History Main / RoyalInbreeding

** Ghazi, the penultimate King of UsefulNotes/{{Iraq}}, married his first cousin Aliya. This enabled her family, the Hejazi branch of the Hashemites, to seek refuge in Iraq after they were deposed by the [[UsefulNotes/SaudiArabia House of Saud]], and Aliya's brother, 'Abd al-Ilah, subsequently became regent and Crown Prince of Ghazi's young son Faisal II (who was simultaneously his nephew and first cousin once removed). Unfortunately, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14_July_Revolution Iraq violently abolished its monarchy]] a couple of decades later, [[RulingFamilyMassacre killing 'Abd al-Ilah and most of his relatives]] (only a sister survived).

** There was the DoubleInLawMarriage between Abdullah I of UsefulNotes/{{Jordan}} to Musbah bint Nasser, and Abdullah's brother Faisal I of UsefulNotes/{{Iraq}} to Musbah's twin sister, Huzaima. Musbah and Huzaima were first cousins to Abdullah and Faisal, all four having the same ancestor in their paternal grandfather, Ali bin Muhammad. Abdullah's son Talal, in turn, married Zein al-Sharaf, Musbah and Huzaima's niece and thus his second cousin. And Talal's son, Hussein (father of current King Abdullah II), continued the tradition by marrying Dina bint Abdul-Hamid, his third cousin once removed (she's a great-granddaughter of Awn ar-Rafiq, brother of the aforementioned Ali bin Muhammad), although she only gave birth to a daughter before divorcing Hussein, and his heir Abdullah II was conceived through his English second wife, Antoinette Gardiner.

* Turn-of-the-Century British royalty:
** UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria married her first cousin Prince Albert (his father and Victoria's mother were siblings) and their nine children were married into so many other European royal houses. Queen Victoria was also a carrier for hemophilia through an apparent random mutation, and the result was that most of the European royal families were hemophiliacs and carriers into the 20th century.
*** This had a particularly strong effect in Russia: Tsar Nicholas II's son Alexei inherited the gene for hemophilia that Victoria carried because his mother, Tsarina Alexandra (born Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine), was one of her grandchildren through her daughter Princess Alice. Alexei's illness heavily influenced the Imperial couple's decisionmaking, and not for the better--it led them to trust Rasputin, which lost them support among key members of the aristocracy who would later turn their backs on Nicholas and Alexandra in February 1917.[[note]]Ironically, their trust in Rasputin was relatively well-placed entirely by accident; by insisting that Alexei ''not'' get treatment from doctors after having hemophiliac episodes, but rather just rest, Rasputin actually benefited the Tsarevich. The doctors, you see, subjected him to all kinds of poking and prodding that just led to more internal bleeding, and to make it worse prescribed the new wonder drug aspirin for his pain--which just made the bleeds worse by inhibiting what limited clotting power his blood did have. (Aspirin is an anticoagulant.) Unfortunately, this was the only thing Rasputin was right about (besides stuff like the idea that Nicholas shouldn't lead the war personally, but Nicholas ignored that advice).[[/note]]

