The Grandmother of Europe many would have already recognised who I’m going to write but for people who don’t know or never heard of this made-up name let me tell you her real name and a quick brief about her. ”Queen Victoria” was her actual name. In the last decades of her life, Queen Victoria received the famous nickname "Grandmother of Europe." The nickname had it’s justification, as her many children had married into many of Europe's royal families, and her numerous grandchildren, once grown, did the same. Most of the current European royals are linked back to her. Even Queen Elizabeth’s husband(Prince Philip) is related to her. But this family connection comes at a great price. Queen Victoria carried a royal curse with her, one that she passed on to generations and other royals. Unlike the episode of Doctor Who in which she carries and passes on the Lycanthropy to her royals, her royal curse was somewhat medical. She carried the Haemophilia.
Well, it is a genetic disease, that prevents blood from clotting properly. Those with this disease tend to bleed excessively. Victoria herself did not manifest the disease, it was passed through her mother to males in the family. It is suspected that Victoria carried a much rarer form of the disease.
Victoria doesn’t believe she carried that gene for haemophilia. When her son Leopold was afflicted with the disease she told doctors that she had no recollection of anyone else in the family exhibiting signs of it.
Victoria’s family may not have manifested haemophilia but there are pieces of evidence that it passed on through their bloodline. Haemophilia of Georgie pointed out that her half died of bleeding when she was younger though it wasn’t specified if it was because of haemophilia which was inherited from her mother there are chances.
The public didn’t know that Leopold had haemophilia until after his death, at the age of 30 from haemorrhage following a fall. Before this, Victoria's family had placed several restrictions on Leopold. Leopold had always been a delicate child and may have also suffered from a form of epilepsy which Prince John, and some of Victoria’s descendants also suffered).
Some suggest a sudden nervous attack caused Leopold to fall and hurt himself leading to unstoppable bleeding internally and externally. Doctors at the time told Victoria that she may not have known but she had passed it on because she had so many children and only one manifested it.
In those times especially in Victoria's case haemophilia was a political death sentence. If any other royal family even caught a smell of this genetic abnormality in someone's bloodline, those individuals would be dropped from any and all royal eligibility lists and Victoria and her husband Prince Albert had a lot of children and their pride wanted them to marry them off to other royal families.
Victoria's form of haemophilia thankfully looks to be extinct in the royal lines of Europe now, reported by a study from Scientific American, but once it had some deadly consequences.
Victoria passed on the haemophilia gene to two of her daughters, Princesses Alice and Beatrice. Leopold's daughter also has been proved to be a carrier of haemophilia. Through this line haemophilia then spread to other royal families of Europe.
Princess Beatrice, Victoria's youngest daughter, gave birth to two sons who also have been proved to have haemophilia. Beatrice's only daughter Princess Victoria, brought haemophilia to the Spanish Royal Family. As a matter of fact, even the heir to the throne suffered from it. Leopold's daughter, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, had a son who had the disease.
The saddest instance of passing on haemophilia, however, ran through the line of Princess Alice. Her son, Frederick, died from haemophilia at the age of two and a half. It was first identified that he was diagnosed when he cut his ear and bled for three days. A few months later he had a drastic accident and fell through a window in the castle. Doctors said he would've survived if not he had haemophiliac. Her second daughter brought the disease to Prussia and two of her sons suffered from it.
And then there's Tsarina Alexandra of the Romanov family of Russia. Her youngest child, Alexei had haemophilia. Alexandra desperate to save her son contacted Grigori a famous Russian peasant to heal him. The result of it was bad as we know.
Queen Victoria, with her large family, to support the European royal families but at that time she didn’t know that she was also bringing with her a curse.
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