Alexandra, a Potential Hemophilia Carrier, Was Permitted to Marry a Future Tsar?

[sjazama]

Thank Heavens for this forum.  I'd really appreciate some opinions on this subject because there's next-to-nothing published about it.  

I can excuse Queen Victoria for marrying her daughters into so many royal families, because hemophilia was not well-understood at that time.  However, when it came time for Alice's daughter Alix to marry, they must have known more.  So many of Alice's descendents were effected.  Alix's brother, two of her nephews, and an uncle (Leopold) all had hemophilia!  One cannot ignore what's right in front of his face.

Yet Nicholas (the Russian Tsar ) married her, and then he was surprised that their son had hemophilia  Everyone had to be aware that Alix might be a carrier, and therefore her offspring ran the risk of inheriting the disease.  

Many other European families ignored this threat too.  Why?  It's anybody's guess.

[sjazama]

Thank Heavens for this forum.  I'd really appreciate some opinions on this subject because there's next-to-nothing published about it.  

I can excuse Queen Victoria for marrying her daughters into so many royal families, because hemophilia was not well-understood at that time.  However, when it came time for Alice's daughter Alix to marry, they must have known more.  Many of Alice's descendents were effected.  Alix's brother, two of her nephews, and an uncle (Leopold) all had hemophilia!  One cannot ignore what's right in front of his face.

Yet Nicholas (the Russian Tsar !) married her, and then he was surprised that their son had hemophilia ??  Everyone had to be aware that Alix might be a carrier, and therefore her offspring ran the risk of inheriting the disease.  

Many other European families ignored this threat too.  Why?  It's anybody's guess.

[tatianolishka_1]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it is quite likely that they did not think anything of it. When QV's children were married, I believe only one of her sons had been suffering from illness of the blood. One of nine children was hardly anything to think of. When the grandchildren came along, there were certainly anomalies - Alice's Frittie, Beatrice's Leopold for example. But again, not many of the grand children suffered and, again, it wasn't thought of. Fast forward to Great Grandchildren and it began to pop up: Alice's grandchildren Alexei, Waldemar and Heinrich; Leopold's Rupert, Beatrice's Alfonso and Gonzalo, etc...

In truth, there was hardly any suspicion within the family until that fourth generation came along. I believe someone had a family tree done up to show this somewhere, but I haven't seen it in awhile. The reality of the bleeding disease did not seem to come until about ten years before the Great War - thirteen years after QV died.

[RealAnastasia]

Well, I don't know about Alix, but when Alfonso XIII fell in love to Ena of Battenberg and proposed to her, she warned to him that she could possibily have hemophiliac children. Alfonso answered he didnn't care about it, since he was so deeply in love with her. However, when Infante Alsonso was born, and later Infante Gonzalo, he became mad at his wife and began to date other women.

The important thing here is that it seems that Ena knew she was a potential carrier, since she warned Alfonso about it. Maybe Alix also knew she could be a carrier. I'm not sure.

RealAnastasia.

[historyfan]

I doubt they knew they would have only one son, and figured if they had multiple sons, they can't *all* be hemophiliacs?  I don't know - that sounds like a callous disregard for the health and wellbeing of children to me, so I really don't think that was the train of thought, but I can't say for sure what exactly the reason was.

[sjazama]

I think Alix knew she was a "potential" carrier but, like her sister Irene, she probably expected to have several sons.  Nevertheless, it was reckless to bring a "potential" hemaphilia carrier into the Russian Imperial dynasty.  Even if they expected they'd have several sons, they had to know their daughters would be potential carriers too. 

When Leopold was first sick, Albert and Victoria thought there was a weakness in the blood of their family, and thought it would get better if they mixed it with people with stronger blood.  However I can excuse that because no one understood the disease at that time. 

But Alix's marriage happened much, much later.  I wish I could see the letters between Queen Victoria, her children and grandchildren which may indicate what they knew prior to Alix's marriage, and if they were concerned.  However any such correspondence would probably have been destroyed after Queen Victoria's death.  Beatrice and her sisters only published the letters they wanted the public to see, and destroyed many others to avoid embarrassment.

The world might never know what they were thinking, but I'll probably keep digging anyway.

[Kalafrana]

Irene had Waldemar in 1889, five years before Alexandra married Nicholas, so it was clear that Alexandra was a potential carrier. However, Victoria Milford Haven had a healthy son (George Battenberg) in 1892, so maybe everyone thought that Alexandra would be lucky. 

However, Nicholas was heir apparent, and his immediately younger brother had TB and retired to the Caucasus well before Nicholas's marriage. There was still Mikhail, but Nicholas needed healthy sons. Logic tells me that it was extremely foolish of him to marry someone who was a potential haemophilia carrier. Henry of Prussia had four if not five healthy nephews by the time he married Irene, so, succession-wise, he could afford to take a chance.

As far as the potential suffering of children, whether heirs or not, I personally find it strange that anyone who will potentially pass on a serious disease such as haemophilia would risk having children, but I know plenty would disagree with me. That said, I know a couple whose son is haemophiliac (as far as I know, it is the result of a mutation, so not in earlier generations) and he is an only child. Presumably they decided not to risk any more.

I wonder whether the haemophilia issue was one of the reasons why Alexander III and Marie Feodorovna were against Nicholas marrying Alexandra.

Ann

[Forum Admin]

You guys are reading too much into it.  Hemophilia was not as well understood as today.  They had not yet discovered that it is passed by the mother.  They probably never considered it....

