10 Royal Families Riddled With Incest

hello and welcome to twist list today we are looking at ten royal families riddled with incest are royalty the word conjures images of power wealth the means to shape history and inbreeding with so much at stake royal families across the world have tried to keep the bloodlines clean and the seat of power firmly intact through strategic intermarriage ignoring rules of consanguinity may have kept various family members gainfully employed for generations what's the downside aside from the inherent gross Ness of course the overlapping of genetic material elevates chances of health and developmental problems as well as murder and Exile King Tut's many health issues necrosis a partially cleft palate and stillborn children with his own sister wife are thought to be connected to his family tree which looked more like a wreath do two generations of incestuous coupling perhaps the most famous example of the perils of inbreeding is king charles ii the last of Spain's Habsburg rulers the result of 200 years of intermarriage Charles's tongue was so large that he could barely speak and his infamous Habsburg jaw was so pronounced that he was unable to chew the behavior that his ancestors chose to keep the crown ended up terminating their line instead and there are a lot more where they came from at number 10 we have the mono moat April of Zimbabwe various African monarchies practiced dynastic incest including the mono mo taper of Zimbabwe Kings were extremely active in polygamy with one king counting over 3,000 women as wives his preferred main wives were his sisters or daughters if anyone who wasn't King tried to marry his wife or daughter they were subject to death the mono motive incest tradition is illustrated in the origin story of the Bulova do tribes reign queen lineage the reign queen is historically known as a powerful ruler and magician with the power to bring rain or drought to her friends or enemies despite the legality of incest within the royal Four the oral tradition implies that the power was given to the first rain Queen Princess Tzu Gandini after she birthed a child with her brother or father in some stories and had to flee due to public shame rather than kill both the child and the princess the king gave his daughter rainmaking power and arranged for her to escape the ninth spot on the list is occupied by Cleopatra Cleopatra the seventh is still one of the most widely known rulers in Western culture her romances and power are the subject of a Shakespeare play many films and even an opera but one marriage in her life often goes overlooked according to family custom Cleopatra was married to both of her brothers in fact only six individuals filled the sixteen great-grandparent roles on Cleopatra's family tree while obesity ran in Cleopatra's family and is possibly linked to the deep levels of intermarriage throughout the years the most dangerous result of incest in the case of the Ptolemy family tree was the violence that ensued over power grabs intermarriage kept power and wealth within the family but sibling rivalry took on a whole new meaning when control over Egypt was concerned Royals frequently turned to murder to maintain their status Cleopatra herself killed not one but two brother husbands as well as her sister in successful bids for power number 8 on our list is Nadia Neela of Hawaii for the monarchy that once existed in Hawaii incest was encouraged as a privilege for the royal family one example is princess nahi Annina who was born in 1815 according to some she was romantically involved with her brother from early childhood Christian missionaries who were gaining influence in the kingdom protested greatly when they learned that Najia Nina and her brother Prince Cowie qawwali later known as Kamehameha three were to marry and produce an heir together the missionaries persuaded Nadia Nina and Kamehameha 3 to marry other people but they openly consummated their affair regardless of the new marital punishments now here NEMA found herself shunned by both the church and her people who were by then more intensely influenced by the missionaries a sickly daughter died shortly after birth devastated Najia Nina died less than a year later historians believe that their relationship was more than royal duty and the siblings were actually deeply in love up at number 7 we have Incan incest intermarriage existed during the later years of the Incan Empire while marriage between blood relatives was prohibited for the general population Nobles were exempted from this rule because they were above human law and different than their fellow men but first it was common to marry half sisters so that the common grandfather's line would be strengthened problems arose in terms of succession because rulers tended to have more than one wife mistress and concubine as a result people began to believe that children with two parents of royal blood instead of one would have a stronger claim to the throne rules were established when Incan Emperor Pachacuti chose a younger son suffering Kuya Pankey over another for his military skill suppers female sibling was called a full sister not a half-sister to strengthen the rights of her future sons the changes did not have a lasting effect suckling Kuya pan Kees brother attempted a coup anyway and the lineage was lost to civil war one generation later hey number 6 on the list is Maria and Portugal Maria the first of Portugal has the distinction of being the first Queen regnant to rule her country but she is also distinguished by her nickname Marie of the mat despite extreme piety Maria married her uncle Pedro when crowned he was renamed Peter the 3rd in 1778 Peter the 3rd was Maria's father's younger brother and 43 years old to her 26 the family web became more tangled when Maria and Peter the 3rd s son and heir Joseph married his arms Maria's sister benedita Joseph was merely 15 while benedita was 30 therefore Peter the third s daughter-in-law sister-in-law and niece were the same person as is often the case with incestuous relationships the couple could not have children and benedita miscarried twice Joseph died of smallpox two years after his father which hastened the collapse of Maria's mental state Maria's second son ruled in her place but the family was forced out of Portugal to Brazil by Napoleon the inter family love didn't stop there generations later maria ii was betrothed to her father's brother to solve an abdication crisis the fifth spot on the list is occupied by Elisabeth of Austria Elisabeth of Austria was said to be convinced that her lineage was cursed by madness however it must have been difficult to pinpoint which family held the curse because her tree was so entangled Elizabeth's mother Ludovico of Bavaria married to a cousin was one of 13 children born to Prince Maximilian of Bavaria Ludo Vickers sister Sophie married Archduke Franz Karl of Austria and they together had a son Franz Josef later emperor of Austria and king of Hungary Ludo Vica groomed her other daughter Helene II to marry the Emperor but Franz Josef fell in love at first sight with Elisabeth and quickly proposed marriage the marriage was