Is it true that "royal" blood from inbreeding in the palace cuased hemophelia??

Question

Is it true that "royal" blood from inbreeding in the palace cuased hemophelia??

Answer 1

Plenty of people have hemophilia who have no connection with royalty at all.

There was no history of the disease in either Queen Victoria's or Prince Albert's families. So the cause was a spontaneous mutation in Queen Victoria herself. Though only males are affected, females are the carriers of the gene. Victoria's son, Prince Leopold was the first to inherit hemophilia, none of her other sons were affected. He lived to adulthood, but died at an early age. At that time there was no treatment at all.

Victoria's daughters and granddaughters married into royal houses throughout Europe, and so the disease was transmitted to both the Spanish and Russian royal houses.

The heirs of both houses were victims of the disease. Czarina Alexandra was Queen Victoria's granddaughter, which is how the Tsarevitch Alexis was affected and the whole story of Rasputin and the downfall and murder of the Romanovs started.

Queen Victoria herself recognized that something was wrong and knew that it originated with her, but medical knowledge was not advanced enough at the time to pinpoint the cause.

Edit - Anne Boleyn was a commoner, so you can hardly call her inbred. Her daughter Elizabeth never had children and the dynasty ended. So much for that argument.

Answer 2

No, not really.  Victoria had a LOT of kids, and she married them around the world in political alliances -- so it was more a case of spreading it around than "inbreeding".  She apparently carried the gene (which is a X-recessive gene), and passed it on to two daughters (Alice and Beatrice), who became carriers, and to a son, Leopold, who actually developed it.  Alice had a son with hem., and two daughters who ended up being carriers, with three grandsons with it -- her daughter, Alix, ended up being Alexandra of Russia, married to Nicholas and mother of Alexis, who had hem.  Beatrice had two sons with hem., and one daughter who was a carrier, who married into the Spanish royal house and passed it along to two sons.  

Even Prince Leopold survived long enough to marry and have children, but his daughter carried the gene and also passed it on to have a son with hem.

The gene works on the X chromosome.  Since males only have one X, if they have it, it turns into full-blown hem.  Females have two X chromosomes, so the other one tends to "compensate". That's why it's rare for women to have it -- they would have to have BOTH X-chromosomes affected.

The interesting question, then, is where did Queen Victoria get HER defective gene from, since it seemed to suddenly crop up with her?  There's a 1-in-50,000 chance that a gene would mutate in that way.  We know that Albert didn't have hemophilia, so where did that darn gene come from?  Lots of people use the occurrance of that gene to postulate that Victoria was not actually the daughter of the Duke of Kent (who married very late in life and had no mistresses . . .)

Answer 3

no it is a defective gene that causes Hemophelia on the X Chromosome.

It is sometimes known as is sometimes known as "the royal disease" because Queen Victoria passed the mutation to her son Leopold and, through several of her daughters, to various royals across the continent, including the royal families of Spain, Germany, and Russia. Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, son of Nicholas II, was a descendant of Queen Victoria and suffered from haemophilia.

Since a male receives his single X-chromosome from his mother, a son of a healthy female silently carrying the gene will has a 50% chance of inheriting that gene from her and with it the disease.

Answer 4

Inbreeding caused hemophelia as well as seizure disorders, mental instability, insanity and physical deformities.  For instance, Anne Boleyn had six fingers on one hand.  People were not really aware of the effects of inbreeding, and in their desire to keep the royal line "pure" they succeeded in contaminating themselves genetically.  I guess the lesson here is don't marry your cousins, much less your half brothers and sisters.

Answer 5

It is thought that the defective gene may have develped in Queen Victoria because there was no history of it in either of her parents' families beforehand and if she was the first with the defective gene then inbreeding may have contributed.

Answer 6

No,it didn't cause hemophilia but,it certainly kept it going until the reign of Queen Victoria.The disease is only carried through the female line and Victoria never passed it on to any of the male children.in her family.Her grand daughter passed it on to her young son but he was murdered along with the rest of his family by the Bolsheviks.

I bow to the superior knowledge of Whatotherway and give him a thumbs up