* In [[JidaiGeki ancient and feudal Japan]], it was common for noble and imperial families to arrange marriages between cousins and even aunts/uncles and nephews/nieces because ThePatriarch of these families tended to [[ReallyGetsAround have boatloads of children from many different women]], and this was a convenient way of tidying up familial loose ends and folding branches of the family back into the main House. In particular, it was rather common for the reigning emperor to be married to a close relative of his ruling shogun. Since the latter tended to also form dynasties, this meant that the two family trees often intertwined. This is, however, {{subverted}} in terms of biology as children of (unrelated) royal concubines are simply declared to be legitimate children of the Emperor and his cousin-wife.
* In traditional Arab society, it is customary for cousins to marry -- although often more as a last resort for a [[OldMaid woman who has been unmarried for too long]] than as a first choice (such women get told, "There's always your cousin"). However, among aristocratic families, the desire to keep family fortunes together influences this -- under Islamic inheritance law, daughters are entitled to inherit (only half of what their brothers inherit, but still), and heirs cannot be disinherited except in extreme circumstances, so cousin marriage keeps the family fortune in the family.
* Eighth-century Irish Princess and Roman Catholic saint Dymphna's mother passed away, and her father decided to marry her. She fled with a few companions, but when the charitable work in Belgium she was doing caught her father's attention, she and her friends were ultimately martyred, and the city whose mental health facility she started is one of the most envied, studied, and effective to this day.
* The practice of ''[[http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/marriage-next-of-kin xwedodah,]]'' marriage of close family members to each other, in the noble families of Persia prior to the Arab invasion. Very little information of this practice has survived into the modern day (and it is not practiced by modern-day UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrian|ism}}s), but it appears to have been a practice grounded partially in religion and partially in culture and was most likely restricted to royals and priests.
* Believed to be averted for the pre-1730 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natchez_people Natchez]], and some historians extrapolate backwards from them to argue that earlier Mississippian-culture tribes averted this trope as well. ''If'' the writings of early European colonists are accurate, the Suns (Natchez royalty) and nobles were legally required to marry commoners.
* Effectively {{defied}} in the European royal houses by the late 19th century, as rampaging [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haemophilia haemophilia]] among the royal houses and other defects (Victor Emmanuel III, king of Italy, was infamously short and of ill health and conscious of it, and openly blamed it on being the son of two already inbred cousins) led them to carefully arrange marriages to avoid it, culminating in [[BenevolentConspiracy the entire Italian government and every single royal of Europe except the future Victor Emmanuel III joining forces to trick him into marrying Elena of Montenegro due her being completely unrelated to him]] after he refused a possible marriage with a Danish princess for fear his children would be too inbred. Today, haemophilia has been eradicated from the royal families, and Victor Emmanuel III's children were all known in Italy for their perfect health.
* UsefulNotes/{{Claudius}} made an edict declaring that an uncle marrying his niece didn't count as incest so that he could marry his own niece Agrippina, mother of UsefulNotes/{{Nero}} (by her previous husband, a cousin).
* In the Kingdom of Hawaii and its predecessors, intentional incestuous mating was encouraged amongst the ruling classes, despite incest being very rare in other Polynesian cultures. This was because the Hawaiians believed marriages between blood relatives would produce children with very high mana levels, which would translate into semi-divine status that granted mental and physical superiority. Extensive genealogies were kept in order to produce the most inbred (and thus, godly) chiefs possible. The commoners were forbidden to do this out of fears that they would start producing children with chieflike levels of mana.
* Chulalongkorn, the famed modernizing reformer king of Siam (now Thailand), had four wives, all of whom were half-sisters of his.
* Like their counterparts in Egypt, ancient Celtic nobility in Ireland and Britain were known to engage in brother-sister relations, possibly for religious reasons.

* Wiki/SCPFoundation: [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3288 SCP-3288]] is a branch of the Hapsburg family that took this to severe extremes: thanks to Leopold I experimenting with alchemy, the family is able to interbreed with few of the downsides of inbreeding. The deformed ones are sent to underground crypts, but otherwise don't suffer any ill effects such as poor health and infertility: in fact their deformities make them ''stronger''. As time passed those in the underground kept breeding with each other (with [[ParentalIncest parental]] and [[BrotherSisterIncest sibling]] incest being commonplace) until [[spoiler:their blood got so 'pure' and toxic that even children conceived with a non-Hapsburg woman (usually through rape) will come out pure Hapsburg (and by come out I mean ''[[ImAnHumanitarian they eat their way out of their mother]]''). The Hapsburg they captured revealed that this was their entire plan, and they won't stop until the entire earth is populated by Hapsburgs. The worst part? The Foundation's only contained ''some'' crypts. They don't know how many are actually out there.]]

