Book claims Queen Victoria an illegitimate child

If Wilson's suggestion is true, it would challenge the right of Victoria's descendants to the throne, including the current queen, Queen Elizabeth II.

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A book to be published this week says that Britain's Queen Victoria may have been illegitimate, possibly undermining the whole Royal Family's legitimacy, the Sunday Times reported.

In his book "The Victorians," acclaimed biographer A.N. Wilson alleges that Victoria's mother, Princess Victoire of Leiningen, had a lengthy affair with her Irish-born secretary Sir John Conroy and that he, rather than Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, was Victoria's real father.

Buckingham Palace said it would not comment on the allegation.

Wilson based his argument partly on medical data, the newspaper said.

Records show that the illness porphyria -- a hereditary disorder of body metabolism -- once ran in the Royal Family, but there is no evidence that Victoria carried it or passed it to her descendants.

Wilson also writes that Victoria was a carrier for the disease hemophilia, although medical records tracing her mother's ancestors for 17 generations show no evidence of the disease, suggesting Victoria inherited it from Conroy.

But American researchers on Victoria's medical background said it was "extremely unlikely" that Conroy had been a hemophiliac, and that the disease was more likely to have resulted from a genetic mutation, the newspaper reported.

Queen Victoria's claim to the crown was through her father, the brother of William IV, who died without children. If Wilson's suggestion is true, it would challenge the right of Victoria's descendants to the throne, including the current queen, Queen Elizabeth II, her great-great-granddaughter.

If Victoria was illegitimate, Prince Ernst of Hanover -- the husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco -- would be the rightful claimant to the throne, according to Burke's Peerage.

"His ancestor was the Duke of Cumberland, who was Victoria's uncle (and brother of William IV)," Harold Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burke's Peerage, told Reuters.

Brooks-Baker said he did not believe the claims of illegitimacy in the book and said it was doubtful Queen Victoria's remains would ever be made available for DNA testing.

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