67. Cook, Prince Eddy (Kobo desktop version), chap. 11, para. 27.
68. Interview of Lady Frederick Willens by James Pope-Hennessy, 1958, ibid., ch. 12, para. 24.
69. Gyles Brandreth, Philip and Elizabeth: Portrait of a Royal Marriage (London: W. W. Norton, 2004), p. 53.
70. Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, to Queen Victoria, January 14, 1892, in ibid., pp. 51–52.
71. Princess May of Teck to Queen Victoria, undated, January 1892, Z95/6, Queen Mary Papers, the Royal Archives in Queen Mary, Pope-Hennessy, p. 215.
72. Diary entry of Queen Victoria, January 14, 1892, in Queen Victoria in Her Letters, Hibbert, p. 321.
73. Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary, p. 213.
74. Princess May of Teck to Emily Alcock, February 13, 1892, in Matriarch, Edwards, p. 53.
5: A Touch of Destiny
1. Robert’s maternal grandmother, Princess Caroline of Naples and Sicily, was the half sister of Maria Pia’s father, King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies.
2. Arturo Beech and David McIntosh, Empress Zita of Austria, Queen of Hungary (1892–1989) (Eurohistory: North Pacific Heights, 2005), p. 2.
3. Henry’s death left the Bourbons without any direct, male-line heirs to the French throne. This prompted them to formally renounce their claims to the throne. This renunciation made the Orléans branch of the royal family the official pretenders to the throne.
4. Beech and McIntosh, Empress Zita of Austria, p. 2.
5. Thomas de Notre-Dame du perpétual secours, “Empress Zita, French Princess, Empress and Regent of Austria-Hungary,” The Catholic Counter-Reformation in the XXIe Century: He is Risen!, no. 28, (February 2010), p. 1.
6. Empress Zita to Gordon Brook-Shepherd, April 22, 1968, in The Last Empress: The Life and Times of Zita of Austria-Hungary, 1892–1989 (London: HarperCollins, 1991), Gordon Brook-Shepherd, p. 7.
7. Brook-Shepherd, The Last Habsburg, p. 17.
8. Princess May of Teck to Prince George of Wales, January 14, 1893, in Matriarch, Edwards, p. 64.
9. Gould, Empress Frederick Writes to Sophie, p. 140.
10. Wakeford, Three Consort Queens, p. 162.
11. Queen Victoria to George, Duke of York, undated, May 1892, AA 10/39, King George V Papers, the Royal Archives, quoted in Queen Victoria, Hibbert, p. 728. The “not very agreeable associations” of which the queen wrote had been her uncle Frederick, Duke of York (1763-1827), a thoroughly profligate, unpopular man who was one of the many lecherous sons of George III.
12. George, Duke of York, to Princess May of Teck, March 29, 1892, in King, Kaiser, Tsar, Clay, p. 151.
13. Julia P. Gelardi, From Splendor to Revolution: The Romanov Women, 1847–1928 (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2011), p. 140.
14. Queen Victoria to George, Duke of York, April 6, 1892, in George V (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), Kenneth Rose, p. 25.
15. Diary entry of Princess May of Teck, May 29, 1893, in Queen Mary, Pope-Hennessy, p. 250.
16. Diary entry of Queen Victoria, May 3, 1893, in Queen Victoria in Her Letters, Hibbert, p. 324.
17. Alexandra, Princess of Wales, to Princess May of Teck, May 13, 1893, in Matriarch, Edwards, p. 66.
18. Clay, King, Kaiser, Tsar, p. 152.
19. Princess May of Teck to George, Duke of York, July 6, 1893, in Queen Mary, Pope-Hennessy, p. 257.
20. Edward J. Bing, ed., The Letters of Tsar Nicholas and Empress Marie (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1937), p. 72.
21. Woodward, Queen Mary, p. 116.
22. Diary entry of Queen Victoria, July 6, 1893, in Queen Victoria in Her Letters, Hibbert, p. 325.
23. Diary entry of Lady Geraldine Somerset, July 6, 1893, in Matriarch, Edwards, p. 77.
24. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 195.
25. Edwards, Matriarch, p. 83.
26. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 247.
27. Erickson, Alexandra, p. 45.
28. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 540.
29. Erickson, Alexandra, pp. 99–100.
30. Ibid., p. 34.
31. Gelardi, Born to Rule, pp. 42, 44.
32. Van der Kiste, Queen Victoria’s Children, p. 92.
33. Princess Alix to Tsarevitch Nicholas, November 8, 1893, in A Lifelong Passion: Nicholas and Alexandre, Their Own Story (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996), eds. Andrei Maylunas and Sergei Mironenko, pp. 32–33.
