ISRAELITISH BLOOD IN ROYAL VEINS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 76, 1 April 1899, Page 7 (Supplement)

ISRAELITISH BLOOD IN ROYAL VEINS.

A remarkable feature in connection with the reigning houses ol Europe, says the 'London Weekly,' is the fact that nearly every one of tfcern has strains of Hebrew blood in the veins of its members. Almost every one of the now reigning families are descended from Alberta, Queen of, Sicily, who was the daughter of the old Hebrew banker, Perleoni. The latter was the first of his race to be admitted to the ranks of European aristocracy. Pope Leo IX. ennobled hita in the year 1116. Later on one of his sons, who became converted to \the Roman Catholic Church, ascended Papal throne under the title of Attacletus 11. This, however, by no mea\ns constitutes the only source of Hebrew blood in the royal and imperial veins of to-day. There are others o£ a far less remote character.

The grandfather of King Ferdinand of Portugal, the grandfather* of s the present King, was a Hungarian: Hebrew named Kohary,„ whose daughter and heiress married Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg. The King ~of Portugal is therefore indubitably of Israelitish descent, and so, too, is Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, whose features are remarkably Hebraic; he is, in fact, a grandson of old Kohary's heiress. A second of the latter's /grandsons, Duke Philip, of Saxe-Coburg, is wedded to the eldest daughter of KingLeopold of Belgium, while a third, Augustus by name, married a daughter of the late Emperor Dom Pedro, of Brazil. ;