We gave them more than an empire. We gave them a future king

DAVID BROWN

London, June 14: Prince William will be Britain's first king to have proven Indian ancestry, DNA analysis has revealed. Tests on saliva samples taken from the relatives of William (the Duke of Cambridge) have established a direct lineage between the second in line to the throne and a woman now known to have been at least half-Indian. The discovery means that the Duke will become the first Head of the Commonwealth with a clear genetic link to its most populous nation. It is his only non-European DNA. William has yet to visit India but will be encouraged to make an official tour after the birth of his first child next month. William's parents visited India in 1992 but a photograph of Diana, Princess of Wales, sitting alone in front of the Taj Mahal came to symbolise the disintegration of their marriage. Now researchers have uncovered the details of the similarly doomed relationship of the Duke's Indian great-great-great-great-great grandmother. It has long been known that Eliza Kewark lived in western India but she is usually described as Armenian. However, analysis of DNA passed down the female line confirms that she was at least half-Indian. The revelation explains why the Scottish father of her children suddenly deserted her and sent their daughter, Katherine, to Britain at the age of 6. Researchers have discovered letters from Eliza to her children's father, Theodore Forbes, pleading for her to be allowed to see him. When Theodore died on a ship back to Britain in 1820 his will referred to Eliza as his "housekeeper" and the mother of her "purported daughter" Katherine. The revelation means that a woman who appears to have been shunned by colonial society because of her race is an ancestor of the future king. Jim Wilson, a genetics expert at the University of Edinburgh and BritainsDNA, who carried out the tests, said that Eliza's descendants had an incredibly rare type of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), inherited only from a mother. It has so far been recorded in only 14 other people, 13 Indian and one Nepalese. This DNA will have been inherited by the Duke and Prince Harry but will not be passed on to their children, although it is likely that their descendants will have some of Eliza's Asian genetic material. Wilson, a senior lecturer in population and disease genetics, said that results of the mtDNA combined with the findings of South Asian DNA in the rest of the genome meant that the evidence of the Duke's Indian heritage was "unassailable". The news delighted Mary Roach, Princess Diana's maternal aunt, who provided a DNA sample for the experiment. "I always assumed that I was part-Armenian so I am delighted that I also have an Indian background," Roach said.

THE TIMES, LONDON