by D M Potts
It is impossible to measure exactly the effect of these tragedies on the Spanish throne. Spanish society was so deeply divided and flawed that civil war might have been unavoidable, but they undoubtedly helped to weaken the position of the throne and of the anglophile liberal sections of Spanish opinion.
Disaster was postponed for a while. During the First World War Spain remained neutral and prospered remarkably while her trading rivals devoted their industries to armaments. Alfonso gained considerable personal prestige by his efforts to locate and protect prisoners of war on both sides, while Spanish doctors sailed on allied Red Cross ships as guarantors to German submariners that they were not being used for military purposes. The queen busied herself with good works such as encouraging the modernization of the Red Cross Hospital in Madrid and arranging for its nurses to be trained in Britain, thus bringing the influence of Florence Nightingale into the unbelievably backward medical services of Spain.
After the war the tensions in Spanish society remained. Strikes, assassinations and a military disaster in Morocco further destabilized the state and when General Primo de Rivera seized power as dictator the king weakly acquiesced. The failure of the king to uphold his own constitution in the long run destroyed his raison d’etre. During the dictatorship the king was overshadowed by the dictator and when eventually Primo de Rivera lost the support of the army both the king and the old constitution had been discredited.
When the king finally dismissed de Rivera in 1930 republican forces had grown in strength. In the local elections of 1931 republicans of various persuasions carried the major towns, though they were a minority in the country as a whole. Alfonso’s government panicked and collapsed before street demonstrations in Madrid. The king refused to abdicate but rather than subject the country to a bloody civil war he left his kingdom, rather curiously leaving his queen and family in the hands of the provisional republican government. They were treated with every courtesy and soon followed him. Under the succeeding republican regime Spain suffered from exactly the same tensions and eventually the extremes of Left and Right overwhelmed the Centre. Revolts from the right and strikes and murders from the Left culminated in the horrific carnage of the Spanish Civil War in which 400,000 died in battle while 800,000 were executed, murdered or assassinated behind the lines on both sides and in the reprisals which followed Franco’s victory.3
Haemophiliacs must be acutely aware of the unfairness of the natural world. To be excluded from a throne because one is a haemophiliac would embitter a saint and the young princes sought consolation where they could, mainly in fast cars, fast women and wine. Alfonso blamed his mother for his misfortunes. After his father’s abdication Alfonso, the eldest son, married a Cuban without his father’s consent but divorced her a few years later. His second marriage, in a registry office, lasted only six months. In 1938 he was being driven by a Miami night-club singer when she crashed into a telegraph pole. Although he was not severely injured the bleeding could not be checked and he died a few hours later. He left no family. Don Jaime, the king’s second son, the deaf mute, also married twice but died young leaving two sons, who could not inherit the haemophilia gene. Alfonso’s third son had died as a baby. The fifth son, Gonzalo, also died of the ‘Royal Haemophilia’4 following an accident. He was a passenger in a car driven by his sister Beatrice, which hit a wall. Although his injuries were not severe he only survived a few days. The fourth son, Don Juan, was the healthy one. He made a dynastic marriage to a Bourbon princess and his son Carlos is now King of Spain, recalled after thirty years of Franco dictatorship. With considerable skill he has returned Spain to democratic rule. Although still troubled by bomb throwers the horrors of the Civil War have discredited the extremists on both sides while industrialization in the north and the tourist trade in the south have transformed the economy.
TEN
LATER GENERATIONS
As each royal generation receives only half of its genes from its dynastic royal parent the chances of any gene being inherited by the monarch halves at each generation, providing that marriages with affected relatives are avoided. The haemophilia gene, however, continued to recur in succeeding generations and in this chapter we trace its descent and consider whether it survives today.