34. Princess Alix to Grand Duchess Xenia of Russia, November 8, 1893, in ibid.
35. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, p. 28.
36. E. M. Almedingen, The Empress Alexandra, 1872–1918: A Study (London: Hutchinson, 1961), p. 20.
37. E. P. P. Tisdall, Marie Feodorovna: Empress of Russia (New York: John Day, 1957), p. 178.
38. Tsarevitch Nicholas to Empress Marie Feodorovna, April 10, 1894, in Tsar Nicholas and Empress Marie, Bing, p. 75.
39. Diary entry of Lady Lytton, April 19, 1894, in Lady Lytton’s Court Diary (London: Rupert Hart Davis, 1961), ed. Mary Luytens, p. 65.
40. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, p. 34.
41. Kurth, Tsar, p. 41.
42. Diary entry of February 6, 1901, in Gone Astray, Wilhelm II, p. 215.
43. Tsarevitch Nicholas to Empress Marie Feodorovna, April 10, 1894, in Lifelong Passion, Maylunas and Mironenko, p. 49.
44. Princess Alix to Queen Victoria, April 10/22, 1894, in George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, Carter, p. 117.
45. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 116.
46. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, pp. 35–36.
47. Erickson, Alexandra, p. 60.
48. Gordon Brook-Shepherd, Royal Sunset: The Dynasties of Europe and the Great War (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987), p. 194.
49. Gould Lee, Empress Frederick Writes to Sophie, p. 170.
50. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 159.
51. Princess Alix to Grand Duchess Xenia of Russia, undated, April 1894, in Lifelong Passion, Maylunas and Mironenko, p. 45.
52. Gelardi, From Splendor to Revolution, p. 142.
53. Gelardi, Born to Rule, pp. 50–51.
54. Almedingen, Empress Alexandra, p. 24.
55. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 51.
Part 2: The Age of Empires (1894–1914)
6: “A Little Scrubby Hessian Princess”
1. Hall, Little Mother of Russia, p. 156.
2. Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Battenberg, October 21, 1894, in Advice to a Grand-daughter, Hough, p. 126.
3. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 116.
4. Gelardi, From Splendor to Revolution, pp. 56–57.
5. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 50.
6. Penny Wilson and Greg King, The Resurrection of the Romanovs: Anastasia, Anna Anderson, and the World’s Greatest Royal Mystery (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011), p. 40.
7. Kurth, Tsar, p. 8.
8. Even until after the birth of the Soviet Union, the titles tsar and emperor were used interchangeably. Most Romanov monarchs since Peter the Great used the title emperor, but the Slavophilic Nicholas II preferred tsar.
9. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 51.
10. Clark, Kaiser Wilhelm II (Kobo desktop version), chap. 2, para. 11.
11. Princess Alix to Tsarevitch Nicholas, April 26, 1894, in Lifelong Passion, Maylunas and Mironenko, p. 60.
12. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, p. 39.
13. Edwards, Matriarch, p. 86.
14. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, p. 40.
15. Nigel Cawthorne, Kings and Queens of England: A Royal History from Egbert to Elizabeth II (London: Arcturus Publishing, 2009), p. 185.
16. Duff, Queen Mary, p. 94.
17. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 117.
18. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, p. 41.
19. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 54.
20. Vladimir Poliakoff, The Tragic Bride: The Story of Empress Alexandra of Russia (New York: D. Appleton, 1928), p. 62.
21. Brook-Shepherd, Ro
yal Sunset, p. 194.
22. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, p. 44.
23. May, Duchess of York, to George, Duke of York, November 1, 1894, in Queen Mary, Pope-Hennessy, p. 300.
24. Edwards, Matriarch, p. 87.
25. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 55.
26. Grand Duke Alexander, Once a Grand Duke (New York: Garden City Publishing, 1932), p. 168.
27. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 112.
28. Grand Duchess Elizabeth to Queen Victoria, October 24/November 5, 1894, in Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia (Redding, CA: Nikodemos Orthodox Publication Society, 1991), Lubov Millar, p. 81.
29. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, p. 45.
