Descendants

by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2012

Hemophilia is a genetic disease that prevents the blood from clotting properly. A hemophiliac will not bleed more profusely or more quickly than other people but will bleed for a longer time. External bleeding is usually not serious, but internal bleeding can be very problematic. There can be bleeding in joints, especially knees, ankles, and elbows, and in tissues and muscles. When bleeding occurs in a vital organ, especially the brain, a hemophiliac’s life is in danger.

It is probable that the royal hemophilia appeared because of a spontaneous mutation in Queen Victoria. Her father, Edward, Duke of Kent, was not a hemophiliac and there was no history of hemophilia in the family of her mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Spontaneous mutations are the cause of about 30% of hemophilia cases. However, in her biography of Prince Leopold, Queen Victoria’s hemophiliac son, Prince Leopold: The Untold Story of Queen Victoria’s Youngest Son, Charlotte Zeepvat puts forth a theory that there may have been unrecognized hemophilia in the ancestors of Queen Victoria’s mother. Many boys in the family were particularly fragile and died young. Zeepvat includes a genealogical chart showing the potential carriers and sufferers.

All photos are from Wikipedia unless otherwise noted.

Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany

In early 1884, Leopold’s doctors recommended that he spend the winter in Cannes, France, which he had done before. At the time, his wife Helena was expecting their second child. On March 27, 1884, Leopold slipped and fell on the staircase at Villa Nevada, the private home where he was staying in Cannes. He injured his knee and hit his head, and died early on the morning of March 28, 1884, apparently of a cerebral hemorrhage, the injuries having been exacerbated by his hemophilia.

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Prince Friedrich of Hesse and by Rhine

In May 1873, Frittie, as he was called in his family, and his brother Ernst Ludwig were playing in their mother’s bedroom at the Neues Palais. Ernst went into another room to look through the window, angled to the window in Alice’s bedroom. While Alice was out of the room to get Ernst, Frittie climbed up to the window to try and see Ernst. the chair he had climbed on tipped over and Frittie fell from the window to the ground below. Due to his hemophilia, Prince Friedrich died from his injuries.

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Prince Waldemar of Prussia

At the end of World War II, Waldemar was recovering from a stomach hemorrhage when it became necessary to flee from Soviet troops. Waldemar and his wife arrived at the home of some friends. His doctor found a donor but Waldemar needed more blood and in the chaos, the doctor was unable to find another donor. When the American army arrived in the area all medical resources were diverted to treat nearby Dachau Concentration Camp victims.

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Lord Leopold Mountbatten

On April 22, 1922, Leopold had hip surgery at Kensington Palace. He appeared to be making a normal recovery but had a relapse and died.

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Prince Heinrich of Prussia

When his mother left Heinrich unsupervised for a few minutes, he climbed on a chair and from the chair, he then climbed onto a table. Heinrich attempted to climb down to the floor when he heard his mother coming but he fell headfirst onto the floor. By the time Princess Irene reached her son, he was unconscious. The doctors said he would have survived had he not been a hemophiliac. Because of hemophilia, Heinrich was suffering from a brain hemorrhage. He lingered until the next day when he died.

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Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia

In the early hours of July 17, 1918, Alexei, his parents Nicholas and Alexandra, his sisters Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, the family doctor Dr. Yevgeny Botkin, the maid Anna Demidova, the cook Ivan Kharitonov, and the footman Alexei Trupp were killed by the Bolsheviks who had come to power during the Russian Revolution. Their bodies were initially thrown down a mine, but fearing discovery, they were mutilated and hastily buried beneath some tracks. For more information, see Unofficial Royalty: July 17, 1918 – Execution by Firing Squad of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and His Family

In 1994, when the bodies of the Romanovs were exhumed, two were missing – one daughter, either Maria or Anastasia, and Alexei. The remains of the nine bodies recovered were confirmed as those of the three servants, Dr. Botkin, Nicholas, Alexandra, and three of their daughters. The remains of Olga and Tatiana were identified based on the expected skeletal structure of young women of their age. The remains of the third daughter were either Maria or Anastasia.

On August 24, 2007, a Russian team of archaeologists announced that they had found the remains of Alexei and his missing sister. In 2009, DNA and skeletal analysis identified the remains found in 2007 as Alexei and his sister Maria. The remains of Alexei and Maria have not yet been buried. The Russian Orthodox Church has questioned whether the remains are authentic and blocked the burial. In addition, it was determined that the hemophilia in Queen Victoria’s descendants was the rare, severe form of hemophilia, known as Hemophilia B or Christmas disease. The DNA results showed that Alexei had Hemophilia B and that his mother Empress Alexandra Feodorova, born Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and his sister Grand Duchess Anastasia were carriers of the disease.

