Shahar Madjar, MD

Prince Leopold, the son of Queen Victoria, had suffered joint pain from a young age. At age 30, he followed his doctor’s advice, kissed his pregnant wife, Princess Helena, goodbye, and traveled from the United Kingdom to his Cannes residence, the Villa Nevada, where the weather was supposed to be better for his joints. On March 27, 1884, while at the Villa, Prince Leopold slipped and fell. He injured his knee and his head. He died the next morning.

The fate of other descendants of Queen Victoria was as horrible as that of Prince Leopold. And since Queen Victoria’s daughters married into the royal families of Germany, Spain and Russia, it was a fate shared by several monarchies across Europe:

At age 2, Queen Victoria’s grandson, Prince Friedrich of Hesse and by Rhine (German Empire) tumbled through a window and fell. He died several hours later of brain hemorrhage. Another grandson, Lord Leopold Mountbatten, died at age 32 during a hip operation.

Queen Victoria’s great grandsons did not fare better: At age 4, Prince Heinrich Friedrich of Prussia fell, head first, from a table to the floor, he lingered for a few hours, and died of a brain hemorrhage. At age 20, as a result of a car accident, Prince Rupert of Teck died of intracerebral hemorrhage; at age 19, after a minor car accident (he was trying to avoid a cyclist) Infante Gonzalo of Spain died of severe abdominal bleeding; at age 31, Alfonso the Prince of Asturias crashed his car into a telephone booth, he sustained minor injuries but died of internal bleeding.

The astute reader (all of my readers are astute, and possess a good sense of humor) must have noticed a pattern in the death habits of the royals: the royals died young, very young; they died of excessive bleeding; they died of injuries others might have survived; they were all men.

Doctors and scientists have long suspected that the cause of the Royal Curse is hemophilia, a genetic disorder that impairs the body’s ability to form blood clots. Patients with hemophilia bleed longer even after minor injuries. The bleeding occurs inside joints leading, in most cases, to severe pain and damage to the joints. Some patients bleed during surgeries, others bleed into their brains, resulting in headaches, seizures, even death.

Was the Royal Disease indeed hemophilia? It would take several decades to answer this question with certainty. The answer lies in the story of another descendant of Queen Victoria — her great-grandson, Prince Alexei Romanov, the son of Tsar Nicholas II and heir to the Russian throne. Here is his story:

1917 was a time of unrest and turmoil in Russia. World War I left Russia in worse shape than before: millions of Russian men were taken away from their farms to join the war effort, 3,311,000 Russians lost their lives, Tzar Nicholas was blamed for the military defeats, rumors had it that his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna (who was a German) had tried to help Germany to win the war, the price of food went up and there was food shortage in the cities. Besides, it was winter, a cold, bitter Russian winter. Laborers, peasants, serfs and intellectuals weren’t willing to tolerate the reign of the autocratic Tzar anymore. It was a time for a revolution.

Thus, the Bolsheviks (the revolutionary troops) imprisoned Tsar Nicholas II, the Tsarina, and their five children in the ‘The House of Special Purpose’ where the royals were kept in strict isolation. The royals were no longer permitted to live like Tsars. The guards addressed them with contempt, by using only their names, not their titles. They had no access to their luggage, their money was confiscated, they had to part with their devoted servants, and to give up butter and coffee. They were constantly under surveillance. The house was protected by a fence and a tall palisade, four machine guns, 300 guards. And the windows in all the royal family’s rooms were sealed shut and covered with newspapers.

On July 17, 1918, around midnight, the sleeping members of the royal family were awakened and ordered into the basement of the ‘The House of Special Purpose’. And the execution squad of the secret police was brought in.

Was the Royal family executed? Did Prince Alexei Romanov, then 14-year-old, survive the day? How is the prince’s story a key to understanding the Royal Disease? And why did I name this story ‘Unlucky Strike’? I promise to return with answers.