30. Ibid., p. 47.
31. Hall, Little Mother of Russia, p. 167.
32. Queen Victoria to the Empress Frederick, November 13, 1894, in Born to Rule, Gelardi, p. 55.
33. New York Times, November 27, 1894.
34. Kurth, Tsar, p. 50.
35. Tsarina Alexandra to Grand Duchess Elizabeth, November 14, 1894, in Edwards, Matriarch, p. 88.
36. New York Times, November 27, 1894.
37. Gelardi, From Splendor to Revolution, p. 147.
38. George, Duke of York, to Queen Victoria, November 28, 1894 in George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, Carter, pp. 122–123.
39. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, p. 48.
40. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 57.
41. Charlotte Knollys to Mrs. Archibald Knollys, November 25, 1894, MSS 21M69/25/2. Knollys Papers, Hampshire Record Office, quoted in Born to Rule, Gelardi, p. 57.
42. King, The Last Empress, p. 76.
43. Frederic Hamilton, The Vanished World of Yesterday (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1950), p. 475.
44. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 182.
7: “Only Give Me a Chance”
1. Catherine Radziwill, Nicholas II: The Last of the Tsars (London: Cassell, 1931), p. 89.
2. Tsarina Alexandra to Prince Louis of Battenberg, January 10, 1895, in MSS MB1/T95, Broadlands Archives, Hartley Library, University of Southampton, quoted in Born to Rule, Gelardi, p. 58.
3. Gelardi, Born to Rule, pp. 62–63.
4. Daily Telegraph, November 16, 1895.
5. Gelardi, Born to Rule, pp. 62-63.
6. Erickson, Alexandra, p. 107.
7. Gelardi, From Splendor to Revolution, p. 150.
8. Kurth, Tsar, p. 58.
9. Gelardi, From Splendor to Revolution, p. 155.
10. Kurth, Tsar, pp. 58-59.
11. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 69.
12. Empress Marie Feodorovna to Queen Louise of Denmark, May 16/28, 1896, in From Splendor to Revolution, Gelardi, p. 156.
13. Erickson, Alexandra, p. 109.
14. Empress Marie Feodorovna to Queen Louise of Denmark, undated, 1896, in From Splendor to Revolution, Gelardi, p. 157.
15. Maylunas and Mironenko, Lifelong Passion, p. 151.
16. Queen Marie, The Story of My Life, vol. 2, p. 73.
17. Erickson, Alexandra, p. 113.
18. Ibid., p. 115.
19. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 509.
20. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 168.
21. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 509.
22. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 73.
23. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 509.
24. Diary entry of Queen Victoria, October 3, 1896, in The Letters of Queen Victoria: Third Series, A Selection From Her Majesty’s Correspondence and Journal Between the Years 1886 and 1901 (London: John Murray, 1932), ed. George Earle Buckle, vol. 3, p. 88.
25. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 73.
26. Woodward, Queen Mary, p. 120.
27. David Sinclar, Two Georges: The Making of the Modern Monarchy (London: Hodder & Stroughton, 1998), p. 107.
28. Mark Logue and Peter Conradi, The King’s Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2010), p. 47.
29. Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, to Prince Alexander of Teck, December 20, 1895, in Three Consort Queens, Wakeford, p. 165.
30. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 332.
31. Diary entry of Queen Victoria, December 14, 1895, in Queen Victoria in Her Letters, Hibbert, p. 331.
32. John Wheeler-Bennett, King George VI: His Life and Reign (New York: Macmillan, 1958), p. 7.
33. Diary entry of Queen Victoria, December 16, 1895, in ibid.
34. Bradford, King George VI, p. 2.
35. This wedding was yet another example of the complex intermarriages of Europe’s royal families. Princess Alexandra of Edinburgh was a first cousin of Wilhelm II. Prince Ernest of Hohenlohe-Langenburg was a first cousin of Augusta Victoria’s.
36. May, Duchess of York, to Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, April 15, 1896, in Queen Mary, Pope-Hennessy, p. 318.
37. Wakeford, Three Consort Queens, p. 165.
38. Duff, Queen Mary, p. 97.
39. Hector Bolitho, King George VI (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1938), p. 18.
40. Duff, Queen Mary, p. 100.
41. Richard Hough, Born Royal: The Lives and Loves of the Young Windsors (London: Bantam Books, 1988), p. 11.
42. This statute has been in effect ever since, although Queen Elizabeth II announced in 2011 that she planned to repeal this law.
