Queen Victoria's Matchmaking

by Deborah Cadbury

  Wrapped up in her anxieties, resisting any challenge to her religious beliefs, fearing she might weaken, Alix was so cold to Nicholas that when he returned to St Petersburg he ‘flew to my MK’. That very night he finally consummated his relationship with the ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska. ‘I am still under her spell,’ he confided to his diary a few days later. ‘The pen keeps trembling in my hand!’53 But for Mathilde, the intensity of their first night together was fleeting. Within weeks his interest diminished. Their relationship became routine, the evening starting with the customary sound of his horse approaching. He would bring her presents and was invariably kind and affectionate, but she sensed she was losing him. Nicholas’s experiences with Mathilde only served to intensify his longing for Alix. As time passed he called less frequently and all the while his cherished dream of loving and marrying the unobtainable Alix became more important. Mathilde felt her ‘torments grew’ every time he set out to see relatives in Europe, convinced that he would meet Princess Alix.54

  That was six months ago. It was a hot summer day in late June 1893 when the tsarevich arrived at Charing Cross Station in London for George’s wedding. He was met by his Aunt Alexandra, Uncle Bertie and the groom, who welcomed him to Marlborough House. Nicholas was in a room next to George and the cousins, once again, found themselves talking into the small hours. Eddy’s room was further down the passage, still unchanged, Nicholas told his mother. Uncle Bertie proved to be ‘very friendly, almost too much’, summoning his tailor, bootmaker and hatter to prepare his Russian nephew for the London season. The July heat, too, was overpowering and on occasion he felt dizzy.55 He did not want to miss any chance to meet members of Alix’s family: most importantly, ‘Grandmama queen’, who invited him to Windsor on 1 July. Knowing the special place she had occupied in Alix’s life since the death of her parents, it was a meeting that the tsarevich wished to go well.

  The date of their meeting coincided with the thirtieth anniversary of the marriage of Alix’s parents, Alice and Louis, and Queen Victoria was feeling their absence. ‘Both beloved ones gone from this world. Incredible!’ she entered in her journal. She, too, was finding the weather oppressive; a close thundery heat. But this was the Russian prince who held such significance for her favourite granddaughter and the queen’s interest went beyond the ceremonial. She stood at a vantage point at the top of the Windsor staircase to greet him, her small frame dwarfed by the uniformed officials around her, who were under instruction to show ‘every possible civility’.56 As they approached each other she saw at once that the tsarevich was ‘wonderfully like Georgie’. He spoke in excellent English and she soon yielded to his charm, perhaps surprised to find a member of the mighty Romanov clan who was ‘very simple and unaffected’. Nicholas, in turn, found her ‘very friendly’. The queen ‘talked a lot’, he wrote to his mother, and awarded him an Order of the Garter in the Audience Chamber after the formal luncheon. He himself saw her as ‘a round ball on unsteady legs’ although he felt she was ‘remarkably kind to me’.57

  At the various functions in the build-up to the wedding day, the tsarevich met Alix’s older sisters, Victoria and Irene, and her brother Ernie, but there was no sign of Alix herself. This time Queen Victoria had personally invited her. ‘It is too kind of you asking me to come to the Wedding,’ Alix had replied from Darmstadt on 2 June, ‘but I fear it is impossible, as we have been about so much this year already and as Ernie cannot stop v long in England, the journey would be scarcely worth the while for me & there it is so expensive also . . . Excuse my writing so openly but I thought it was only right you should know the reason of my not accepting your awfully kind invitation & hope you will not mind . . .’58

  This frank note provided a convenient excuse, but a shortage of funds seems unlikely to have been the main reason for her absence. By staying away, Alix avoided any possibility of her nervous complaints becoming obvious to the family. More significantly, she prevented any chance of matters coming to a head with the tsarevich. Torn between her attraction to Nicholas and her trust in her grandmother’s views, she shrank from any decision. By staying away there was no chance of their romantic attachment coming under Queen Victoria’s sharp scrutiny.

  Nicholas made the best of his visit to London. Despite a tight schedule, he found time to visit Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower. He rode in Rotten Row ‘where the whole of Society goes’ and marvelled at the freedom of London life where palaces were not prisons.59 On the eve of the wedding, thousands of guests gathered for a garden party at Marlborough House. The tsarevich saw many familiar faces including Hélène d’Orléans, who was drawing admirers. The queen considered the French princess was ‘in great beauty’ while even the acerbic Lady Geraldine Somerset was prompted to observe ‘how lovely she was in pink’.60 She may have been considered a highly desirable young princess, but for Nicholas she was not the right princess.* There was no sign of the one he longed to see, his frustration scarcely eased by the repeated confusion over his similarity to the groom. Victoria of Battenberg saw people congratulating Nicky on his marriage, while one elderly gentleman gave George instructions that were intended for the tsarevich.61 The garden party was followed by a dinner at Buckingham Palace where Nicholas found himself seated next to the queen, who was still intrigued by him.62 Finally, there was a ball, but he ‘didn’t see many beautiful ladies’, he told his mother pointedly. The tsarevich had to content himself with news of Alix from her brother Ernie, who the queen ensured was prominently positioned throughout the celebrations.

  Whatever his own disappointments, Nicholas entered into the spirit of the occasion and reported everything back to his mother. Princess May was ‘delightful, much better looking than her photographs, so quiet and simple . . .’ He enjoyed meeting her brothers and seeing the wedding presents, on display at first in the palace but transferred to the Imperial Institute. ‘They were given everything conceivable,’ he wrote home. ‘Somebody even managed to present them with a cow.’ His cousin George, he thought, appeared ‘very tired’ in the run-up to the wedding. The groom appeared highly strung, pressed on all sides with all the ‘frightful bother’, Nicholas observed.63

  Vociferous claims that Prince George was already married further added to the strain. At Lambeth Palace, Archbishop Benson faced a deluge of complaints from concerned parishioners. The news had spread as far as the Cape of Good Hope, where ‘it causes great indignation’, wrote Mabel and Edith Bourne from Richmond. ‘You, we are told, at first refused to perform the marriage ceremony on July 6th but allowed yourself to be persuaded by Her Majesty the Queen on the grounds that the former marriage was morganatic.’ The whole wicked business would ‘do much to hasten the downfall of the English Throne’.64 The archbishop was harassed by many similar worries. ‘Has the queen pronounced his first marriage as invalid?’ asked the Vicar of Alfreton.65 If Prince George’s marriage to Princess May was bigamous, he would be unable to receive communion. Might this render any future coronation invalid? To save the reputation of the Church the archbishop must publicly refute the allegations, stormed the Rector of Holmbury St Mary. He faced ‘parishioners of all classes’ who ‘confidently and persistently assert’ that the prince is already married. The rector sought the archbishop’s permission to ‘announce your corroboration of my denial to my parishioners . . . publicly from the pulpit’.66

  Under this onslaught, the archbishop felt obliged to defend his actions. He issued a statement denying that the royal bridegroom was already married. But the archbishop’s denial only served to give the rumour credence. The press responded as though something was certainly being kept back.67 Neither the queen, the groom nor his parents had been informed in advance of Benson’s statement. All felt furious at the injustice that a prince like George, who had ‘steered so straight’ in life, as Alexandra put it, should be tarred with ‘such base things’. The bashful groom felt traduced as he prepared for the big day. ‘The whole story is a damnable lie,’ he said.68

 
Privately, away from watchful eyes, George was beginning to unwind a little with his fiancée. ‘You were so nice to me,’ he wrote to May on 3 July, ‘& actually kissed me twice, I was so touched.’69 It was three days before their wedding. Although he still could not express his feelings to her face, alone in his study he was beginning to find his own words. ‘I adore you,’ he told her on the two-month anniversary of their engagement. ‘I feel so happy that I don’t know how to thank you enough for having made me so.’70 May sent her future husband a short note just before her wedding. ‘I love you with all my heart. Yrs for ever & ever – May.’71

  George and May’s wedding on 6 July 1893 was one of those pageants through London at which the British royal family excelled, the press fast running out of superlatives to capture the excitement. ‘Never has the English sun . . . poured its rays upon a more imposing spectacle, never have scarlet uniforms, cuirasses of steel, sabres and bayonets and gold lace reflected a more fiery light . . . never the plaudits of the people been more spontaneous and tumultuous’, eulogised The Times.72 For the New York Times it was quite simply ‘one of the most magnificent Pageants ever seen in the streets of London’.73 By 11.30 a.m. two million people had gathered in the streets, almost as many as for the queen’s Golden Jubilee, before the many varied processions began to emerge from Buckingham Palace.

  First to appear were thirteen open landaus conveying members of the royal family and their guests. The Duchess of Edinburgh shared a state landau with three of her daughters, but not Missy who was pregnant and remained in Romania. The tsarevich rode with his Aunt Alexandra and his grandparents, the king and queen of Denmark. This convoy was followed by the groom’s shorter procession, which included Prince George, Bertie and Uncle Alfred, all looking striking in their naval uniform. Then came the bride and her entourage, May dressed ‘simply and prettily’, the queen noted, wearing her mother’s lace veil. Finally, the queen’s procession left amid a flourish of trumpets at 11.45 a.m. with a colourful escort of guards including Indian Cavalry. The queen rode in the new State Glass Coach, wearing, in a concession to the jubilant mood, what she called her ‘light black stuff’ softened by her own white wedding lace and small diamond coronet from which hung her own wedding veil.74 A diminutive figure suffering from the ‘overpowering heat’, she was dwarfed still further by May’s mother, Mary Adelaide, sitting next to her, acting as though she was the queen with royal gestures in abundance, beaming irrepressible joy, her delight uncontainable at the applauding crowd.

  Around them, the dowdy London streets were transformed. Bunting and tapestries were flung over balconies, flags and banners floated over rooftops and there were flowers in abundance. On approach to the Chapel Royal, St James Street was festooned with garlands of evergreens and baskets of flowers hung from Venetian masts to make one long floral archway. Even the cynical Lady Geraldine was prompted to comment ‘it was ‘Really lovely! . . . like a bower from end to end . . . too pretty’.75 Deafening cheers announced the arrival of the bride who was followed by no fewer than ten bridesmaids, chosen with some diplomacy. Among them were George’s unmarried sisters, Victoria and Maud, Missy’s younger sister, Victoria-Melita, the spurned Schleswig-Holstein princess, ‘the Snipe’, and Beatrice’s pretty daughter, five-year-old Ena: all dressed in white satin with silver trim and roses in their hair.76 Throughout the proceedings Queen Victoria’s face plainly showed her ‘pleasure’ at the way the crowd ‘expressed its approval of the marriage, which it is believed to a certain extent her majesty brought about’, continued the New York Times.77 For her it was a day crowned in glory. Five years after her search began for a suitable consort for the future heir to the British throne, Queen Victoria had no doubt that the right bride for England, empire and Prince George was walking down the aisle.

  But even on such a red-letter day, further matchmaking could not be neglected. There was yet another alliance on the queen’s mind that she ‘ardently desired’, according to Missy.78 She had not forgotten her two unmarried Hesse grandchildren, Alix and Ernie. When their father died the queen had advised Ernie on his new role as the Grand Duke of Hesse as though he were her son and for some months her thoughts had turned to his dynastic obligations, her plans inevitably having a bearing on Alix’s future.

  The twenty-four-year-old Grand Duke of Hesse found himself singled out to ride with his grandmother in the procession and escort her into the wedding breakfast. As intended, the handsome grand duke stood out from the crowd, prominently placed at the queen’s side. Carefully positioned on his other side, Ernie found his intended spouse, a tall, dark, sixteen-year-old girl, somewhat intense and with an unusual self-assurance: Missy’s younger sister, Victoria-Melita or ‘Ducky’. At first sight they appeared well suited, both artistic and sensitive, and in worldly terms, Missy observed later, with his status and her wealth, ‘this was a match which promised every hope of happiness’.79

  The queen had the satisfaction of seeing her plans take shape that day. Ernie and Ducky did seem to enjoy each other’s company and George and May were a tremendous success. In public, the newly married couple received ‘one unbroken ovation’ as they processed through London to Liverpool Street Station.80 Privately, the queen was ‘much pleased’ with ‘dear May’, and George also seemed to gain in self-assurance. ‘I can’t tell you, dearest Grandmama, how happy I am,’ he wrote to thank the queen while on honeymoon at York Cottage at Sandringham. He and May had much in common, he told her, ‘& understand each other thoroughly, in fact I did not think I could be happy with any Lady as I am with her now’.81 Prince George’s letter is perhaps a tribute to the very qualities that the queen had long seen in May: her discretion, tact and keen sense of duty. While George imagined that his wife was as delighted as he was with York Cottage, she was disappointed that he had chosen the furnishings in advance from the dull Maples range, her own ideas on interior decoration ignored. It was not long before she found the closeness of his interfering family overwhelming, especially his doting mother. Nonetheless, she raised no objections. Her honeymoon proved to be the start of a prolonged repressive period in her life where she felt subordinate to her husband’s will and narrowed by his limitations. George did not suspect this. ‘I love her with all my heart,’ he told his grandmother in November. ‘She is quite charming to me and we get on so well.’82

  Confident of her sound judgement as matchmaker, the queen increased the pressure on Ernie that autumn. ‘I have written twice to Ernie about the necessity of showing some attention and interest,’ she told Victoria of Battenberg. ‘Pray tell it him and say he must answer me.’83 But Ernie was neither sure of the choice of bride nor even how easily he could fulfil his role as husband. He was drawn to masculine company and his cooperation with his grandmother may have stemmed from his eagerness to allay suspicions in the wider world. The queen was in blissful ignorance of these complications. She soon found she had an ally in her second son, Alfred, who was keen to advance the match for his second daughter, Victoria-Melita, while his wife was away in Romania attending the birth of Missy’s first child.

  Alfred had finally inherited the dukedom of Saxe-Coburg Gotha in the summer of 1893 following the death of Grand Duke Ernst, and his wife gloried in her new position as the Duchess of Coburg. At last she was free to create a court of her own well away from Queen Victoria and the British court. For the duchess, Ernie’s closeness to his grandmother counted against him as a prospective son-in-law. But after the fiasco of Missy’s sudden engagement, Queen Victoria was not to be outdone. Almost as though in reprisal, perhaps also because she sensed Ernie’s own hesitancies about the opposite sex, she would not let the matter rest. She enlisted Alfred and Bertie to support her cause, and under pressure, Ernie obligingly set out for Coburg in November to see his prospective bride.84

  At Darmstadt, Alix of Hesse was appalled at the prospect of her brother’s marriage. Despite being four years her junior, the prospective bride displayed a pushy self-confidence that eluded Alix. She disliked the idea
of Victoria-Melita, with her regal airs, invading her sanctuary by Ernie’s side. Alix had found the courage to stand up to the queen when pressured to marry Eddy, but her brother and cousin appeared to be caving in to her wishes. She felt the fate of her brother was inextricably linked to her own future and was convinced he was not in love.

  The pressures intensified on Alix that month as she was forced into a decision about her feelings for Nicholas. When the tsarevich returned to St Petersburg after George’s wedding he found it hard to live with the continued uncertainty. He wrote to Alix on the pretext of asking for a recent photograph: ‘I would be so happy to have one near me,’ he told her. ‘Whenever I look into our garden . . . I always think of that lovely time on ice, which seems now to be a dream.’85

  Alix could not bring herself to reply in the same affectionate tone. She wrote a letter to Nicholas in November 1893 that would end his hopes. The tsarevich had advance warning of her intentions from Ella. When Alix’s letter arrived he could not find the courage to read it. He had such a dread of seeing what she had written that her package stayed in his room on the table all night, unopened. It was not until the next morning that he could bring himself to read it.

  ‘Dearest Nicky . . . It must have been a stronger will than ours that ordained that we should not meet . . . for like this it gives me the chance to write to you all my innermost feelings,’ she began. Alix explained that she had thought over everything for a long time and concluded she could not change her religion. They could never marry. ‘It grieves me terribly and makes me very unhappy. I have tried to look at it in every light that is possible, but I always return to one thing. I cannot do it against my conscience. You, dear Nicky, who have also such a strong belief, will understand me.’ It was ‘a sin’ to change her faith. ‘We are only torturing ourselves about something impossible and it would not be a kindness to let you go on having vain hopes, which will never be realised . . . Goodbye my darling Nicky.’86