Queen Victoria's Gene (Pocket Biographies)

Queen Victoria's son, Prince Leopold, died from hemophilia, but no member of the royal family before his generation had suffered from the condition. Medically, there are only two possibilities: either one of Victoria's parents had a 1 in 50,000 random mutation, or Victoria was the illegitimate child of a hemophiliac man. However the hemophilia gene arose, it had a profound effect on history. Two of Victoria's daughters were silent carriers who passed the disease to the Spanish and Russian royal families. The disease played a role in the origin of the Spanish Civil War; and the tsarina's concern over her only son's hemophilia led to the entry of Rasputin into the royal household, contributing directly to the Russian revolution.