Princess Alice was married to Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt and gave birth to a haemophiliac son, Frederick of Hesse (6), (Frederick William August Victor Leopold Louis) known as Frittie in the family, in 1870. Through two of the Queen's daughters, Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse (2) and Beatrice, Princess of Battenberg (3), both of whom were carriers, the disease was to be spread into many of the Royal Families of Europe. He was taken to a nearby hospital with a skull fracture but never recovered and died in hospital. In the course of overtaking another vehicle, his car hit a tree and overturned. On 1 April 1928, Rupert was driving with two friends Paris to Lyon. He died on 15 April 1928 from an intracerebral haemorrhage as a result of a car crash in France. Viscount Trematon (5) was also a haemophiliac. Alexander of Teck was made Earl of Athlone and Rupert granted the courtesy title of Viscount Trematon. During the First World War, when anti-German feeling was at its height, in conjunction with changing the name of the Royal House to Windsor, King George V changed that of the Tecks to Cambridge, (for their maternal ancestor, Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, a son of George III). She married Prince Alexander of Teck, the brother of Queen Mary, their son, Rupert Alexander George of Teck. Alice was later to become Countess of Athlone and was to prove a carrier of haemophilia. Leopold was the only one of Queen Victoria’s haemophiliac descendants to have children, his marriage to Helena of Waldeck produced two children, a daughter, Princess Alice of Albany (4), later to become Countess of Athlone, who was a further carrier of the disease and an unaffected son, born posthumously, Charles Edward, later Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. He suffered a fit, the cause or the consequence of a fall on some stairs at Cannes, injuring his knee and hitting his head and died the following morning, apparently from a cerebral haemorrhage. Leopold died in 1884 at the age of 31, in the south of France. He was later created Duke of Albany and married the German princess, Helena of Waldeck-Pyrmont.

He was first diagnosed with haemophilia in 1858 or 1859, Queen Victoria consequently placed restrictions on him, which he chaffed at. Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany (1 on chart), the first of Queen Victoria's descendants to suffer from haemophilia was described as a delicate child who remained a constant source of anxiety to the Queen throughout his life, evidence exists that Leopold also suffered mildly from epilepsy, like his grand-nephew Prince John (the youngest son of King George V).

Since females have two X chromosomes, they are more often than not carriers. Males possess XY chromosomes and females XX. A recessive gene, it is carried on the sexual female chromosome X. The condition is passed on to males through females, who do not manifest the symptoms of the disease themselves. The blood of a haemophiliac cannot coagulate, due to the fact that one or more of the plasma proteins required to form a clot is absent or reduced in their blood. Haemophilia is an X-linked recessive disorder. Victoria and Albert and their eldest five children No earlier occurrence of the disease in the Royal family had been known, it is assumed that a mutation occurred in the sperm of the Queen's father, Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent. The first instance of haemophilia in the British Royal family occurred on the birth of Prince Leopold on 7th April 1853, Leopold was the fourth son and eighth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Haemophilia acquired the name the royal disease due to the high number of descendants of Queen Victoria afflicted by it.

Queen victoria's children family tree