[RealAnastasia]

But yet, Queen Ena of Battenberg warned Alfonso XIII about her being a potential career. I've read it in some good spanish history books. Alfonso answered that nothing will happen to them and that she'll see that they should have nice and healthy children. You know how this sad story ends.

Queen Victoria, for example, knew that this kind of illness was transmisible. She said, amazed, when his son Leopold was born: "..Tis illness was not in our family". And if you read Robert K. Massie, and authority on the "hemophilia issue" in Romanov House, you'll know that the genetic map was already known by 1903. It was discovered by the Philadeplhian  doctor, John Conrad Otto; this one was confirmed by the doctor Christian Nasse, from Bonn in 1820, and in 1875, a French physician, Grandidier, declared that "...every member of hemophiliac families must not get married". THis must have been the reason for Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain had warned her own fiancé about the dangers of marrying her.

RealAnastasia.

[sjazama]

Alexandra knew she had given hemophilia to her son.  That is the reason she felt so very, very guilty the rest of her life.

It may be true that they just didn't think about the hemophilia in her family until her son was stricken with it.  What I want to know is why not, especially someone like Nicholas who needed a healthy heir.  Most royal marriages were arranged with a lot of thought and care. Yet when it comes to something as important as this they didn't think about it?  I don't buy it.

It's probably a waste of time, but I might send a letter to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.  He's descended from Alice through her daughter Victoria, I believe.  Possibly some information was passed down through his family.  They don't have an email address for him, but I'll supply mine in the letter. 

What can I say; I'm a history buff who doesn't give up easily.

[sjazama]

I found an answer as to why the hemophia factor might have been ignored in a book called 'Nicholas and Alexandra', chapter 12, page 150-151.
 
The author writes:
     "... Why, then, did it come a such an overshelming shock to Alexandra that her son had hemophilia?
     "One reason suggested by the late British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane is that although the genetic pattern was known to doctors, this knowledge never penetrated the closed circles of royal courts:  'It is predictable,' wrote Haldane, 'that Nicholas knew that his fiancee had hemophiliac brothers although nothing is said in his diaries or letters, but by virtue of his education, he attached no importance to this knowledge.  It is possible that they or their counselors consulted doctors.  We do not know and doubtless will never know if...the court doctor counseled against marriage.  If a distinguished doctor outside court circles had desired to warn Nicholas of the dangerous character of his approaching marriage, I do not believe he would have been able to do it, either directly or in the columns of the press.  Kings are carefully protected against disagreeable realities ... The hemophilia of the Tsarevich was a symptom of the divorce between royalty and reality.'
     "... In marrying and having children, hemophilia was considered one of the hazards royal parents faced, along with diphtheria, pneumonia, smallpox and scarlet fever.
     "... In that era, every family, including royal families, had a long string of children and expected to lose one or two in the process of growing up."

That makes sense.  Finally!
Thanks everyone for your posts.

[RealAnastasia]

So, Ena of Battenberg knew better about this disease than Alexandra...Poor Alix, and poor Nicholas.

Yes; the truth is always in the middle, I guess. Thanks for the post. In the book you'll also find the semi-quote I've posted above. I cannot send you the page, since I have the Spanish edition of the book, but you'll easily find it in the part Massie's speaks about hemophilia's story. He even quoted the fact that ancient Jewish would forbidden a married couple to circumsice their sons if two of them had died from navel bleeding. Egyptian went further forbidden couples to have more sons if some of them had died from serious bleedings. And just thinks that the word "hemophilia" wasn't  even known.

RealAnastasia.

[Kalafrana]

"... In that era, every family, including royal families, had a long string of children and expected to lose one or two in the process of growing up."

A very fair point.

Obviously there are statistics, but the practical reality is that most families would lose one child - at least. I've done a fair amount of research into my family tree and I would imagine that my great-grandparents were not that unusual.

Paternal GGP 1:
Five children between 1868-78. One died as baby (possibly laid over by cat).

Paternal GGP 2:
10 children between 1877-1892. One died aged seven, another aged two.

Maternal GGP 1:
Two children born 1883 and 1885. Both survived, but mother died in 1890 after stillbirth. Father married again, and had one more son, who died from TB as young adult.

Maternal GGP 2:
Four children born between 1891 and 1900. Eldest lived to be 88, younger three all died (two in a scarlet fever epidemic).

An old gentleman I knew (born in 1918) told me that his father, born in 1876, was the eldest of six. When he was eleven, the entire family got scarlet fever and the two youngest died. His father apparently got a huge abscess on his neck which had to be opened up every day for weeks.

As late as 1940 my mother, aged eleven, got diphtheria and scarlet fever together, and recovered after a miserable six weeks in a fever hospital. She read War and Peace while convalescing, but admitted that she left out the battles!

Ann

Queen Victoria was most unusual in that all her nine lived into adulthood and long enough to marry.

[RealAnastasia]

That's right. I was nt discussing that point, but what was known about hemophilia.

Did you search the info in Robert K. Massie? I cannot quote from my book, since it's in Spanish and my translation could be bad. In Spanish edition, you'll find this info in page 171, and the title of it is: "The torment of a Mother". There Massie tolds the story of hemophilia, all about carriers, the genetic map and all. If you may quote it for me, I will be grateful, since my skills in English are too pòor to write a good litterary translation.

Many thanks in advance.
RealAnastasia.

[Kalafrana]

Given the long gap between their  first two children, it looks very much as though Henry and Irene, having had one haemophiliac son, tried to avoid having any more. Waldemar was born on 20 March 1889 after just under 10 months of marriage - no fertility problems there! - but Sigismund not until 27 November 1896.

Ann