John Conroy - Historiography - Rumour That Conroy Was Queen Victoria's Father

Rumour That Conroy Was Queen Victoria's Father

During Victoria's lifetime and after her death in 1901, there have been rumours that Conroy or someone else, and not the Duke of Kent, was her biological father. Historians have continued to debate the accuracy and validity of these claims. In his 2003 work The Victorians, biographer A. N. Wilson suggests that Victoria was not actually descended from George III because several of her descendants had haemophilia, which was unknown among her recognised ancestors. Haemophilia is a genetic disease that impairs the body's ability to control blood clotting, which is used to stop bleeding when a blood vessel is broken; it is carried in the female line but the symptoms manifest mostly in males. Wilson proposes that the Duchess of Kent took a lover (not necessarily Conroy) to ensure that a Coburg would sit on the British throne.

Likewise, medical historian W.T.W. Potts considers it a possibility that the Duchess took a lover under pressure from her brother Leopold. He cites the rarity of genetic mutations as evidence, as well as the "remarkable" circumstances surrounding Victoria's conception. Potts makes no mention of Conroy specifically, only that the father would have been a haemophiliac himself or would have had a mutated gene.

Haemophilia B has been known to arise spontaneously in the children of older fathers, and Victoria's father was fifty-one when she was born. Nicholas Wright Gillham proposes that the haemophilia mutation could have first occurred with either Victoria or the Duke of Kent, disproving other paternity theories. Gillian Gill and her son Christopher, an infectious disease specialist, also view a genetic mutation as the most likely possibility; Gillian Gill writes that "a few historians in recent years have found it seductive" to doubt Victoria's stated paternity because a random mutation is "an unexciting solution". Helen Rappaport concurs, remarking that "the best and most logical" explanation is that haemophilia first appeared in Victoria as a mutation.

Alan Rushton adds that no one in the household of the newly married Duchess of Kent, including Conroy, is known to have had haemophilia, and that her probable awareness of the scandals surrounding the behaviour of Caroline of Brunswick and Caroline Matilda of Wales would have deterred her from seeking an affair elsewhere. Furthermore, Princess Victoria was said to have borne a strong family resemblance to her father and grandfather George III.

There is evidence that some of Victoria's descendants did have mild porphyria, most notably Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen. This disease may have affected her grandfather, George III and this could give credence to Victoria's legitimate birth. There is more reliable documentation that one of her great-great-grandsons, Prince William of Gloucester, was diagnosed with the disease shortly before his death when his aircraft crashed during an air race. Concrete evidence on the origins of the disease and paternity of Victoria could be achieved with a DNA test of her or her parents' remains, but no such study has been sanctioned by the Royal Family.