# Royal bastards? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 22, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868 "2009-07-22T16:38:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868/61 "2009-08-20T05:04:35Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Someone thas suggested that Queen Victoria was possibly the result of an affair her mother had with a hemophilliac, as the disease would otherwise have been a mutation with her. However, most consider that bullshit. There was something of a dynastic crisis in England in the early nineteenth century. George III had a large number of children, but relatively few (legitimate) grandchildren, partly due to the fact that his sons seemed to prefer to shack up rather than marry. And, when they did marry, the marriages had an unfortunate tendency to be disastrous. By 1817 George III was nearing 80, and was suffering from madness, believed now to have been the result of porphyria. He was expected to be succeeded by his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, who was already ruling as Prince Regent. The Prince Regent was separated from his wife Caroline of Brunswick (and loathed her) and had an on-again off-again relationship with his mistress, Mrs Fitzhberbert, so there was no prospect of his having further legitimate children. But he had one legitimate child, Princess Charlotte, who was married to a German prince. The succession was expected to be secured by her descendants. However, in 1817 Charlotte died giving birth to her first child. The child also died. The urgent need to secure the succession by producing heirs within the wider family was recognised Next in line after the Prince Regent was his brother the Duke of York - separated from his wife, and no legitimate children and, in 1817, already 54 years old. (He died in 1827.) After him came the next brother, the Duke of Clarence. Clarence was unmarried, but already had ten children with his socially unacceptable mistress, Mrs Jordan, and an eleventh with somebody else so there was no doubt about his fertility. Recognising his dynastic duty, he married a German princess in 1818 and set about producing an heir. The two children of the marriage, however, both died in infancy, in 1819 and 1821. (Clarence did eventually succeed George IV, in 1830, as William IV.) Next after Clarence was the Duke of Kent. He had had a succession of mistresses but was unmarried; he, too, made haste to marry a suitable princess. He married Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield in 1818 and they gave birth to a daughter, Victoria, in 1819. Kent died in 1820. Other royals also did their bit for England after 1817. The Duke of Cambridge married Augusta of Hesse in June 1818 (Clarence having turned her down just two months previously); she gave birth to a son in March 1819. The Duke of Cumberland was married, but childless. He set about his marital duties with renewed determination and a son was born in 1819. But we need not concern ourselves with them, because Victoria eventually succeeded to the throne in 1837, and so it was through her that the succession was assured. The point, though, is that George III’s presumed illness, porphyria, is heritable. Several of his descendants developed it, but apparently neither Victoria nor any of her descendants had it. On the other hand, many of Victoria’s descendants did have, or carry, haemophilia, another heritable disease, but one not previously occurring in the British royal family. While this is not conclusive, it does raise the issue of whether Victoria was quite so closely genetically connected to George III as she should have been. Could it be, the theory goes, that with the urgency to produce an heir, the rather cavalier attitude of George III’s sons to the sanctity of matrimony, and the generally loveless nature of their official marriages, nobody was too bothered if the wives of the Dukes were, um, over-enthusiastic in their efforts to produce the heirs that they understood were demanded of them? ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868/62 "2009-08-20T09:36:48Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > The point, though, is that George III’s presumed illness, porphyria, is heritable. Several of his descendants developed it, but apparently neither Victoria nor any of her descendants had it. On the other hand, many of Victoria’s descendants did have, or carry, haemophilia, another heritable disease, but one not previously occurring in the British royal family. While this is not conclusive, it does raise the issue of whether Victoria was quite so closely genetically connected to George III as she should have been. Could it be, the theory goes, that with the urgency to produce an heir, the rather cavalier attitude of George III’s sons to the sanctity of matrimony, and the generally loveless nature of their official marriages, nobody was too bothered if the wives of the Dukes were, um, over-enthusiastic in their efforts to produce the heirs that they understood were demanded of them? There are several major problems with this theory. Firstly, all the contemporary gossip about Victoria’s paternity focused on Sir John Conroy. And there is no great mystery as to why this should be. Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, almost certainly did have a lengthy affair with Conroy. That was notorious. One doubt however is whether the affair dated back to before her husband’s death. There were no suggestions in 1818 that she was involved with Conroy. Also, as the Kents were living on the Continent at the time the Duchess became pregnant, there is some doubt as to whether Conroy was in the right place at the right time. (There is the complication that the Duke was travelling separately from the Duchess for part of the crucial timeframe, but it is known that they spent time together roughly nine months before Victoria’s birth.) Then there is the problem of the haemophilia. While it is true that no member of the Royal Family is known to have had the haemophilia gene before Victoria, there is no evidence that Conroy or his family had it either. Identifying Conroy as her father thus makes no difference at all to the mystery as to where the gene came from. That it was a spontaneous mutation remains by far the most likely explanation, whoever Victoria’s father actually was. But the clincher is the porphyria evidence. Victoria did pass the porphyria gene on to some of her descendants. John Röhl, the great authority on Wilhelm II, has shown that several descendants of one of Wilhelm’s sisters suffered from porphyria. Indeed, one of them was diagnosed with the condition during her lifetime (but before Macalpine and Hunter had linked it to George III) and this has since been confirmed by genetic testing. Also, it is now widely accepted that the present Queen’s uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, and his son, Prince William, both had it. While the number of royal intermarriages makes it difficult to be certain about the precise lines of descent, their closest common ancestor was Victoria, who probably had the gene because she really was the daughter of one of George III’s sons. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868/63 "2012-12-21T12:34:46Z")
The most famous Royal bastard of our age has to be David Cameron. Whp incidentally is descended from William IV. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868/64 "2012-12-21T13:05:28Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > There has been recurring gossip that now-Prince Harry is not the child of both Charles and Diana, although the rumored father has denied being such. The resemblance is certainly striking: [BBC NEWS | UK | Hewitt denies Prince Harry link](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2273498.stm) A complete nonsense that has peddled by gossip columnists for years with no foundation in fact. [Harry looks like strikingly like Charles](http://gingerprinceharry.tumblr.com/post/33841076105/do-you-think-it-strange-that-prince-harry-bears). ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868/65 "2012-12-21T13:11:31Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > There were also rumors that James VI of Scotland was her bastard, somehow smuggled to Mary Q of Scots (who she never once met) and that this was why she allowed her sanctuary/house arrest in England for so many years (though the real reason was more related to wanting to keep an eye on her and having no reason to kill her). That, and not wanting to set a precedent for regicide. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868/66 "2012-12-21T17:03:37Z")
> [@Eliahna](#): > > I agree. Eyes, nose, mouth and face shape are all different. Both have red hair, but so does [Harry’s Uncle Charles](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tmz.com/media/2007/06/0614_prince_harry_2.jpg), Diana’s brother Earl Spencer. The Earl is the man I see the resemblance to, not James Hewitt. Look at their eyes, eyebrows and noses - Harry’s got the same bridge as Charles. > > In my experience, people can’t tell people with red hair apart. I know that sounds stupid, but my father, ex-husband and daughter all have red hair and people keep seeing “resemblances” between them that don’t exist. It’s like they can’t see past the hair colour. Harry has quite a resemblance to his grandfather Prince Philip, especially his noce shape. ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868/67 "2012-12-21T17:31:10Z")
Ian Hislop touched on the rumour of Prince Andrew’s illegitimacy in an episode of HIGNFY. He was talking about Lord Porchester, an intimate friend of the Queen at a time around Andrew’s conception when Philip wasn’t around. [No idea if there’s any truth in it.](http://mariopiperni.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/princeandrew.jpg) See [this also](http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123134), with a pinch of salt for the provenance from David Icke’s forum. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868/68 "2012-12-22T04:29:15Z")
The Duke of Richmond is descended from a bastard son of Charles II. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868/69 "2012-12-22T08:29:06Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > The Duke of Richmond is descended from a bastard son of Charles II. As are the Duke of Buccleuch, the Duke of Grafton and the Duke of St Albans. And that’s just those descended throught male lines. Other descendants include the Duke of Cambridge, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duchess of York, the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Northumberland, the Duke of Devonshire and Samatha Cameron. ([Wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descendants_of_Charles_II_of_England) on the subject.) Finding a non-royal duke who is not descended from Charles II is what is more difficult. All of which simply underlines that for a British person with an upper-class background to be descended from a royal bastard is trivially unremarkable. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868/70 "2012-12-22T13:49:25Z")
Not to mention that Princes William and Harry are descended from Charles II, via their mother. The Spencers can claim descent from two of Charles II’s bastards, Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond, and Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Grafton. See: [Descendants of Charles II of England](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descendants_of_Charles_II_of_England) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/royal-bastards/503868.md?page=3)