Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria

by Julia P. Gelardi

  Thus, in reconciling herself to her conversion to Orthodoxy, Alix welded this irrevocable decision to a greater calling. She was to be an instrument of God, sent to transform the future Nicholas II and the Russian Empire. In tandem, she and Nicky would work for the greater good of Russia.

  Once Alix’s engagement was announced to the family, the Empress Frederick rushed off a letter to Athens, telling Sophie, “Alicky is quite radiant and beaming with joy. The moment Nicky arrived I saw by her face that she would— though it was so strange to refuse him first, and to swear to everyone that though she was very fond of him, she would never take him.” The empress went on to add, “even my dear Mama thought she [Alix] would not accept him, she was so positive about it…I 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. Of course, I made no remarks!”39 This, no doubt, was an allusion to the irony in Willy’s actions in Coburg.

  As Alix had loved Queen Victoria as her own mother, it came as no surprise that the queen was the first person to hear news of the engagement. And from none other than Nicky and Alix themselves. After breakfast, they eagerly sought the queen’s blessing and burst into her room, brimming with excitement. “I was quite thunderstruck,” noted the bewildered queen. “Though I knew Nicky much wished it, I thought Alicky was not sure of her mind. Saw them both. Alicky had tears in her eyes, but looked very bright, and I kissed them both.” The queen added: “Nicky said, ‘She is much too good for me.’ I told him he must make the religious difficulties as easy as he could for her, which he promised to do. People generally seem pleased at the engagement, which has the drawback that Russia is so far away, the position a difficult one, as well as the question of religion. But, as her brother is married now, and they are really attached to one another, it is perhaps better so.”40

  Nicholas secured a promise from his parents that like Ella, Alix would not have to abjure her old faith upon formally embracing Orthodoxy. Nicholas knew how much this meant to his fiancée, telling her soon after his return to Russia that he was “only too glad to be the first one who may comfort” her with this news.41 Alix was most fortunate not to have had to renounce her old faith. No such accommodation was to accompany Princess Victoria Eugenie’s religious conversion a decade later. In stark contrast to Alix, the ceremony itself for Ena was to take on a much harsher and painful tone.

  As for Kaiser Wilhelm, he had deluded himself into thinking that he had pulled off a diplomatic coup. One contemporary account noted that the Kaiser was so thrilled at news of the engagement, his “beaming face” made him look “as if he had suddenly succeeded in adding another party to the Triple Alliance.”42

  Well aware of her granddaughter’s emotional state, Queen Victoria wisely invited Alix to stay with her at Windsor right after the engagement at Coburg. Here, Victoria could keep the girl away from prying eyes. Now, without the distraction of others about them, the queen questioned Alicky avidly about every detail of how the engagement came about. Alix told her grandmama so much that she confessed to Nicky, “I no longer knew what to say.”43

  In one of her letters to Nicholas, Alix commented on her cousins Maud of Wales and Sophie of Greece. Comparing her lot with theirs, it seemed to Alix as if good fortune had shone upon her while Maud had yet to reap the benefits of finding a soul mate and Sophie was suffering along with fellow Greeks as the country was jolted by numerous devastating earthquakes—“poor thing it must be too terrible in Greece, these incessant shocks.” Reading about Sophie’s concerns for Greece and her countrymen’s suffering had moved Alix to tell Nicholas of her own view of God and of man’s lot on earth. “What sorrows this life does bring, what great trials and how difficult to bear them patiently…. Suffering always draws one nearer to God, does it not, and when we think what Jesus Christ had to bear for us, how little and small our sorrows seem in comparison, and yet we fret and grumble and are not patient as He was.” But the focus was not solely on suffering and religious introspection. Grateful for the happiness she had been blessed with, Alix could not help but wish the same kind of blessing for Toria and Maud of Wales. “May He some day make her [Victoria] very happy, she deserves it the dear Child, and little Maudy too. When one is so happy, one longs to see others also joyous and grieves one cannot do anything for them— don’t you too?”44

  During this time, letters between the two lovers flew every day between St. Petersburg and Windsor. Beneath Alix and Nicky’s reserved Victorian exteriors lay deep passions that spilled forth from their pens. From Alix to Nicky came the tender words: “Oh, if you only knew how I adore you and the years have made my affection for you grow stronger and deeper; I wish only I were worthier of your love and tenderness.”45

  And from Nicky to Alix many messages like this one:

  You have got me entirely and for ever, soul and spirit, body and heart, everything is yours, yours; I would like to scream it out loud for the world to hear it. It is me who am proud to belong to such a sweet angel as you are and to venture to claim for your love to be returned.46