*** This had a particularly strong effect in Russia: Tsar Nicholas II's son Alexei inherited the gene for hemophilia that Victoria carried because his mother, Tsarina Alexandra (born Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine), was one of her grandchildren through her daughter Princess Alice. Alexei's illness heavily influenced the Imperial couple's decisionmaking, and not for the better--it led them to trust Rasputin, which lost them support among key members of the aristocracy who would later turn their backs on Nicholas and Alexandra in February 1917.[[note]]Ironically, their trust in Rasputin was relatively well-placed entirely by accident; by insisting that Alexei ''not'' get treatment from doctors, after having hemophiliac episodes, but rather just rest, Rasputin actually benefited the Tsarevich. Unfortunately, this was the only thing Rasputin was right about (besides stuff like the idea that Nicholas shouldn't lead the war personally, but Nicholas ignored that advice).[[/note]]

* After all sorts of trouble was had in the Centauri court on ''Series/BabylonFive'', one of the ministers blames it on too much inbreeding.

* This can often be the case with purebred dogs (and cats to a lesser degree). Inbreeding is the result of many genetic defects in purebreds that lead to a shortened lifespan, disease, and sometimes physical deformities (such as a Pug's face, which is so flat purebreds often have trouble breathing). Why do people do this? Because a purebred dog is a "higher standard".
* Similar cases of inbreeding are rampant with horses and other livestock, often euphemized to "line-breeding." The concept of separate animal "breeds" [[NewerThanTheyThink only started in earnest a couple of centuries ago,]] so the number of founding ancestors for a modern Thoroughbred horse or a Holstein cow can get small indeed. People often soften the {{Squick}} factor by mating cousin-to-cousin or aunt to nephew, which isn't as big of an age-gap for livestock as it would be for humans, but some will mate an animal to their parents or siblings, and severe cases of repeated inbreeding mean that a given animal can have the same ancestor show up multiple times on ''both sides'' of their pedigree. A common statement among detractors is how [[DoubleStandard "it's line-breeding when things go right, and inbreeding/incest when things go wrong."]]

* Like their counterparts in Egypt, ancient Celtic nobility in Ireland and Britain were known to engage in brother-sister relations, possibly for religious reasons.

** ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'': King Viserys and Queen Aemma were cousins. Rhaenyra is their only surviving child, and she ends up marrying her uncle Daemon.

** ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'': King Viserys and Queen Aemma were cousins. Rhaenyra is their only surviving child.

* Many {{Ancient Egypt}}ian Pharaohs married their cousins or in some cases siblings (especially half-siblings). [[UsefulNotes/{{Tutankhamun}} King Tut]] suffered from any number of possible genetic disorders from being the offspring of a brother and sister. Contrary-wise the 12th Dynasty (19th-18th centuries BC), one of the most successful in Egypt's long history, married brother to sister for seven or eight generations without noticeable ill effect. It was once believed that incestuous marriages were common among other families and commoners, but it's now thought that using "my brother" and "my sister" between married couples could also have been the equivalent of "dear" or "darling" and not literal (as they were common terms of affection in wider society--friends and even business associates are regularly recorded as calling each other "brother"/"sister".

** UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria married her first cousin Prince Albert (his father and Victoria's mother were siblings) and their nine children were married into so many other European royal houses. Queen Victoria was also a carrier for hemophilia through an apparent random mutation in one of her own X chromosomes, and the result was that most of the European royal families were hemophiliacs and carriers into the 20th century.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** The former Targaryen dynasty usually wed their siblings or cousins, including Daenerys' own parents. Her brother Viserys hints that he wants to carry on the tradition, but instead has her [[AltarDiplomacy sold off as a bride to the horselord Khal Drago]], hoping to use his forces to invade the Seven Kingdoms.
** Cersei Lannister had earlier used the Targaryen example as a justification for her own illicit romance with her twin brother Jaime when Eddard Stark confronted her with the truth of her children's illegitimate heritage. The truth is buried for political purposes despite becoming an OpenSecret, but once [[spoiler: Cersei becomes Queen Regnant in her own right]], it appears that she doesn't even feel the need to bother hiding it from her subjects anymore.
** It turns out that, unknowingly, [[spoiler: Jon and Daenerys]] are doing this, as biologically, the latter is the former's aunt, with [[spoiler: Jon's father being confirmed to be Rhaegar Targaryen, who was Daenerys's elder brother. However, Jon puts a stop to it when he finds out and ends up killing Daenerys for unrelated reasons before any offspring can result]].

