Grandmama of Europe: The Crowned Descendants of Queen Victoria

by Theo Aronson

  The Queen had been anxious for the wedding to take place in St George's Chapel, Windsor, as all her English grandchildren had been married there. But as Ferdinand was a Catholic and Marie a Protestant, there would have to be two ceremonies, and neither Church would agree to its ceremony being the second, less important one. The idea of Windsor, therefore, had to be abandoned. Nor could the marriage be celebrated at Coburg. Old Duke Ernest's court, composed, for the most part, of pimps, adventurers and demi-mondaines, was far too dissolute. The final choice, therefore, was the castle of Sigmaringen, seat of the bridegroom's family.

  So it was in this romantic old castle on the Danube, early in the year 1893, that Marie and Nando were married. To represent the bride's grandmother, Queen Victoria, came the Queen's son, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught; from Romania came King Carol I (his Queen, Carmen Sylva, was still in exile from the court); from Russia came the Duchess of Edinburgh's brother, Grand Duke Alexis; from Belgium came King Leopold II's sister-in-law, herself a Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. And from Berlin, of course, came the bullying, overbearing and neurotic Kaiser Wilhelm II, determined to dazzle the other royal guests by the number and brilliance of his uniforms. On the day of the wedding itself, the little bride, in her white dress and tulle veil, was completely outshone by her cousin the Kaiser in his white uniform, huge gauntlet gloves, gleaming boots and towering, eagle-crowned helmet.

  The honeymoon, spent in a snow-bound Jagdschloss not far from Sigmaringen, was a dismal failure. The young couple had nothing to say to each other; the husband simply did not know how to amuse or handle his childlike wife. 'He was terribly, almost cruelly in love,' says Marie. 'In my immature way I tried to respond to his passion, but I hungered and thirsted for something more . . . .'

  A few days later, bewildered, anxious and desperately homesick, Princess Marie arrived by train in the Romanian capital. Her mother, with her uncertain taste, had chosen her clothes for this important occasion. Over a willow green velvet dress, Missy wore a long mantle of violet velvet shot with gold, its white fox collar so vast that the girl's head all but disappeared into it. On her blonde hair, enthusiastically frizzed in imitation of that model for all late nineteenth-century princesses, Marie's Aunt Alexandra, Princess of Wales, was perched a small golden toque studded with amethysts. Dressed in this inelegant fashion, Queen Victoria's little granddaughter stepped down from the train to a roar of welcome from the Bucharest crowd.

  'Looking back upon myself as I was then, is as looking back upon a rather shadowy, very timid and exceedingly silly younger sister in whom I find none of myself today,' wrote Marie in later years. 'I must have looked exactly what I was, an innocent little fool with a head stuffed full of illusions and dreams.'

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Alix of Russia

  1

  Queen Victoria, denied the opportunity of attending the wedding of one of her Edinburgh granddaughters, was able to be present at another. In the spring of 1894, Marie of Romania's sister, Victoria Melita, or Ducky, married Grand Duke Ernest of Hesse and by the Rhine. On this occasion, the Queen was able to preside over the marriage of not only one, but two of her grandchildren, for the bridegroom, Ernest of Hesse, was the son of Queen Victoria's daughter, the late Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse.

  The fact that the bride and the groom were so closely related bothered the Queen not at all. When the Empress Frederick wrote of her reservations about this union between first cousins, Queen Victoria's blithe rejoinder was that 'the same blood only adds to the strength and if you try to avoid it you will marry some unhealthy little Princess who would just cause what you wish to avoid'.

  It was to Coburg, the cradle of the dynasty, that the seventy-five-year-old Queen travelled for the wedding. That Coburg should have been chosen was due to the fact that lecherous old Uncle Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, had finally died the year before. Queen Victoria's son, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, was now the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 'Aunt Marie,' wrote the Empress Frederick of her haughty Russian sister-in-law, the Duchess of Edinburgh, 'will love being No. 1 and reigning Duchess, I am sure.' Her daughter Ducky's wedding certainly gave the Duchess the opportunity of playing hostess at one of the most brilliant royal occasions of recent years.