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Infante Alfonso of Spain, Prince of Asturias

  • Born: May 10, 1907 at the Royal Palace in Madrid, Spain
  • Parents: Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg and King Alfonso XIII of Spain
  • Relation to Queen Victoria: Great-Grandson
  • Married: (1) Edelmira Sampedro y Robato in 1933, divorced 1937  (2) Marta Esther Rocafort-Altuzarra in 1937, divorced 1938
  • Died:  September 6, 1938, aged 31, at Victoria Hospital in Miami, Florida
  • Buried: first at Woodlawn Park Cemetery and Mausoleum in Miami, Florida; in 1985 reburied in the Pantheon of the Princes in El Escorial, Spain
  • Wikipedia: Alfonso of Spain, Prince of Asturias

Alfonso had been out for an evening of dinner, a movie, and a visit to a nightspot in Miami, Florida with Mildred Gaydon, the cigarette girl at Don Dickerson’s Pirate’s Den, a nightclub.  Mildred was driving Alfonso back to the Miami Colonial Hotel, where he had been living for the past year.  She was blinded by the lights from a truck coming in the opposite direction, so she veered right to avoid a collision, but faulty steering on her car caused the wheels to lock. She then overcompensated, veering left to keep from going off the pavement, and crashed into a utility pole. Both Mildred and Alfonso appeared to have minor injuries but Alfonso’s hemophilia led to fatal internal bleeding that caused his death.

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Rupert Cambridge, Viscount Trematon

Rupert of Teck

Photo Credit – www.geni.com

On April 1, 1928, while Rupert’s parents were serving in South Africa, they received the news that Rupert had been in a car accident in France.  Rupert had been driving with two of his friends when the car skidded and crashed into a tree.  One of his friends died due to injuries and the other was only slightly injured.  At first, Rupert also did not seem to be seriously injured.  However, after being in the hospital for several days, he began to hemorrhage from the ear due to a slight fracture of the skull.  The bleeding was arrested and Rupert seemed to be improving, but it did not last.  On April 15, 1928, 20-year-old Rupert died from an injury he probably would have recovered from had he not been a hemophiliac.

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Infante Gonzalo of Spain

gonzalo

In August 1934, Gonzalo went on a vacation with his family to the villa of Count Ladislao de Hoyos in Pörtschach am Wörthersee, Austria. On the afternoon of August 11, 1934, Gonzalo and his sister Infanta Beatriz were traveling from Klagenfurt back to Pörtschach. Near Krumpendorf, Beatriz, who was driving the car, had to maneuver sharply to avoid a bicyclist. The car collided with a wall but neither Gonzalo nor Beatriz appeared to be injured.  However, a few hours later, Gonzalo had symptoms of abdominal bleeding. Because of his hemophilia, he died two days later from internal bleeding.

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Works Cited for Hemophilia Articles

  • Aronova-Tiuntseva, Yelena, and Clyde Freeman Herreid. “Hemophilia: The Royal Disease.” National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science. University at Buffalo, State University of New York., Web. 7 Apr. 2012.
  • “Haemophilia in European royalty.” Wikipedia. Web. 7 Apr. 2012.
  • “Hemophilia.” Genetic Diseases. Web. 7 Apr. 2012.
  • “Hemophilia B.” PubMed Health. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Web. 7 Apr. 2012.
  • “History of Hemophilia.” Hemophilia Information.com. Homecare for the Cure, Web. 7 Apr. 2012.
  • Eilers Koenig, Marlene, 2020. Hemophilia And Queen Victoria. [online] Royalmusingsblogspotcom.blogspot.com. Available at: <https://royalmusingsblogspotcom.blogspot.com/2019/08/hemophilia-and-queen-victoria.html?fbclid=IwAR3mL87V_4CQG9hQd7VwDk-M8Z1Oc1EmUHTj2G74z4dzQz6M7aBlXxdfdt8> [Accessed 24 July 2020].
  • Price, Michael. “Case Closed: Famous Royals Suffered From Hemophilia.” Science. Web. 7 Apr. 2012.
  • Raymond, Allan. “Haemophilia in Queen Victoria’s Descendants.” Monarchies of Europe. Web. 7 Apr. 2012.
  • Rogaev, E., Grigorenko, A., Faskhutdinova, G., Kittler, E. and Moliaka, Y. (2009). Genotype Analysis Identifies the Cause of the “Royal Disease”.
  • Zeepvat, Charlotte. Prince Leopold: The Untold Story of Queen Victoria’s Youngest Son. Phoenix Mill, UK: Sutton Publishing Limited, 1998. Print.