The Royal Offspring

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert welcomed the birth of their first child, Princess Victoria in November 1840. However, the queen was not happy that shed become pregnant so soon after the wedding, and often complained in her journal about the difficulties of motherhood.Queen Victoria gave birth to a male heir, Albert (Bertie), a year later. Between 1843 and 1857, the queen had seven more children, completing her family of five daughters and four sons. All survived to adulthood, a rare outcome at a time when many children did not survive infancy.

The queens fourth son Leopold, born in 1853, was diagnosed at an early age with hemophilia, a geneticallytransmitted bleeding disorder. He died in his thirties of the disease. Through the marriages of Victorias children, hemophilia later reemerged in several European royal families, most notably in the son of Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his wife Alexandra (Victorias granddaughter). It was later determined that Queen Victoria and two of her daughters (as well as Alexandra) were carriers of the gene, which was passed on to their sons.