* {{Defied}} by the Romulan noble class, according to ''Fanfic/HeisheRinanovai''. Due to their low starting population (only seven of the original eighteen colony ships survived the Journey from Vulcan to colonize Romulus) and tendency to AltarDiplomacy, Romulan {{Blue Blood}}s would be vulnerable to this were it not for gene-maps kept by the clans to avoid such mishaps.

* Averted in ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'', one of the princesses says she wouldn't mind marrying her cousin if she absolutely must marry someone, but her sister points out that he is too close in blood (while admitting he'd otherwise be a good choice).

* In Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's short story "The Fall of The House of Usher", it's noted that the Usher family tree is a straight line. This leads many readers to suspect an incest-subtext in the relation between Madeleine and Roderick Usher.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'':

** The Gaunts are noted to have become increasingly erratic, violent, unintelligent, and magically untalented as the generations passed and their habit of marrying cousins caught up with them until {{irony}} hit and their last descendant, Tom Riddle (aka Voldemort), got an infusion of muggle DNA through his father and grew up to become one of the most brilliant and talented wizards of the modern era. Sadly this also included all the [[TheSociopath sociopathy]] that came from both sides of his gene pool.

*** This had a particularly strong effect in Russia: Tsar Nicholas II's son Alexei inherited the gene for hemophilia that Victoria carried because his mother, Tsarina Alexandra (born Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine), was one of her grandchildren through her daughter Princess Alice. Alexei's illness heavily influenced the Imperial couple's decisionmaking, and not for the better--it led them to trust Rasputin, which lost them support among key members of the aristocracy who would later turn their backs on Nicholas and Alexandra in February 1917.[[note]]Ironically, their trust in Rasputin was relatively well-placed entirely by accident; by insisting that Alexei ''not'' get treatment from doctors, after having hemophiliac episodes, but rather just rest, Rasputin actually benefited the Tsarevich. Unfortunately, this was the only thing Rasputin was right about.[[/note]]

** To put this into context, Phillip III was Charles II's grandfather through his father and his great grandfather through his mother. Phillip III was related to his own wife, Margaret of Austria, in at least 6 ways (first cousins once removed, 2nd cousins through two different branches, 2nd cousins once removed through two different branches, and 3rd cousins) which made his relation worse than a "typical" first cousin pairing. This came about because Margaret was the result of an uncle/niece pairing while Phillip III was a product of an uncle/niece (also 1st cousins once removed) pairing. Charles II's other great grandfather was Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. Ferdinand II was related to his own wife, Maria Anna of Bavaria, in at least 3 ways (1st cousins, 2nd cousins once removed, and 3rd cousins). Despite Phillip III and Margaret not being true 1st cousins, they were actually more closely related to each other than Ferdinand II was to Maria Anna. Phillip III's daughter, [[NamesTheSame Maria Anna]] of Spain, and Ferninand II's son, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, married each other (adding yet another 1st cousin connection into the mix). Phillip III's son, Phillip IV, then married the product of '''that''' incest, Mariana of Austria to add one last uncle/niece pairing into the mix. To get a good reference, it's scientifically recommended that you not are more closely related to your spouse than 3rd cousins to avoid most complications from incest. An uncle/niece pairing is already 32 times closer to each other than 3rd couisins are.

** King Mokjong of Goryeo took this UpToEleven. His parents were cousins. His paternal grandparents were half-siblings. His maternal grandparents were half-siblings. ''Both'' sets of grandparents were each other's half-siblings. Mokjong had only ''one'' great-grandfather. Normal people have ''four''.

** Similar cases are noted with horses and other livestock, as the concept of separate animal "breeds" [[NewerThanTheyThink only started in earnest a couple of centuries ago,]] which means the number of founding ancestors can get small indeed. People often soften the {{Squick}} factor by claiming to practice "line-breeding" (mating cousin-to-cousin or aunt to nephew, which isn't as big of an age-gap for livestock as it would be for humans); most breeders avoid mating ''direct'' family members to each other, but some will, and severe cases mean that a given animal can have the same ancestor show up multiple times on ''both sides'' of their pedigree. A common statement among detractors is how [[DoubleStandard "it's line-breeding when things go right, and inbreeding when things go wrong."]]

