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Queen Victoria's Gene: Haemophilia and the Royal Family. D.M. Potts and W.T.W. Potts. Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd., Stroud, UK. 1999. 191 pp.
European 19th and early 20th century royal history is a remarkable and sometimes indigestible stew of monarchs, princes, princesses, morganatic marriages, mistresses, lovers, prostitutes, incest, seductions and secrets. Complicating this unsavoury mess is disease and its often substantial impact. The story is remarkably confusing. Unhappily, the authors of this book do less than they might have to clarify the issue. They are not, of course, responsible for the confusion, part of which stems directly from the use and reuse of a small number of given names, so that one has a plethora of Charlottes, Edwards, Georges, and so on, to try to sort out. Thus, chapter 1 is difficult to read.
After that the pace quickens. One fundamental and undisputed fact anchors this book. Queen Victoria (1819-1901) was born a carrier of the genetic quirk that led to some of her male descendants having hemophilia and her female descendants being carriers of hemophilia in the classic genetic fashion.
The central thesis of Queen Victoria's Gene is that Victoria's carrier state...