The Coburg-Kohary Curse
While we know that constant inbreeding among the royal families of Europe propagated the spread of hereditary diseases such as hemophilia, one prominent family at the time attributed the affliction to a curse placed by a disgruntled monk. As the story goes, the monk was a Kohary who was left out of his inheritance after the object of his affection—a relative named Antoinette Kohary—married Ferdinand Coburg instead. The bride’s father was so impressed by their union that he left all their wealth to the newlywed couple—this infuriated the monk, who went on to place a curse on their descendants.
Whether the curse is real or not, many members of the Coburg-Kohary line did suffer from misfortune. As mentioned above, a number died prematurely due to hemophilia or other diseases like typhoid. Those who intermarried with other European royalties also brought hemophilia with them, with the most prominent victims being the Romanovs. Besides the physical afflictions, the curse also supposedly diminished the mental fortitude of some family members—as evidenced during World War II when Belgian king Leopold III was accused of selling out to the Germans.
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