Statistically Queen Victoria’s gene did remarkably well. Natural selection operates powerfully against it yet from an occurrence in a single individual, Victoria, it spread to three of her children and at least seven of her forty grandchildren. Information is incomplete for later generations; we shall never know how many of the tsarevitch’s sisters were carriers, but statistically it is likely that there were ten haemophiliacs and carriers among Victoria’s numerous great-grandchildren. In later generations the numbers have declined but it is likely that there are still some bleeders or carriers among her descendants. Male haemophiliacs are easier to trace. Here the record in succeeding generations was: Victoria’s children, one (Leopold), grandchildren, three, great-grandchildren, six. There are no known bleeders in the next generation but the negative evidence is not conclusive because of the secrecy which often surrounds sufferers, and there has been a report of at least one haemophiliac in the fifth generation (see page 144).
The rapid expansion of this gene at first sight contradicts the theory that natural selection should continuously erode the proportion of any disadvantageous gene, but the apparent paradox arises from two special factors. Royal children and their mothers may have had a better than average chance of survival until recently, although before the days of scientific medicine, medical treatments were as likely to kill as to cure. More importantly, the great improvements in food and hygiene during the nineteenth century greatly increased the chances of survival of most children in Europe and led to a rapid growth in population, until the spread of contraception brought the birthrate down. When population growth exceeds selective pressure against the gene the number of bleeders in a family may increase. It should be remembered also that there is no selection against the women who carried the gene, although they benefited from the improvements in medical services and hygiene.
It is not always easy to trace the later occurrences of the gene for a variety of reasons. The condition is often concealed from public knowledge, even from obituary notices, although it had been a major feature of any victim’s life. Until the recent development of special laboratory tests women who were carriers could not be identified unless they had male descendants who were haemophiliacs. As many of Victoria’s descendants declined socially from royalty to commoners they became less conspicuous and eventually disappeared from public record.
The first of Queen Victoria’s children to carry the gene, Princess Alice, had two sons and five daughters. The eldest son, who inherited the dukedom of Hesse, was not a haemophiliac. His younger brother Frederick, as already mentioned, was a bleeder and died in childhood in consequence. Of the five daughters at least two proved to be carriers, Irene and Alexandra, the latter Tsarina of Russia. The youngest daughter, Mary, died in childhood and Elizabeth, wife of a Russian grand duke, died childless. Either might have been a carrier.
Alice’s eldest daughter, Victoria, married a Battenberg, who was created the Marquis of Milford Haven, and she had four children including Lord Louis Mountbatten and Alice, the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Fortunately, haemophilia has not appeared in any of Milford Haven’s descendants, although that leaves a one in sixteen chance that Alice was a carrier but did not pass the gene on to any of her children.
Irene, Princess Alice’s second daughter, married her cousin, Prince Henry of Prussia, who was a brother of Kaiser Wilhelm. She bore him three sons, Waldemar, Sigismund and Henry. Waldemar and Henry were both haemophiliacs, Henry dying at the age of four, but his brother Waldemar survived until he was fifty-six, when he died childless. Fortunately Sigismund did not inherit the defective gene. Prince Henry of Prussia was evidently as ill-advised on the dangers of marrying the sister of a haemophiliac as his brother-inlaw the tsar. Some commen
tators have suggested (e.g. the authors of some recent Encyclopaedia Britannica articles and McKusick1) that Waldemar and Sigismund may have inherited the gene from Victoria’s eldest daughter through their father, Prince Henry of Prussia. However, there is no evidence that Henry was a bleeder and even had he been, he could not have passed the gene to his sons, while, on the other hand, his wife Irene had a haemophiliac brother and a sister who was a carrier.
The massacre in the cellars of the Ipatiev house eliminated at least two and possibly as many as six carriers of the gene. The exclusion of Mrs Manahan from the list of Queen Victoria’s possible descendants removes almost all possibility of the survival of the gene in the tsarina’s line, but as long as the exact fates of the tsarevitch and the missing grand duchess, who were not buried in the grave near Ekaterinburg, remain unknown, a remote possibility remains that the gene still survives. The exclusion of Mrs Manahan from the survival stakes also eliminates the son she is supposed to have left behind in Romania and one Anastasia Romanov who lives in St Petersburg, a suburb of Tampa, Florida. This Anastasia claims to be a daughter of Mrs Manahan or Anna Anderson, but even if this claim were correct, she could not have inherited the gene.