  Interspersed between the lines of love was Alix’s keen interest in learning about Nicky’s faith. She asked him to send her religious books. She also revealed her fears about converting, telling him: “You must understand how nervous it makes me, but God will help me, you too, my love, won’t you, so that I may always get a better Christian and serve my God as truly as hitherto and more.”47

  In preparation for her future role, Alix began learning about the Orthodox faith in earnest. In order to help her granddaughter come to terms with her conversion, Queen Victoria had passed on this delicate task of easing Alix’s transition from Protestantism to Orthodoxy to a favored clergyman, William Boyd Carpenter, the Bishop of Ripon. He duly came to Windsor, where he spoke to Alix at length, taking pains to point out the similarities in both the Protestant and Orthodox faiths. It was a topic of great interest to the future tsarina and one to which she paid close attention.

  Upon celebrating her twenty-second birthday, Alix wrote to thank Queen Victoria for her good wishes and birthday present, and tried to reassure the queen:

  Yes, darling Grandmama, the new position I am sure will be full of trials and difficulties, but with God’s help and that of a loving husband it will be easier than we now picture it to ourselves. The distance is great, but yet in three days one can get to England. I am sure his parents will often allow us to come over to You. Why I could not bear the idea of not seeing You again, after the kind Angel You have been to me, ever since dear Mama died, and I cling to You more than ever, now that I am quite an Orphan. God bless You for all Your kindness to me, beloved Grandmama dear. I have no words to thank you enough for all. Please do not think that my marrying will make a difference in my love to You—certainly it will not, and when I am far away, I shall long to think that there is One, the dearest and kindest Woman alive, who loves me a little bit.48

  After months of declining health, by October 1894, to everyone’s surprise, the once burly and Herculean-like Emperor Alexander III lay dying in the Crimea. Fearing the worst, Nicky summoned Alix to the imperial family’s retreat, Livadia, near Yalta. Hurriedly, the future Empress of Russia traveled to the Crimea, with a minimum of fuss. Once there, her presence was barely acknowledged. So preoccupied was the imperial court with the dying tsar that they were unable to prepare anything special for Alix’s entry to Russia.

  Upon her arrival at Livadia, a ten-day drama began to unfold. It would end in the accession to the throne of her beloved Nicky. During this trying time, the future tsarina noticed how her fiancé was overshadowed by others. She wrote in Nicholas’s diary, urging him to assert himself. “Your Sunny is praying for you.…Be firm and make the doctors…come alone to you every day…so that you are the first to know.…Don’t let others be put first and you left out.…Show your own mind and don’t let others forget who you are.”49 It was the beginning of Alix’s many exhortations to Nicholas
to be strong. And in a theme that was to play itself out until their dying days, Alix, like any devoted spouse, also added, “let her, who will soon be your own little wife, share all with you.”50 “Tell me everything my soul. You can fully trust me, look upon me as a bit of yourself. Let your joys and sorrows be mine, so that we may ever draw nearer together.”51

  Despite all the doctors’ efforts, Alexander III died on 20 October 1894, aged only forty-nine. A wave of sadness and foreboding swept over Nicky, sustaining as he did the double blow of losing his father and ascending the throne with little practical preparation. Recalling that fateful moment, Grand Duke Alexander, Nicky’s brother-in-law, wrote that “the weight of this terrifying fact crushed him.” A sobbing Nicholas II asked: “Sandro, what am I going to do.…What is going to happen to me…to Alix, to mother, to all of Russia? I am not prepared to be a Tsar. I never wanted to become one. I know nothing of the business of ruling. I have no idea of even how to talk to the ministers.”52

  Yet there was one thing Nicky was absolutely certain about and that was the consolation that Alix brought to him in this time of distress. He proudly wrote to Queen Victoria that “the one great comfort I have got in my utter misery—is my darling Alicky’s deep love, that I return her fully.”53

  Writing to her aunt, the newly widowed Empress Marie, Princess Maud of Wales, expressed her hope that Alix would bring Nicholas all the help he would need in his new role as tsar: “I do so feel for dear Nicky in this anxious and difficult position he now is finding himself, and I only hope that Alicky will help and support him in every way. “54

  Events had moved so rapidly and so profoundly. Wishing to become a member of the Romanov family right away, Alix was adamant that her conversion take place as soon as possible. Her wish was granted. On the day after Alexander III’s death, Alix was received into the Russian Orthodox Church and took the names of Alexandra Feodorovna. Ella described the ceremony to their grandmother as being “so beautiful and touching.” And despite all the soul-searching and hand-wringing that had accompanied her decision, when the time came for Alix to embrace her new faith, she did so wholeheartedly. Ella made it a point to reassure Queen Victoria that the ceremony had not been an ordeal. Alix, proclaimed her sister proudly, was “very calm.”55

