Queen Elizabeth’s recent visit to the Republic of Ireland was an outstanding success and it was great to see her and Prince Phillip receive such a warm welcome – plenty of good Irish hospitality was in evidence this past week. But while reading an article about her ancestor, Queen Victoria, I was surprised to learn that there could be good reason to believe that the Queen may not actually be ‘The Queen’…

Victoria: note the nose...

It is all about where the haemophilia came from that affected Victoria’s son Prince Leopold and his descendants. The gene for the condition never existed in the Royal line before it emerged in Victoria’s offspring – the chances of it being a rogue gene that simply appeared out of nowhere are so remote as to be not worth looking into. The gene was also not found to be in the family of Leopold’s father, Prince Albert. That leaves us to consider the royal line of Victoria’s father the Duke of Kent, but as we already know haemophilia was not identified in the Royal family prior to Victoria. This is where doubt is cast on Victoria’s paternity and that it is thought that her real father was Sir John Conroy. Conroy was assigned the role of Comptroller of the royal household after the death of Victoria’s father, the Duke of Kent. It was widely rumoured he became her mother’s lover and even more interestingly that he fathered Victoria during an affair with the Duchess of Kent while her husband was still alive.

Conroy: identical noses...?

This is incredible stuff to consider. Another interesting aspect is the Porphyria that afflicted her German ancestors, namely King George III, was not inherited by Victoria or her descendants…the disease suddenly vanished from the royal line at the same time of Victoria’s birth – a fact that Princess Margaret once raised in conversation with a doctor friend after watching the film The Madness of King George. So, what if rumour is fact and our lovely Queen is not really our Queen…who would be the monarch today? I think you have only two choices; the first being the most practical and that would be the eldest son of King William IV from whom Victoria inherited the Crown. His only two legitimate children were girls who died in infancy before their father died. His other ten children were illegitimate but, and this is if illegitimacy was not a barrier to succession, his eldest son George FitzClarence, Ist Earl of Munster would have succeeded him as King. His descendants today would be sitting on the throne. The second option would be the present Prince Ernst of Hanover – he could well be the rightful monarch today.

Of course, it would be very easy to prove either way – a simply DNA test would settle things decidedly, as they did when identifying the remains of the assassinated Romanov family a few years ago, who of course are descendants of Queen Victoria. But then again – is it something we really want to know….?