If the gene still exists it is most likely to be found among the descendants of Princess Beatrice, Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter. Her eldest son, Alexander, Marquess of Carisbrooke, was not a carrier. The fates of his two younger brothers, both haemophiliacs, has already been mentioned. One died of wounds in 1914, the other died following a hip operation in 1922. Neither left descendants. Beatrice’s only daughter Victoria Eugenie, who became Queen of Spain, left a large family in her efforts to produce a healthy heir. Two of her sons, Alfonso and Gonzalo, were haemophiliacs and died young following car accidents. The haemophiliac Alfonso left two sons but neither could have inherited the gene. His sister Beatriz had two sons and two daughters. There is no evidence that either of her sons, Marco Antonio and Marino, were haemophiliacs, but as cadet branches of royal families decline in social status information becomes more difficult to obtain and concealment easier. Her daughter Olimpia had a son who died in 1975. According to Dr Magallón his death was due to ‘un problema de sangre’. This need not necessarily have been haemophilia, but if it were then Olimpia must have been a carrier and either her mother Beatriz a carrier or her father a haemophiliac. If this were the case, each of Olimpia’s daughters would have had a 50 per cent chance of being a carrier in turn, and even if Sandra had had a healthy son there would still have been a chance of one in four that her daughter would carry the gene as well. In fairness we should mention that another correspondent, Marlene Eilers of Virginia, has written to us that Olimpia herself and the boy’s great-aunt (Maria Cristina) had told her that the boy was not a haemophiliac.
In an echo of her great-grandmother’s wedding to Alfonso XIII, ninety years before, Sibella married Prince William of Luxemburg at Versailles in 1994. The wedding took place in the presence of the King and Queen of the Belgians, Queen Sophia of Spain, the Queens of Norway and Greece, the exiled Empress of Iran and numerous HRHs. It is to be hoped that the bride and groom have been better advised medically than were the earlier generations of royalty and that there is no danger of haemophilia appearing in their descendants.
Eugene’s second daughter Maria Cristina had four daughters and three grandsons, none of whom were haemophiliacs, but there is a small possibility that the gene might still survive in the granddaughters.
The families of both Olimpia and Victoria live quietly in Italy. It is to be hoped that neither has inherited the gene but statistically it is more likely than not that at least one and possibly several have. Queen Victoria passed the gene to three of her children. Five generations later the gene still survives in one, possibly two descendants and may be present in three of the next generation. In spite of the immense disadvantages the gene confers natural selection is surprisingly slow in eliminating it.
The gene for haemophilia almost certainly does not survive among the descendants of Victoria’s son, the unfortunate Leopold. By the laws of genetics his daughter, another Princess Alice, had to be a carrier, while her brother, Charles Edward Leopold, could not. Alice married Prince Alexander of Teck who was created Earl of Athlone in reward. The earl was the brother of Queen Mary, the consort of King George V. Of the Athlone’s three children, one son Maurice died as a baby but it is uncertain whether or not he was a haemophiliac. His brother, Viscount Trematon, was a haemophiliac and died at the age of twenty-one without issue. He was involved in a motoring accident in France while overtaking at high speed. The medical bulletins and The Times obituary make no mention of the dread word haemophilia but the evidence is clear. The accident occurred on 1 April 1928 and bleeding is mentioned on the 4th. By the 6th he is said to be much improved and to be eating and drinking. On the 7th ‘recovery is assured’ but a slight haemorrhage occurred on the 10th, further bleeding on the 11th, followed by repeated haemorrhaging and the unfortunate young man died on the 14th. It is obvious that he would have survived had he not been a bleeder. Before the days of seat belts and other improvements in car design the motor car was a remarkably effective agent of selection against wealthy haemophiliacs. Viscount Trematon’s sister, Lady May Abel Smith, had an even chance of inheriting the gene from her mother Princess Alice. Fortunately, Lady May’s son is not a haemophiliac, but each of her daughters still had a chance of being carriers. When a possible carrier has a healthy brother or son her chances of being a carrier are halved. Each of Lady May’s daughters had a 25 per cent chance of inheriting the gene, but the absence of the gene in her son reduces the chance to one in eight. The chance that her granddaughter in the female line is a carrier is reduced from one in eight to less than one in a hundred by her four healthy brothers. The gene that plagued the unfortunate Leopold is therefore probably extinct. All doubt could be removed by an assay of the granddaughter’s Factor VIII.
