The parentage of Queen Victoria has been the subject of speculation. It has been suggested that her biological father was not Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. This suggestion has largely centred on the familial incidence of hereditary diseases and circumstantial evidence, and is not widely believed.
Princess Charlotte of Wales was the only daughter of the Prince Regent (later King George IV). Her and her stillborn son's death in 1817 set off a race between the Prince Regent's brothers, the six surviving younger sons of King George III, to see who could father a legitimate heir. Some of the brothers had been previously involved in scandals. Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the second in line to the throne, was amicably separated from his wife, Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia, who was already past childbearing age. The sixth son, Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, had contracted two marriages in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act 1772 (as had the Prince Regent before his marriage to Charlotte's mother). Three brothers, the third, fourth and seventh in line to the throne, married in 1818: Prince William, Duke of Clarence; Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn; and Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge. The fifth son, Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, was already married but had no living children at the time.
The Duke of Clarence married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. Though he had been able to father ten illegitimate children with Dorothea Jordan, an earlier mistress, none of his children by his wife survived childhood. The second daughter, Elizabeth, lived the longest, being born on 10 December 1820 and dying on 4 March 1821. The next son to produce an heir was the Duke of Cambridge, whose son George was born on 26 March 1819. He would be displaced two months later by the birth of a daughter to the Duke of Kent and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, his wife. Their first and only child was Princess Victoria. She was born on 24 May 1819, just three days before the son of the Duke of Cumberland, also called George.
Both George III and the Duke of Kent died in January 1820. The Prince Regent became George IV and Victoria was third in line to the throne after her uncles, the Duke of York and Duke of Clarence (the future William IV). She would ultimately take the throne as Queen Victoria in 1837.
Rumours about Victoria's parentage centred on a controversial Irish soldier and adventurer called Sir John Conroy who was her mother's private secretary and the comptroller of her household. The Duchess of Kent was the same age as Conroy, whereas she was nineteen years younger than her husband; the court gossiped openly about their relationship. After the Duke's death, Conroy assumed a parental role towards Victoria that she bitterly resented. This caused a near permanent rift between Victoria and her mother, as well as between the Duchess and her brother-in-law, William IV. Conroy expected that when Victoria became queen he would be made her private secretary, but instead one of her first acts as monarch was to dismiss him from her household.
The belief that the Duchess and Conroy were lovers was widespread. When asked by Charles Greville whether he believed they were lovers, the Duke of Wellington replied that he "supposed so". [1] The Duke later recounted a story that when Victoria was young she had caught Conroy and the Duchess engaged in what were diplomatically called "some familiarities". [2] [3] Wellington reported that she told Baroness Louise Lehzen, who told her close ally, Madame de Späth, who confronted the Duchess about her behaviour. According to Wellington, the Duchess of Kent was furious and promptly dismissed de Späth. [4] Victoria, when queen, appears to have disputed the story, stating that her mother's piety would have prevented any undue familiarity with Conroy. [5]
A. N. Wilson suggested that Victoria's father could not have been the Duke of Kent for two reasons:
Both arguments can be countered. Since hæmophilia is X-linked, in order for a father to transmit the condition he must have it himself, but Conroy was healthy. Hæmophiliacs were unlikely to survive in the early nineteenth century due to the lack of effective treatments. [7] Indeed, life expectancy was 11 years or younger, even into the later half of the twentieth century, [8] and is still as low in developing countries. [9] Nor is there evidence of hæmophilia in either Conroy's ancestors or descendants, or any mention of any hæmophiliacs in any document associated with the Kents. It is likely that the mutation arose spontaneously because the Duke of Kent was 50 when Victoria was conceived; hæmophilia-causing mutations arise more frequently in the children of older fathers, [10] [11] [12] [13] and spontaneous mutations account for about 30% of cases. [14]
With regard to porphyria there is no genetic evidence that the royal family even had the disease and its diagnosis in George III's case (and others) has been questioned. [15] If the diagnosis of hereditary porphyria is correct, it may have continued among descendants of Victoria. Her daughter Victoria, Princess Royal, and at least two other descendants, Charlotte, Duchess of Saxe-Meiningen, and Prince William of Gloucester, are suspected of having suffered from it. [16] [17]
Concrete evidence on the origins of the hæmophilia disease and paternity of Victoria could be achieved with a DNA test of her or her parents' remains, but no such study has been sanctioned by the Royal Family. [18]
Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days is known as the Victorian era and was longer than any of her predecessors. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.
Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales was the only child of George, Prince of Wales, and his wife, Caroline of Brunswick. She was expected to ascend the British throne after the deaths of her grandfather, George III, and her father, but died in childbirth at the age of 21, predeceasing them both.