  The normally sleepy little town of Coburg had been transformed. Its narrow, cobbled streets were gay with flags and bunting; a triumphal arch graced the platz in front of the ducal palace; a squadron of Queen Victoria's Prussian regiment of dragoons cantered to and from the station. The town was crammed with royal guests. 'I never saw so many,' commented Queen Victoria's private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, and he had experienced a great many royal gatherings. Amongst them were Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Empress Frederick, Prince and Princess Henry of Prussia, the Tsarevich Nicholas, the Grand Duke Vladimir, Prince Ferdinand and Princess Marie of Romania and an assortment of Coburgs, Connaughts, Hesses and Battenbergs.

  Yet, throughout the festivities, the limelight was to be stolen by a shy, serious and relatively unimportant princess: the bridegroom's sister, Princess Alix of Hesse.

  Queen Victoria had always taken a special interest in the Hesse family. After the death, in 1878, of her second daughter Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, the Queen had taken the five motherless Hesse children under her wing. As their father, Grand Duke Louis IV, was an easygoing sort of man, it was Queen Victoria who had the most say in their lives. She paid frequent visits to Darmstadt; the children made prolonged annual stays in Britain. She had seen to it that their nanny, Mrs Orchard, and their governesses, Miss Jackson and Miss Pryde, posted her regular reports on their behaviour and education. Even the patterns for their dresses had to be sent to Grandmama for approval. 'The Grand Ducal family looked upon themselves almost as a branch of the English royal house,' wrote one observer. 'They felt one with it, and took part in all the family festivals.'

  To forge a still closer link with the Hesse family, it had at one stage been suggested that the children's father, the widowed Grand Duke, marry his sister-in-law, the Queen's youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice. But the bill which would have made possible a marriage with a deceased wife's sister was thrown out by the House of Lords. ('Incredible!' had been Queen Victoria's comment.) When the Grand Duke died in 1891, at the early age of fifty-four, the Queen hurried across to Darmstadt to teach his twenty-three-year-old son, now Grand Duke Ernest Louis, something of the art of governing.

  The youngest of the five Hesse children was Alix, or Alicky. Six at the time of her mother's death, Alix had developed into a shy, introspective young woman, deeply religious, obstinate, sensitive and self-critical. She was an intelligent, almost intellectual girl. She was also something of a beauty, with a pale skin, sea-green eyes and a head of red-gold hair. Queen Victoria had taken a particular interest in her reserved young granddaughter. 'Have you not been as a mother to me since beloved Mama died?' the Princess once asked of her grandmother, and indeed, the Queen had treated the girl as her own. She had succeeded in moulding her into the prototype of a young English lady: modest, conscientious and well-behaved. 'What a charming girl she was!' remembered one princess. 'A simple English girl in appearance, in a skirt and blouse, utterly unaffected, warm-hearted, and fresh as a rosebud touched with dew.'

  This was why, when the feather-weight Prince Eddy fell in love with his cousin Alix in 1889, their grandmother had been so delighted. What an excellent foil she would make for the rudderless young man. But it was not to be. Not only was Alix not attracted to Eddy but she was in love with someone else.

  The young man in question was the Tsarevich Nicholas, son of the Tsar Alexander III of Russia. One of Alicky's sisters, Ella, had married one of the Tsar's brothers, Grand Duke Serge, and it had been while Alix was in St Petersburg for the wedding that she had first met the Tsarevich Nicholas. They had met again, some years later, when she had spent six weeks with her sister in St Petersburg. She had been seventeen then and he twenty-one, and the two of them ha
d fallen in love. Nicholas, with his 'gentle charm and that kind, caressing look in his eyes' was an extremely handsome young man; Alix found him all but irresistible. And the quiet, diffident Nicholas had been no less attracted to her. 'My dream is some day to marry Alix H.' he wrote in his diary in the year 1892.'I have loved her a long while and still deeper and stronger since 1889 when she spent six weeks in St Petersburg. For a long time, I resisted my feeling that my dearest dream will come true.'