Prince Leopold’s son was destined to play a significant role in twentieth-century history. After the prince’s death in 1884, his wife Princess Helen bore him a posthumous son. Charles Edward Leopold was born in the old family home of Claremont, where the first Prince Leopold and Princess Charlotte spent their short time together. While any daughter of the haemophiliac Leopold had to be a carrier, the son had to escape the gene, as it is carried on the X chromosome which is not involved in the fertilization of a male. Charles Edward was educated at Eton and seemed destined to spend his life as a cadet member of the British royal family, but in 1900 he accepted the dukedom of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the inheritance of Prince Albert’s family. He rose to the rank of general in the German army, assisted no doubt by his close relationship with the kaiser. During the First World War he was stripped of his British titles. When the German empire collapsed in 1918 he was forced to abdicate his dukedom. He promptly gave his support to the militant organizations which sprang up in Germany in the troubled postwar years, which wished to rebuild Germany and free her from the humiliations of the Treaty of Versailles. He played a leading part in the Germany National People’s Party (DNVP), which drew its support mainly from the aristocrats, landowners, retired officers and upper middle class in the Protestant or Prussian areas of Germany.
At a meeting held at Harzburg on 11 October 1931 he helped to found the Harzburg Front, an alliance between the DNVP and the National Socialist Party, the Nazis.2 Hitler’s National Socialists drew support mainly from the lower middle class and the workers. The Front was revived in January 1933 and organized a united opposition to the Brüning government. The prestige and status that this alliance gave the Nazis helped them to become the largest party in the 1933 elections. In 1932 the Nazis had gained 33 per cent of the vote. In the 1933 elections the Nazis received 44 per cent and the DNVP 8 per cent, giving the alliance a total of 52 per cent.3 President Hindenburg, fearing that Hitler intended to establish a dictatorship, approved Hitler’s appointment as chancellor solely on condition that the Nazis held only three of the nine cabinet po
sts, Hitler, Goering as Minister for Prussia and Frick as Minister of the Interior. The other six posts went to the DNVP and the ex-servicemen’s league which were expected to control Hitler. The 1933 election took place at the depth of the Depression. As the world economy later improved unemployment declined everywhere, but the Nazis gained the credit in Germany. Had they not been elected in 1933 Hitler would probably never have come to power. A few months after the election the DNVP dissolved itself at Hitler’s behest and most of its members, including the ex-Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, joined the National Socialists. Charles Edward Leopold, a grandchild of Queen Victoria, became a Group Leader in the Brownshirts.
Charles Edward first met the Prince of Wales, his half-cousin, when the latter visited Germany in the summer of 1913. In 1936 Hitler sent the ex-Duke of Coburg back to Britain, ostensibly as President of the Anglo-German Fellowship, but in reality as an unofficial ambassador to improve Anglo-German relations and to report back to Hitler on the possibility of an Anglo-German pact. He stayed with his aunt, the Princess Alice, in Kensington Palace, where he entertained many political leaders including Duff Cooper and Anthony Eden. He had three conversations with Edward VIII, the first on the day following the death of George V. He reported to Hitler that the new king believed an alliance with Germany should be the ‘Guiding principle of British foreign policy’. He conveyed to Hitler a quite false appreciation of the strength of the king’s influence: ‘The King is resolved to concentrate the business of government on himself. For England not too easy.’ According to Charles Edward the new king dismissed the idea of talks between Baldwin and Hitler with the words, ‘Who is King here? Baldwin or I? I myself wish to talk to Hitler and will do so here or in Germany.’ In spite of his keen interest in international politics his obsession with Mrs Simpson gave Baldwin the opportunity to remove the uncrowned Edward VIII from the throne before he could consolidate his position by a coronation.