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Queen of Hanover from 26 June 1830 to 20 June 1837 as the wife of King William IV. Adelaide was the daughter of Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and Luise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, is named after her.
Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, later known as the Duchess of Teck, was a member of the British royal family. She was one of the first royals to patronise a wide range of charities and was a first cousin of Queen Victoria.
Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, was the eighth child and youngest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Leopold was later created Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence, and Baron Arklow. He had haemophilia, which contributed to his death following a fall at the age of 30.
Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, later Princess of Leiningen and subsequently Duchess of Kent and Strathearn, was a German princess and the mother of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. As the widow of Charles, Prince of Leiningen (1763–1814), from 1814, she served as regent of the Principality during the minority of her son from her first marriage, Carl, until her second wedding in 1818 to Prince Edward, fourth son of George III.
Duchess of Kent is the principal courtesy title used by the wife of the Duke of Kent. There have been four titles referring to Kent since the 18th century. The current duchess is Katharine, the wife of Prince Edward. He inherited the dukedom on 25 August 1942 upon the death of his father, Prince George, the fourth son of George V.
The use of the title of Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is entirely at the will of the sovereign as expressed in letters patent. Individuals holding the title of princess are styled "Her Royal Highness" (HRH). On 18 April 1917, Frederica of Hanover, the newest granddaughter of Wilhelm II, German Emperor was styled a British princess from birth, even though Germany and Britain were fighting in World War I. Before the First World War, British princesses also held additional German titles, such as princesses of Hanover by virtue of being male-line descendants of George III; or princesses of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, duchess of Saxony, by virtue of being male-line descendants of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. George V issued letters patent on 30 November 1917, to restrict the automatic assignment of the title "princess" and the use of the style "Royal Highness" to the following persons:
Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was the fourth child and third daughter of Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. As the wife of Ernst II, she was Princess consort of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. She was a granddaughter of both Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Tsar Alexander II of Russia.
Johanna Clara Louise Lehzen, also known as Baroness Louise Lehzen, was the governess and later companion to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
Princess Sophia was the twelfth child and fifth daughter of King George III and Queen Charlotte. Sophia is perhaps best known for the rumours surrounding a supposed illegitimate child to whom she gave birth as a young woman.
Sir John Ponsonby Conroy, 1st Baronet, KCH was a British Army officer who served as comptroller to the Duchess of Kent and her young daughter, Princess Victoria, the future Queen of the United Kingdom.
Haemophilia figured prominently in the history of European royalty in the 19th and 20th centuries. Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, of the United Kingdom, through two of their five daughters – Princess Alice and Princess Beatrice – passed the mutation to various royal houses across the continent, including the royal families of Spain, Germany, and Russia. Victoria's youngest son, Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, also had the disease, though none of her three elder sons did. Tests on the remains of the Romanov imperial family show that the specific form of haemophilia passed down by Queen Victoria was probably the relatively rare haemophilia B. The presence of haemophilia B within the European royal families was well-known, with the condition once popularly known as "the royal disease".
Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, later Princess Henry of Prussia, was the third child and third daughter of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom and Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. Her maternal grandparents were Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Her paternal grandparents were Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Elisabeth of Prussia. She was the wife of Prince Henry of Prussia, a younger brother of Wilhelm II, German Emperor and her first cousin. The SS Prinzessin Irene, a liner of the North German Lloyd was named after her.
Queen Victoria, the British monarch from 1837 to 1901, and Prince Albert had 9 children, 42 grandchildren, and 87 great-grandchildren.
The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was officially celebrated on 22 June 1897 to mark the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. Queen Victoria was the first British monarch ever to celebrate a Diamond Jubilee.
St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in England is a castle chapel built in the late-medieval Perpendicular Gothic style. It is a Royal Peculiar, and the Chapel of the Order of the Garter. St George's Chapel was founded in the 14th century by King Edward III and extensively enlarged in the late 15th century. It is located in the Lower Ward of the castle.
Charlotte Florentia Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, was governess of the future Queen Victoria.
Charlotte of Prussia was Duchess of Saxe-Meiningen from 1914 to 1918 as the wife of Bernhard III, the duchy's last ruler. Born at the Neues Palais in Potsdam, she was the second child and eldest daughter of Prince Frederick of Prussia, a member of the House of Hohenzollern who became Crown Prince of Prussia in 1861 and German Emperor in 1888. Through her mother Victoria, Princess Royal, Charlotte was the eldest granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
The state funeral of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, occurred on 2 February 1901, after her death on 22 January. It was one of the largest gatherings of European royalty.