The Royal Family..

Haemophilia acquired the name the royal disease due to the high number of descendants of Queen Victoria afflicted by it. The first instance of haemophilia in the British Royal family occured on the birth of Prince Leopold on 7th April, 1853, Leopold was the fourth son and eighth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. No earlier occurence of the disease in the Royal family had been known, it is assumed that a mutation occured in the sperm of the Queen's father, Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent.

Haemophilia is an X-linked recessive disorder. The blood of a haemophiliac lacks the ability to coagulate, due to the fact that one or more of the plasma proteins required to form a clot is absent or reduced in their blood. The condition is passed on to males through females, who do not manifest the symptoms of the disease themselves. A recessive gene, it is carried on the sexual female chromosome X . Males possess XY chromosomes and females XX. Since females have two X chromosomes, they are more often than not carriers.

Prince Leopold (1 on chart) was described as delicate child who remained a constant source of anxiety to the Queen throughout his life, she consequently placed restrictions on him, which he chaffed at. He was later created Duke of Albany and married the German princess, Helena of Waldeck-Pyrmont. Leopold died in 1884 at the age of 31, in the south of France. He suffered a fit, the cause or the consequence of a fall on some stairs at Cannes and died the following morning.

Leopold's marriage to Helena of Waldeck produced two children, a daughter, Princess Alice of Albany (4), later to become Countess of Athlone, who was a further carrier of the disease and an unaffected son, born posthumously, Charles Edward, later Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Alice was later to become Countess of Athlone and was to prove a carrier of haemophilia. She married Prince Alexander of Teck, the brother of Queen Mary, their son,Rupert of Teck (5) was also a haemophiliac.

During the First World War, when anti-German feeling was at its height, in conjunction with changing the name of the Royal House to Windsor, King George V changed that of the Tecks to Cambridge, (for their maternal ancestor, Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, a son of George III). Alexander of Teck was made Earl of Athlone and Rupert granted the courtesy title of Viscount Trematon. After being involved in a car accident in France, he died of a brain hemorrhage.

Chart showing the descendants of Queen Victoria affected by haemophilia

Through two of the Queen's daughters, Alice (2) and Beatrice (3), both of whom were carriers, the disease was to be spread into many of the Royal Families of Europe.