** Over the 3,500 years Leto II controlled the Bene Gesserit breeding program, he [[Literature/GodEmperorOfDune mated several of Duncan Idaho's clones with his sister's descendants]].

** Similar cases are noted with horses and other livestock, as the concept of separate animal "breeds" [[NewerThanTheyThink only started in earnest a couple of centuries ago,]] which means the number of founding ancestors can get small indeed. People often soften the {{Squick}} factor by claiming to practice "line-breeding" (mating cousin-to-cousin or aunt to nephew, which isn't as big of an age-gap for livestock as it would be for humans); most breeders avoid mating ''direct'' family members to each other, but some will, and severe cases of line-breeding mean that a given animal can have the same ancestor show up multiple times on ''both sides'' of their pedigree, and a common statement among detractors is how "it's line-breeding when things go right, and inbreeding when things go wrong."

** Similar cases are noted with horses and other livestock, as the concept of separate animal "breeds" [[NewerThanTheyThink only started in earnest a couple of centuries ago,]] which means the number of founding ancestors can get small indeed. People often practice line-breeding (mating cousin-to-cousin or aunt to nephew, which isn't as big of an age-gap as it would be for humans). People often avoid mating ''direct'' family members to each other, but some don't have such reservations. Severe cases of line-breeding mean that a given animal can have the same ancestor show up multiple times on ''both sides'' of their pedigree, and a common statement among detractors is how "it's line-breeding when things go right, and inbreeding when things go wrong."

* Notably averted in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' settings like ''TabletopGame/Greyhawk'' and the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'', which contain almost no examples of royal inbreeding. Some of this may come from a lack of interest or knowledge among writers and players. An InUniverse explanation may be that, since many adventurers are everything from {{Impoverished Patrician}}s to [[SelfMadeMan Self Made Men]] or even peasants who achieve RagsToRoyalty, most aristocracies have semi-regular turnover and less stigma against marrying between classes. The Realms, in particular, also has many lands that aren't actually monarchies, so there's simply less chance of it happening.

** Also, in the Goryeo Kingdom, the Silla Kingdom's successor, the royal dynasty still married within the family, especially princesses, as all of them, ''without exception,'' married within the family for the reason to protect the Kingdom's dynasty. Since Goryeo acknowledged women's right of inheritance, princesses' male descendants of different clans (their fathers' clans) could have claims to the throne through their mothers. Therefore, to prevent this from happening, Goryeo princesses all married within the family to maintain the royal lineage. When they married, they were given either their mother's or grandmother's surname, so to lessen the feeling of discomfort.

* Many {{Ancient Egypt}}ian Pharaohs often married their cousins or in some cases siblings (especially half-siblings). [[UsefulNotes/{{Tutankhamun}} King Tut]] suffered from any number of possible genetic disorders from being the offspring of a brother and sister, though his death has been most conclusively attributed to a malarial infection rather than any genetic cause. Contrary-wise the 12th Dynasty (19th-18th centuries BC), one of the most successful in Egypt's long history, married brother to sister for seven or eight generations without noticeable ill effect. Adding Mitanni, Hittite, Assyrian, Nubian, and Ethiopian blood through AltarDiplomacy would have also helped into varying the gene pool. The dynasty eventually failed not because of genetic damage but a lack of male heirs.[[note]]Which, admittedly, may have been caused by the members of the dynasty having fertility issues due to the inbreeding.[[/note]] It was once believed that incestuous marriages were common among other families and commoners, but it's now thought that using "my brother" and "my sister" between married couples could also have been the equivalent of "dear" or "darling" and not literal (as they were common terms of affection in wider society--friends and even business associates are regularly recorded as calling each other "brother"/"sister"[[note]]Which should surprise nobody given that to this day Egyptians--and others in the wider Arab and Muslim worlds--are famous for calling their friends and--most especially--their potential customers "brother." There's even a stereotype in the Northeastern U.S. about the halal-cart guy (or cabbie/Uber driver) who calls all his customers (or passengers) "[[FunetikAksent my bruzzar]]"; there's also a common joke in New York about knowing you're a local because the guy at the bodega has promoted you from "boss" to "my brother".[[/note]]).