43. England was unified with Scotland by the Treaty of Union in 1707, which was ratified by the Acts of Union that same year. The unification of these realms created the Kingdom of Great Britain. It was under King George III in 1800 that Ireland was brought under the crown by another Act of Union, thus creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
44. Diary entry of May, Duchess of York, June 22, 1897, in Queen Mary, Duff, pp. 100–101.
45. Marfa Mouchanow, My Empress (New York: John Lane, 1928), p. 91.
46. Boston Evening Post, August 9, 1897.
47. Erickson, Alexandra, p. 240.
48. Ibid., p. 118.
49. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 177.
50. Wakeford, Three Consort Queens, p. 166.
51. Alexandra, Princess of Wales, to Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, undated, 1897, in Matriarch, Edwards, p. 95.
52. May, Duchess of York, to Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, November 3, 1897, in ibid.
53. Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Battenberg, November 17, 1890, in Advice to a Grand-daughter, Hough, pp. 139–140.
54. Wakeford, Three Consort Queens, p. 149.
55. Duff, Queen Mary, p. 92.
56. Hough, Born Royal, p. 50.
57. Gelardi, In Triumph’s Wake, p. 331.
58. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 85.
59. Diary entry of Queen Victoria, undated, September 1897, in George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, Carter, p. 195.
60. Wakeford, Three Consort Queens, p. 167.
61. Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Battenberg, April 1, 1899, in Advice to a Grand-daughter, Hough, p. 144.
62. Isabel V. Hull, The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II 1888–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 19.
63. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 222.
64. Daily Mail, November 22, 1899.
65. Gould Lee, The Empress Frederick Writes to Sophie, p. 325. Vicky’s reference to Adelaide being three years older than her is a strange error. It was a widely known fact that Adelaide was five years older than the Empress Frederick.
66. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 543.
67. Boston Women’s Health Collective, Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth (New York: Touchstone Books, 2008), pp. 489–491.
68. Clark, Kaiser Wilhelm II (Kobo desktop version), chap. 1, para. 40.
69. Cecil, Wilhelm II, p. 3.
70. New York Times, November 26, 1900.
71. Röhl, Wilhelm II, p. 627.
72. Ibid., p. 626.
73. Hull, Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, p. 19.
74. Massie, Dreadnought, p. 671.
75. Hull, Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, p.
19.
76. Massie, Dreadnought, p. 671.
77. Van der Kiste, Kaiser Wilhelm II, p. 106.
78. Brook-Shepherd, The Last Habsburg, p. 4.
79. David James Smith, One Morning in Sarajevo: 28 June 1914 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008), p. 68.
80. Eppinghoven, Private Lives, vol. 2, p. 254.
81. Tyler-Whittle, The Last Kaiser, p. 128.
82. Massie, Dreadnought, p. 296.
83. Diary entry of Queen Victoria, July 31, 1900, in Queen Victoria, Hibbert, p. 346.
84. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 128.
85. Ibid., p. 129.
86. King Edward VII to the Empress Frederick, February 1, 1901, in Edward VII: Prince and King (London: Collins, 1979), Giles St Aubyn, p. 314.
87. Diary entry of George, Duke of York, January 22, 1901, in George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, Carter, p. 229.
88. Massie, Dreadnought, p. 296.
89. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 89.
90. Diary entry of May, Duchess of York, January 22, 1901, in Queen Mary, Pope-Hennessy, p. 347.
91. Edwards, Matriarch, p. 104.
92. Hough, Born Royal, p. 27.
93. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, p. 75.
8: The Weight of the World
1. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 111.
2. Edwards, Matriarch, p. 110.
3. May, Duchess of York, to Hélène Bricka, January 26, 1901, in Queen Mary, Pope-Hennessy, p. 348.
4. May, Duchess of York, to Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, February 3, 1901, in ibid.
5. Arthur Balfour, First Earl of Balfour, to King Edward VII, February 6, 1901, in King George V: His Life and Reign (London: Constable, 1952), Harold Nicolson, pp. 67–68.
6. Hough, Born Royal, p. 30.
7. George, Duke of York, to Queen Alexandra, undated, 1901, in King, Kaiser, Tsar, Clay, p. 210.
8. M. C. Carey, Princess Mary (London: Nisbet, 1922), pp. 15–16.
9. John C. G. Röhl, Kaiser Wilhelm II: New Interpretations—The Corfu Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 98.
10. Hull, Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, p. 26.
11. Röhl, Wilhelm II, p. 623.
12. Schwering, Berlin Court Under William II, p. 61.
13. Röhl, Wilhelm II, p. 626.
14. Giles MacDonogh, The Last Kaiser: William the Impetuous (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p. 252.
Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires Page 72