Queen Victoria's daughter Alice passed the defective gene to her daughter Alexandra, who joined the Russian Romanov dynasty with her marriage to Tsar Nicolas II their long hoped-for son, Alexis, was a haemophiliac. The first dramatic evidence of haemophilia was at her baby son Alfonso's circumcision. Ironically, Victoria's granddaughter (Victoria Eugénie) was brought into the Spanish Bourbon dynasty to revitalise their allegedly degenerate bloodline. While the past few generations of British royals have been haemophilia-free because they descended from Victoria's unaffected son Edward VII, other royal families of Europe have not been so fortunate. One of Victoria's sons, Leopold, died of it. Only a few haemophiliacs survived to reproductive age, because any external cut or internal bleeding after a bruise could be fatal. Queen Victoria herself was a carrier of this X-linked blood-clotting disorder, which at the time was untreatable in the affected males. The best-known example of a genetic disorder within the British monarchy involves blood more literally: It is haemophilia. when there was some little imperfection in the pure Royal descent that some fresh blood was infused'. Queen Victoria seemed to agree: In a letter to one of her daughters, she wrote, 'I do wish one could find some more black-eyed Princes and Princesses for our children! I can't help thinking what dear Papa said that it was. There's a widely held view that royal dynasties are a rather inbred lot, and maybe an injection of genes from a member of the populace would be a good thing: Inbred groups tend to have relatively high frequencies of genetic disorders. But to those with a genetic or genealogical bent, these royal goings-on are food for thought. As anyone who has seen the movie The King's Speech will know, marrying out of the aristocracy has hardly been embraced with joy in the past. While not exactly sweeping ashes for a living (the now Duchess is described as a 'former fashion buyer'), this Cinderella has broken new ground. The latest instalment has been the marriage of William, son of Charles and Diana, and second in line to the throne, to a 'commoner', Kate Middleton, on 29 April 2011. In many other nations, the royal family has been dispensed with or relegated to the status of minor celebrities, but the soap opera of the Windsors remains permanently at centre stage here. Still confused? Navigate the graphic yourself above, or visit the full version on Expedia's website.Whether they hate them or they love them, the British certainly are obsessed with their monarchy. Carl XVI Gustaf's mother, Sibylla, was also a great-grandchild of Victoria's, descended from her youngest son, Prince Leopold, but unfortunately, the family tree doesn't let you explore her line. They had Gustaf Adolf, father of the current king, in 1906. Victoria's granddaughter, Margaret of Connaught, married Sweden's Gustaf VI Adolf in 1905. The tree goes back to the Victorian era-to Victoria herself, in fact, as Carl XVI Gustaf is the great-great-grandson of the long-ruling British monarch. (Though he is the king of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, for instance, is 70 percent German, 10 percent French, and 20 percent British.) Clicking on each face brings up a window with pertinent information on each royal, like their title and their heritage. Each graphic is color-coded to show whether the royals are related to the monarchies of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, or another country. The crowns indicate that the person is a ruling monarch, while the interlocking circles indicate a marriage. To expand the tree and explore different monarchs' ancestry, click the plus signs above their photos. While the feature is geared toward exploring the family ties of Nordic royalty, since European monarchs are basically all related, just about everyone appears on the same family tree eventually. To explore how the monarchies are connected, Expedia created an interactive family tree that lets you see the ties between different royals. For instance, Queen Elizabeth II is third cousins with most of Europe’s monarchs, including Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Margrethe II of Denmark, and former Belgian ruler Albert II. Thanks to a history of intermarriage, Europe's royal families are all tied to each other in some way.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |