Chapter 20 – She Is Like My Own Child
Russians
Ella: Grand Duchess Serge, second daughter of Princess Alice
Serge: Ella’s husband
Alexander III: Tsar of Russia
Marie Feodorovna: Tsarina of Russia; sister of the Princess of Wales
Nicholas (Nicky): Russian Tsarevich; son of Alexander III and Marie Feodorovna
Alix: Princess of Hesse: youngest daughter of Princess Alice; younger sister of Ella
At the time of Ernie’s wedding, his younger sister, Alix, wandered through the New Palace in a quandary. For the past two years since her father’s death she had lived contentedly with her brother, playing hostess at his Grand Ducal receptions, while he took care of her ‘chivalrously,’ acting as her ‘father, mother and friend.’[106]
After the wedding all that would have to change. The arrival of a new Grand Duchess would leave Alix redundant as a hostess and, fond as she was of Ducky, she did not relish the prospect of playing gooseberry in her own home. Marriage was her only option but, nearing her twenty-second birthday, Alix had already rejected ‘the highest position there is’ and her chances of finding an eligible suitor were rapidly diminishing. Princes and dukes regularly visited Darmstadt but Alix had too much independence of spirit to settle for a loveless match. There was only one man to whom she had ever been deeply attracted and for almost a decade she had struggled to put him from her mind.
Ten years earlier, when she visited Russia for her sister Ella’s wedding, twelve-year-old Alix had been enthralled by the gentle Tsarevich Nicholas (Nicky). He was shy and softly spoken and, even at that early age, had been particularly attentive to her as they scratched their names together in the window of a villa at Peterhof.
In the intervening years Alix had blossomed into a striking young woman who could not fail to win Nicholas’ attention when she returned to Russia to visit Ella in January 1889:
“Tall she was, and delicately, beautifully shaped, with exquisitely white neck and shoulders. Her abundant hair, red gold, was so long that she could easily sit upon it when it was unbound. Her complexion was clear and as rosy as a little child’s.”[107]
Ella, convinced that the couple were destined for each other, watched their budding romance with a mounting excitement and, when Nicholas told her of his affection for her sister, she promised she would do all she could to help bring together. But the course of true love was not to run smoothly for Hessian princess and the Russian Tsarevich. While Ella was eagerly pressing for the match, Nicholas’ mother, Tsarina Marie Feodorovna, was busily preparing lists of suitable brides for her son, and Alix of Hesse did not feature among them. In spite of her affection for Ella, the Tsarina believed that the future Tsar of all the Russias could make a more advantageous match than a lowly Hessian princess, particularly one whose nervous unsociability did not bode well for a future Empress of all the Russias.
Despondently, Nicholas viewed each suggestion with an increasing sense of desperation but to Ella the solution was obvious: he must follow his heart. She would, she promised, ‘move heaven and earth’ to bring them together and would not rest until her plans came to fruition. In every conversation with her sister, she spoke of the kindly Tsarevich and repeatedly reminded Alix that Nicholas thought of her constantly. She encouraged them to write to one another and invited Alix to her country estate, Ilinskoe, in the hope of furthering the romance.
Nicholas’ mother, the Tsarina, was far from pleased and voiced her fears to her sister, the Princess of Wales, knowing that she in turn would pass on the news to the Queen Victoria whose legendary dislike of Russia would surely bring a swift end to Ella’s plans. The news both alarmed and angered the Queen. She had never wanted Ella to marry a Russian but the thought of her favourite granddaughter becoming Empress of so violent a country was more than she could bear. Victoria, as the eldest Hessian sister, must tell Ella that Alix would not be allowed to marry a Russian; and Ernie must forbid her from ever visiting Russia again.
Ella, whom the Queen had once ‘not credited with so much independence of character’, refused to yield. Letters poured into Darmstadt from Russia, filled with flattering descriptions of the lovelorn Tsarevich; how he missed Alix, how he loved her, how he longed to see her again. The letters were painful enough for Alix, but when Ella appeared in person, it was even harder to bear. Alix was ruining Nicky’s life, she said, could she not at least send him a kind word, a message, perhaps even a photograph?
Alix was in turmoil. Her grandmother’s warnings left her plagued by nightmares and a sense of impending doom. She loved Nicholas deeply and could not deny it but, more than Queen Victoria’s admonitions and her own unaccountable fears, her conscience troubled her deeply. According to Russian law, the wife of the Tsar had to be of the Orthodox faith and Alix simply could not abandon Lutheranism.
Year after year, Ella continued her relentless campaign, alternately cajoling and bullying Alix to reconsider. Alix’s scruples, she claimed, were unwarranted; the question of religion need not trouble her, after all she herself had converted and found Orthodoxy far more fulfilling than Protestantism[·]. Even the Tsarina had come to realise that her son could only be happy with Alix and was ready to welcome her into the Imperial Family. Still Alix would not give way.
The impasse dragged on until Ernie’s wedding in April 1894. Knowing that Nicholas would be present as a first cousin of the bride, Alix panicked and wrote desperately to his sister, begging her to warn him that there was no point in prolonging his misery as she could never consent to be his wife.
Ella refused to give up hope. As soon as she arrived in Coburg, she drew her brother into a conspiracy to bring the couple together by inviting Ernie and Alix to her rooms at a time when she knew Nicholas would be calling, whereupon she and Ernie made a subtle exit, leaving them alone. The plan failed. Nicholas proposed but a weeping Alix reiterated that she could not change her religion. Still Ella remained hopeful and, for once, found a willing ally in her own former suitor, Cousin Willy.
For some time the Kaiser had been hoping to forge stronger ties between Russia and Germany to counteract the Russians’ alliance with Prussia’s archenemy, France. What better way could there be to ingratiate himself with the heir to the Russian throne than to help him gain his heart’s desire and at the same time install another German princess in St. Petersburg? Talking with Nicholas late into the night, Willy promised that he would persuade Alix to change her mind. The following morning, with supreme hypocrisy considering his treatment of his own sister, Sophie[¨], the Kaiser assured his cousin that conversion to Orthodoxy did not entail turning her back on Lutheranism.
The day after Ernie’s wedding, Nicholas proposed again and this time Alix yielded. They emerged smiling into an adjoining room where the Kaiser, Ella, and various other royalties were waiting, and made their announcement. The whole company rejoiced, hugging one another in ‘an orgy of kissing,’ and even Queen Victoria was so touched by the romance, gave the couple her blessing. Only later did the Queen confide her true feelings to her diary:
“My blood runs cold when I think of her so young…on that unstable throne…She is like my own child.”[108]
Tragically, time would justify her fears.
After Ernie’s wedding, Alix returned to England with her sister, Victoria, and the Queen, who advised her to seek a cure for her recurrent sciatica at the spa in Harrogate. There, as Nicholas prepared for a grand wedding in St. Petersburg and Ella scoured her shelves for Orthodox literature to send to her, Alix had the first glimpse of what her future life would entail. Stories of her recent engagement filled the English newspapers and small crowds gathered to gape at the future Empress of all the Russias.
“Her temporary sojourn in our midst,” reported the Harrogate Advertiser, “is of a strictly private character and, as a rule, she is allowed to move about freely without being subject to annoyance or undue observance, but in every community will be found some ‘black sheep’ and t
here is a class of snobs who possess some wealth but certainly precious few manners. Their sole desire seems to be in dogging the steps of this royal lady, and by their actions they are doing their best to prevent her from obtaining that benefit, repose and pleasure for which she came into our midst.”[109]
Confined to a wheelchair and unused to being on show, Alix was annoyed and embarrassed by the intrusion. It did not bode well for a woman who would soon be expected to shine on the most glittering stage in the world.
The following month, at Queen Victoria’s invitation, Nicholas arrived in England. For a few days, he and Alix enjoyed the relative seclusion of her sister Victoria’s house at Walton-on-Thames before moving on to the more formal atmosphere of Windsor. In spite of the necessary presence of a chaperone – in this case, Alix’s Aunt Helen, the Duchess of Albany – the romance flourished until, by the time the Tsarevich left for Russia at the end of July, he and Alix could hardly bear to be parted. At least they could look forward to a further meeting at Wolfsgarten in the autumn, where they would be joined by the rest of the Hessian sisters.
After a month with her grandmother in Osborne, Alix returned to Darmstadt at the end of August. Now in the excitement of her forthcoming wedding, her nightmares were fewer, her sciatica improved and the future was filled with promise. She was ‘longing more than ever’ to see the Tsarevich again when suddenly a desperate telegram arrived from the Crimea. Nicholas’ father, Tsar Alexander III, had been taken ill on his summer estate, Livadia, and his condition was deteriorating so rapidly that Nicholas dared not leave his side. The plans for a meeting in Wolfsgarten would have to be abandoned; instead, he pleaded, could Alix come to Russia?
Within days, Alix and Victoria had set out for Warsaw from where Ella would travel on with Alix to Livadia. Only when they reached the Russian border did Ella realise that in the panic no one had thought to make to make special arrangements for Alix’s arrival. So it was that the future Empress of All the Russias made an unpropitious entry to her new homeland among all the ordinary passengers.
The sudden death of forty-nine-year-old Tsar Alexander III on 1st November 1894 came as a great blow to the whole of Europe. He might not have been the most popular monarch but his firm rule and strength of character had brought relative peace and stability to his country, which few believed his more passive son would be able to maintain. Queen Victoria feared the implications for Alix while the Duchess of York’s thoughts turned to her frail sister-in-law, Toria of Wales: ‘I do hope precious Toria won’t be ill!’
Devastated by his loss, Nicholas sobbed that he was unequal to the task ahead of him and pleaded with Alix to have the wedding brought forwards. With selfless courage, she rose to the occasion, immediately converted to Orthodoxy and agreed to ‘seal her fate,’ in her grandmother’s ominous words, on the Dowager Empress’s birthday, a mere three weeks after the death of the Tsar.
Shortly after one-fifteen in the afternoon of 26th November 1894, Alix, leaning on her brother’s arm, walked through the imposing corridors and malachite ballrooms of the Winter Palace to the chapel where she and Nicky were married according to the Orthodox rite. In spite of the gathering of royalties, including the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Duke of York, recent events gave the occasion a sombre atmosphere. The new Tsar, it was reported, looked pale, and both his bride and his mother wept throughout the ceremony. Even amid the cheering crowds lining the streets of St. Petersburg, inauspicious whispers were heard: “She has come to us behind a coffin.”
Yet, for all the trials that Alix was to suffer in Russia, hers was one of the greatest royal romances of all time. She loved Nicholas with a passion, surpassing even that of her grandmother for beloved Albert; and to the end of their lives his devotion and his longing to ‘return to her arms’ never wavered. They complimented one another: he, a calming influence on her frequently overstretched nerves; she, a powerful source of inspiration to override his natural diffidence:
“It was a real love-match - one of those ideal unions that seem to belong to fairyland, and tales of which are handed down through the ages. Their love grew with their life together, drew them ever closer, and never abated. The Emperor’s diaries and the Empress’s letters to the Emperor show what they were to each other.”[110]
In fact, love alone would sustain them throughout the perils, sorrows and disasters of the tragic reign of Tsar Nicholas II.
Part III
“The Last Link Is Cut Off”
(Changes and Conflicts)
Chapter 21 – One Must Be Tolerant
Sophie: Daughter of Vicky; Crown Princess of Greece
Tino: Crown Prince of Greece; Sophie’s husband
Willy: Kaiser Wilhelm II; Sophie’s brother
Dona: Willy’s wife
Uncle Bertie: Prince of Wales
Ella: Daughter of Alice; Grand Duchess Serge/Elizaveta Feodorovna
Serge: Ella’s husband
“My religion and faith,” wrote Princess Marie Louise shortly before her death, “have been the anchor to which I have clung through all my life with its many difficulties, joys and sorrow.”[111]
It was a sentiment shared by many of her cousins and one which Queen Victoria would have been pleased to echo, for, in spite of her trenchant remarks about over-pious people, lengthy sermons and the dreariness of bishops, her own faith was deep and sincere. Princess Alice had worried the Queen by probing too deeply into theological questions, and she repeatedly urged her granddaughters to resign themselves to the will of God with a simple and unquestioning trust. As she reminded her grandchildren not to neglect their prayers, nor to fail to attend church, Queen Victoria had no idea that one day one of those granddaughters would become a canonized saint.
While the English princesses were naturally raised as Anglicans, their German cousins were confirmed in the Lutheran Church. The Queen, as Head of the Church of England, naturally hoped that her grandchildren would adhere to her faith and yet, as she wrote to Vicky, religion was a matter for the individual’s conscience and ‘one must be tolerant.’ True to her conviction, Queen Victoria repeatedly ordered her viceroys overseas to respect the beliefs and rites of her non-Christian subjects; she surrounded herself with Indian servants, whose religious practices she was eager to defend; and, when four of her granddaughters converted to other faiths[·], she proved far more understanding than many other members of her family.
When Sophie of Prussia arrived in Greece, her wedding to Crown Prince Constantine (Tino) was conducted according to both the Lutheran and Orthodox rites. Unlike the Russian Tsarevna (wife of the Tsarevich) there was no obligation for a Crown Princess of the Hellenes to convert to Orthodoxy. The Danish-born King George continued to adhere to Protestantism although he had agreed to raise his children in Orthodoxy – a matter made easier by the fact this his wife, Queen Olga, was a Russian or Orthodox faith.
From the time she arrived in Athens, Sophie was surrounded not only by the brilliant Byzantine basilicas and chapels but also by people who devoutly practised the Greek faith. So impressed was she by their rites and creed that, within a year of her marriage, she decided to convert. Tino and the Greek people were delighted; when he eventually succeeded his father, he would be the first Greek- born and Orthodox king for several centuries and it seemed appropriate that his wife should share his faith. In Athens there was rejoicing but Sophie was not so naïve as to expect the same exultant response from her native Prussia.
Moretta’s wedding in 1890 provided the opportunity for her to break the news of her decision to her family. Vicky, who had always advocated religious tolerance, had to confess that she felt ‘rather a pang’ of grief and would have preferred the ‘question never to have arisen,’ but she raised no objections. Queen Victoria was equally supportive, since, as she told a lady-in-waiting, she admired the Greek Church. Sophie’s sisters, too, received the news with equanimity but Willy and his wife were aghast. Causing a scene and stamping his feet, the Kaiser absolutely forbade his sister
to abandon Lutheranism and when Sophie replied that, since Willy had ‘no religion whatsoever,’ he was hardly in a position to make such a demand, the rigidly Evangelical Kaiserin Dona flew to her husband’s defence. The Kaiser, she declared, was the Head of the Church in Germany and if Sophie dared to disobey him, she would suffer eternal damnation!
Astonished by Dona’s arrogance, Sophie replied that her salvation rested in God’s hands and, reassured by her mother’s assertion that she was no longer the Kaiser’s subject, she returned to Greece determined ignore the threat.
Willy, his pride severely wounded, poured out his wrath in a series of letters to his fellow sovereigns. A month after the argument, Dona gave birth to a premature baby, causing Willy to complain to his grandmother that if his child died he would hold Sophie entirely responsible for its murder. Queen Victoria did not bother to reply to his outburst though she did suggest to Vicky that it would have been more prudent for Sophie to keep her decision private.
Having received short shrift from his grandmother, Willy bombarded Sophie’s father-in-law with letters, urging him to prevent her conversion and warning that if she should disobey him she would not be permitted to enter Germany again. The King gently replied that he had no right to interfere in what was essentially a matter for the princess and her conscience.
On 2nd May 1891, Sophie was anointed in the Orthodox Church and wrote to tell Willy of the fait accompli. Exploding with fury, the Kaiser announced that she was banished from his country and if she dared to set foot on German soil she would be arrested. As the family gaped in astonishment at his high-handedness, Sophie summed up her opinion of her brother in an open telegram to Vicky: ‘quite mad.’
Mad his decision might have been, but the pronouncement left Sophie in an awkward position. As Emperor, his word would be obeyed and the prospect of being arrested was both scandalous and humiliating, yet Sophie would not forfeit the right to visit her mother at Friedrichshof. It was left to Uncle Bertie in England to provide a solution. The Prince of Wales had been snubbed several times by his Prussian nephew and, more than willing to offer Sophie his support, he conceived a plan whereby she might flout the Kaiser’s orders. She should travel, he suggested, incognito, making no mention of her intended destination but entering Germany by way of Italy or France. It was vital, he said, that her husband should accompany her, since the Kaiser would not dare to arrest the Crown Prince of Greece.
Queen Victoria's Granddaughters 1860-1918 Page 18