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Impact of Europe’s Royal Inbreeding:
Henry VIII decreed cousin
marriages legal
A “cousin marriage” is the wedding of 2 people related by blood through an earlier generation. Throughout history, cousin-to-cousin marriages have been an essential means of maintaining stability among royal classes. By marrying their own, most royals believed they were binding their ties to the next generation. Today, cousin marriages are typically shunned by modern society for 2 reasons: the possibility of genetic repercussions and the threat of incest laws. The concern lies in the fact that people related by blood have a higher chance of possessing recessive genes for inherited illnesses such as birth defects and severe deformities. If both parents possess a recessive gene, there is a much greater risk of them passing it on to their children.
Queen Victoria was a carrier for hemophilia
Henry VIII’s Decree
Since Roman times, there has been great disapproval of these types of royal marriages. In fact, the marriage between Emperor Claudius and his niece Agrippina in the year 49 AD was regarded as a disgrace. Almost 1500 years later, the situation in England was quite different. Henry VIII, born in 1491, was the second son of King Henry VII. As the second monarch of the House of Tudor, he is best known for breaking from Rome, establishing the Church of England, and starting the Reformation. Henry VIII is also known for having 6 wives and decreeing cousin marriages legal. Since its inception during Henry’s reign as King of England, the Anglican Communion (an international association of churches) has allowed cousin marriages.
Prince Heinrich died at the age of 4
House of Hanover
Royal cousin-to-cousin marriages were often arranged to retain titles and exclude others from claiming a family’s power. Any time a woman became monarch or a king had only daughters, she or he would be the last ruler of their royal family, or house. While Henry VIII was from the Tudor House, Queen Victoria was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover, a family more notorious than most for their inter-marrying.
If a child’s parents are closely related, the odds that they will be dealt unhealthy genes are greatly increased. Newborns inherit one set of genes from their father and another set of genes from their mother. Some genes will inevitably be defective, but odds are that a second, healthy set will replace those genes that are unhealthy. When parents are close relatives, they already share many of the same defective genes. The passing down of 2 sets of “problem genes” to a child can lead to genetic defects such as those found in Charles II.
Prince Leopold was Queen Victoria’s son
From 1680 to 1840, the House of Hanover Married as Follows:
1682: King George I married his first cousin, Sophia Dorothea
1705: King George II married his third cousin, Caroline
1761: King George III married his second cousin, Charlotte
1795: King George IV married his first cousin, Caroline
1818: King William IV married his third cousin, Adelaide
1840: Queen Victoria married her first cousin, Albert, and the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha begins
House of Saxe-Coburg and Hemophilia
Just to name a few