  There were several reasons why the Tsarevich had felt obliged to resist his feelings for Princess Alix. In the first place, his parents did not really approve of her. The great, bear-like Tsar Alexander III and his tiny, elegant wife, the Empress Marie (she was sister to Alexandra, Princess of Wales) were both anti-German. Not only this, but they considered Alix to be too withdrawn, too unsmiling, too unsophisticated for a future Tsaritsa. Nor was she really important enough.

  The Tsar, moreover, had a couple of candidates of his own. Both were favourites in the marriage stakes that season; their names had already been bandied about in several European courts. One was the tall, dark, distinguished Princess Hélène, daughter of the Comte de Paris, whose romance with Prince Eddy of Wales had come to nothing. The other was Princess Margaret of Prussia, the Empress Frederick's daughter Mossy, whom Queen Victoria had once suggested for Prince George of Wales. The first would not forsake her Catholicism, nor the second her Protestantism. And even if either of them had been prepared to embrace the Orthodox faith (and this, for a future Tsaritsa, would be essential) the Tsarevich Nicholas was not interested in them. He might be gentle but he could be stubborn. If he could not marry Alix, Nicholas told his parents, he would not marry at all.

  Another stumbling block was Alicky herself. Inclined to think deeply about most things, she thought most deeply about her religion. In 1888, at the age of sixteen, she had been confirmed in the Lutheran faith. Like her mother, Princess Alice, Alix took her religion very seriously; it was not something which one could lightly discard for the sake of marriage. If others were ready to barter faith for a crown (and the Coburgs were readier about this than most) she was not. But, on the other hand, a nature which could be so passionate about religion could be just as passionate about love. Alix was in love with Nicky and anxious to marry him. This was her dilemma. In the spring of 1894, when Alix was twenty-one, things reached a climax. For Nicholas had finally talked his formidable father into allowing him to propose to Alix.

  The marriage, at Coburg, of Alix's brother, the Grand Duke Ernest of Hesse, provided the ardent Nicky with his opportunity. Half the royalties of Europe were converging on this old German town for the ceremony; to represent Russia came the Tsarevich Nicholas.

  He lost no time. On the morning after his arrival, Nicky proposed. For two hours he tried to persuade Alicky to marry him. She refused. Nothing would make her change her religion. Sobbing bitterly throughout the session, she could only keep repeating, 'No, I cannot.'

  By now all the royal wedding guests had been caught up in the drama. The marriage of Ernie and Ducky had been completely overshadowed by the question of Nicky and Alicky. One by one Alix's relations tried to talk her into accepting the Tsarevich's proposal. Most pressing was Alix's cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II; to this megalomaniac, the idea of a German princess as future Tsaritsa of Russia was very attractive indeed. Wilhelm's mother, the Empress Frederick, remembering the furore created by him when his sister, Crown Princess Sophie of Greece, had changed from Protestantism to Orthodoxy, admitted that she 'could not help chuckling to myself that William did not think Alicky so very sinful to accept Nicky, and with him, the necessity of conforming to the Orthodox Church'.

  But it was probably the reassurances of Alix's sister Ella, who had married Grand Duke Serge of Russia, that carried most weight. Ella had changed her religion to Orthodoxy; this change, she assured her tortured sister, was not really so drastic a step.

  On the day after the wedding, Alix gave in. Her capitulation enraptured Nicky. 'A marvellous, unforgettable day,' he wrote in his diary. 'Today is the day of my engagement to my darling, adorable Alix.' Alicky, too, now that she had finally given her consent, was filled with joy. 'She is quite changed,' reported Nicholas to his mother, the Empress Marie. 'She is gay and amusing, talkative and tender.'

  As Queen Victoria was finishing her breakfast that morning, Alix's sister Ella burst into the room. 'Alicky and Nicky are engaged!' she announced. The Queen professed herself 'thunderstruck' by the news. But she could not really have been so surprised: everyone at Coburg had been following Nicky's pursuit of Alicky. Hand-in-hand the young couple came in to make their announcement to the Queen. She gave them her blessing. Although, as she had so often declared, she did not 'care for rank or Titles', she could not help being impressed at the magnificent way in which her matriarchy was being enlarged. It seemed impossible, she said, that 'gentle simple Alicky should be the great Empress of Russia'.

  2

  From that moment Queen Victoria set about grooming her granddaughter for her future role. The girl was brought over to England so that the Queen could supervise her health, her Russian lessons and her religious instruction. As Alix suffered from sciatica she was sent to Harrogate for a cure. While she was taking it, she began to learn Russian. Religious instruction came, first, from the Bishop of Ripon, who was at pains to point out the similarities between Protestantism and Orthodoxy, and then from the Tsar's own confessor, Father Yanishev, whom – one imagines – took no such pains. In May 1894, Nicholas himself arrived with the engagement gifts: a dazzling selection of jewellery, including a magnificent sautoir of pearls, created by Fabergé and representing the most expensive item ever ordered by the imperial family from the renowned jeweller.

  'Now Alix,' warned her grandmother, 'do not get too proud.'

  While the Tsarevich was in England, he saw a great deal of his English relations. 'He has lived this month with us like one of ourselves,' wrote the Queen to her daughter Vicky, 'and I never met a more amiable, simple young man, affectionate, sensible and liberal minded . . . .' To hear Nicky described as liberal-minded is somewhat unexpected: when, at the invitation of his mother's sister, Alexandra, Princess of Wales, Nicky spent a few days at Sandringham, he proved himself to be anything but liberal. In his Uncle Bertie's home, the Tsarevich found himself in a completely strange milieu. Having been raised in a thoroughly bigoted atmosphere, Nicky was shocked by the Prince of Wales's house guests. He had never had anything to do with people like this – financiers, Jews and what he called 'horse dealers'. His more enlightened English cousins were greatly amused by his stand-offishness; 'but I tried to keep away as much as possible,' he assured his approving parents, 'and not to talk'.

  Already, the worldly and relatively democratic Prince of Wales was becoming conscious of the flaws in his nephew's character: his autocratic outlook, his narrow-mindedness, his hesitation. He was later to describe the Tsarevich as amiable but 'weak as water'.

  At this stage of his life Nicky bore a strong physical resemblance to his cousin Georgie, the Duke of York. In fact, on the occasion of Prince George's wedding to Princess May of Teck, the Tsarevich had frequently been mistaken for the bridegroom. Both were short, both wore full, neatly trimmed beards and upswept moustaches and both had clear blue eyes. However, where George's eyes were slightly protruding, Nicky's were narrow and sensuous-looking. Of the two young men, Nicky was the more handsome.

  During this visit, Princess May, the Duchess of York, gave birth to her first son, afterwards King Edward VIII. As Nicholas and Alix had been invited to be godparents, they travelled with Queen Victoria to White Lodge in Richmond Park for the christening. The Tsarevich was interested to note that the baby was not, as in the Orthodox ceremony, completely immersed in water, but merely sprinkled with it.

  After a six weeks' stay, the Tsarevich was obliged to return to Russia. If anything, their time together in England had deepened the love between Nicholas and Alix; by now they felt passionately for each other.
'I am yours, you are mine, of that be sure,' wrote the reserved but ardent Princess to her fiancé. 'You are locked in my heart, the little key is lost and now you must stay there forever.'

  It was arranged that they would marry in the spring of the following year, 1895.

  But by the autumn of that same year the position had radically altered. Tsar Alexander III, usually so virile, so powerful, and only forty-nine, became seriously ill. The doctors diagnosed nephritis. They advised the patient to make for the warmer climate of the Crimea; by October 1894 the imperial family was established in the summer palace at Livadia. But it would have needed more than a change of air to save the life of the Tsar. By the middle of the month it was obvious that he was dying. Realizing what was happening, Nicholas sent for Alix. She crossed Europe by train, travelling as an ordinary passenger.

  The dying Tsar, conscious of the fact that the future Empress of Russia had arrived in the country, insisted on getting out of bed and putting on full dress uniform for her reception. He seems to have been alone in his appreciation of her future position. During the following ten days – the last of the Tsar's life – his court all but ignored the shy young girl from Darmstadt. All attention was focused on the Tsar and his wife, the beautiful Empress Marie. Even the Tsarevich, because of his unobtrusive nature, tended to be perfunctorily treated by the doctors, the ministers and the officials.