a disaster Elisabeth hated court life and had a contentious relationship with her aunt and mother and law the Archduchess Sophie her health suffered but this wasn't because of the overlap of genes from incest it was the Emperor's Affairs he is rumored to have given her a venereal disease by cheating and Elizabeth's depression she had anxious tendencies was obsessed with her weight and diet and suffered a nervous breakdown the family tree remained rather circular in subsequent generations Elizabeth's daughter married her second cousin Leopold and Sophie and Ludo Vickers other sister Karolina married Frances the second the grandfather of Franz Josef in other words Karolina was both Arndt and step-grandmother to the Emperor and sister and stepmother in law to Archduchess Sophie number four on the list is king rama v king rama v is credited as a reform minded ruler and talented diplomat who prevented Siam from colonial domination he abolished slavery and overhauled Siam government laying the foundation for Thailand as a modern state with accomplishments like the first public hospitals and rail systems he was also accomplished in another way fatherhood tradition dictated a fruitful rain which Chulalongkorn as he was also known apparently took seriously he fathered 77 children with an estimated 153 royal consorts concubines and wives the role of Queen was reserved for royal blood and Chulalongkorn chose his four half sisters as wives despite the sheer number of children the King installed Western tutors for all of them and sent numerous sons to college in Europe he was also aware of how the outside world may have perceived his Marshall arrangement but only in respect to its polygamy not its incest for this reason the king reportedly only had himself formally portrayed with Queens and Webber as the rest of the women in his life were in his words merely due to custom at the third place we have princess Victoria Melita Princess Victoria Mellie 2 is a special case because she married not one but two first cousins she was also the granddaughter of one of the greatest examples of intermarriage Queen Victoria through her father Alfred Duke of saxe-coburg and Gotha Queen Victoria wished for her granddaughter to marry her grandson Ernest Louie the Grand Duke of Hesse they had a daughter and a stillborn son but the marriage didn't work Victoria reportedly caught Ernest in bed with a male servant and fight between the two were volatile after Queen Victoria died the couple divorced legally but it still caused a scandal among royal circles Princess Victoria went on to marry the real love of her life another first cousin this time from her mother's I'd named Kiril Vladimirovich Kiril was a Russian Grand Duke and when they married without the approval of tsar nicholas ii kiril was stripped of his office in the Navy and banished from Russia for nearly five years eventually the couple was allowed back into Russia but only because a series of deaths in the Russian royal family made Kiril third in the line of succession though Kirill was first cousin to both Lazar and his wife the relationship never warmed at the second Spotty's Queen Victoria Queen Victoria is well known as a prolific matriarch who believed that intermarriage between European royalty could guarantee peace her matchmaking first of her nine children then of her grandchild cross-pollinated nearly every royal family in Europe but greatly contributed to the end of the Imperial age in fact family relations between the descendants who ruled England Russia and Britain were very central to World War one Kaiser Wilhelm's extreme insecurities and anger toward Britain was directly linked to his English mother's insistence throughout his upbringing that anything English was superior to Germany historians point to the years leading up to World War one is plagued not only by political upheaval but personal familial vendetta's by wilhelm against his cousins King Edward the seventh and tsar nicholas ii of russia family feuding was not the only calamity that resulted from the royal inbreeding queen victoria and her husband Albert were first cousins along with their descendants marrying among themselves this is likely how the affliction of haemophilia spread a woman must acquire the gene from both of her parents five grandchildren and one child of Victoria's died due to complications of haemophilia her granddaughter czarina Alexandra treatment for the afflicted Alexis heir to the Russian throne was the most disastrous for the world at large during World War one the stress of having those are off with his soldiers at war as well as the constant battle to keep her son from dying pushed the czarina to keep her self-described mystic healer named Rasputin as one of her most trusted confidant nobles and laypersons alike grew suspicious of Rasputin's growing power but our eanes dependence on the mystic as well as her german lineage added spark to an already dangerous powder keg of Russian discontent the imperial family were murdered after the Tsar was forced to abdicate the throne and finally at number one ancient Rome the famous ruler Nero had a salacious side including rumors of wandering the street to murder innocent citizens at random his mother Agri Pina along with his former tutor Seneca tried to rein in his terrible behavior this had the opposite of the intended effect Nero ended up murdering his mother however the relationship was much more complicated than a case of Nero acting the part of an extreme enfant terrible [ __ ] Pina married the Emperor Claudius her uncle to strengthen Nero's right to the throne on top of that Union which was indeed considered incestuous in the eyes of Roman law Agra Pina schemed further to remove the supporters of Claudius's natural heir and orchestrated the suicide of the fiancee of Claudius his daughter Octavia when Nero married his stepsister Octavia the only impediment that remained was Claudius himself Agri Pina again took action and one year after Nero and Octavius marriage Claudius died suddenly of suspected mushroom poisoning Nero subsequently found himself as the leader of the Roman Empire at the age of sixteen Agri poenas actions suggest that she was incredibly vested in Nero's success but her interest took an even more intense turn the murder in power sensual acts of kissing and the like were witnessed and recorded by the historian and politician takata's and Agri Pina was indeed vocal about her intimacy with her son it became so worrisome at Nero's Lover act warned him the army would not tolerate an emperor who offended the gods he was referring to incest which was absolutely taboo Agra poenas jealousy over Nero's affairs with women like act who reportedly bore a striking resemblance to Agra Pema and papaya sabina whom she saw as rai for his affections eventually caused her demise Nero orchestrated the murder of his mother in AD 59 thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video and would like to see more then please hit the subscribe button

Channel: Twist List

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Length: 15min 57sec (957 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 31 2018