  When the queen finally received the dreaded news that Alexander III had died, she feared for the couple. “Poor dear Nicky and darling Alicky,” she noted in her diary. “What a terrible load of responsibility and anxiety has been laid upon the poor children!” Then, perceptively, the queen added: “I had hoped and trusted they would have many years of comparative quiet and happiness before ascending to this thorny throne.”56 The queen expressed the same worries to Vicky, decrying: “What a horrible tragedy this is! And what a position for these dear young people. God help them! And now I hear that poor little Alicky goes with them to St. Petersburg and that the wedding is to take place soon after the funeral. I am quite miserable not to see my darling child again before, here. Where shall I ever see her again?”57

  Determined to have Alix by his side from now on, Nicky intended his marriage to take place immediately at Livadia, and not in the spring. His mother approved of the idea. However, Nicky’s uncles (the imposing brothers of Alexander III) would hear none of it. They urged him to marry in state at St. Petersburg after the funeral. It was the only way, they insisted, for an emperor to marry. And so St. Petersburg it was.

  On the eve of the wedding, Queen Victoria, in a resigned tone, wrote to Vicky: “Tomorrow morning poor dear Alicky’s fate will be sealed. No two people were ever more devoted as she and he are and that is the one consolation I have, for otherwise the dangers and responsibilities fill me with anxiety and I shall constantly be thinking of them with anxiety…I daily pray for them.”58

  Charlotte Knollys, a close friend of the Wales family, who was in attendance to the Princess of Wales in Russia, wrote of her impressions. Of the Empress Marie, Alix’s new mother-in-law, Charlotte noted: “The poor Empress is so dreading the wedding tomorrow fancy having to…[face] the Ordeal of seeing herself superseded by a young girl of whom she knows but little & of having to step down into the 2nd place when she has so long held the 1st.”59

  As for the Empress Frederick, she told her daughter: “I am glad and thankful my Sophie does not live there, but in the free air of sunny Hellas. I would not change your position with hers, not for all the state and grandeur, the splendour, riches and jewels which hide the other dark side from view.”60 Little did Vicky know that one day, her own Sophie would find more than her fair share of agonizing problems in “sunny Hellas.”

  Seven days after Alexander III was buried, one of history’s greatest love stories was officially sealed as Nicholas and Alexandra were united in matrimony on 14 November 1894. Queen Victoria lamented to Alix’s sister, “cela me revolte to feel she has been taken possession of & carried away as it were by these Russians. I wish she had not gone to Livadia & yet that was also impossible!”61

  On her wedding day, in the spectacular green Malachite Hall of the immense Winter Palace, Alix dressed in her bridal finery. An ermine-lined mantle of gold tissue was attached to her dress of cloth of silver by her ladies-in-waiting. Resting on Alix’s head was a small circlet of diamonds, along with fragrant orange blossoms brought especially from the imperial conservatories in Poland. And on one of her fingers the bride wore a ring given to her by her grandmother, Queen Victoria. Together with Nicholas, who was dressed in the uniform of the Red Hussars, Alix made her way to the chapel for the wedding service.

  Outside, large crowds had gathered to wish their emperor and his bride much happiness. Despite the cold gray day, the streets of St. Petersburg were packed. Having to make her way under the watchful gaze of the throng was painful for Alix, but she managed to thrill nearly everyone. Excited murmurs of admiration followed her, for Alix looked stunning in her bridal attire. Two of Queen Victoria’s daughters-in-law—the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha—who both witnessed the wedding, sent glowing reports to the queen, saying how she looked “too wonderfully lovely.” This elicited a sigh from the bride’s grandmother, who admitted forlornly: “Oh! How I do wish I had been there!”

  On the wedding day, Queen Victoria confessed that her thoughts were “constantly with dear Alicky whose wedding takes place to-day. I prayed most earnestly for her, and felt so sad I could not be with her.” But despite being preoccupied with Alix and her wedding, the queen was also thinking about another granddaughter, one whom she would not live to see become Queen of Norway. “This was also dear little Maud’s birthday,” remarked Victoria, “and I had a table with presents for her in my room.” 3 It was Maud’s twenty-fifth birthday. Of that day, Maud later wrote, “I received many nice presents from my many admirers, but from the one, nothing, how sad for poor, poor me!” Prince Frank, “the one,” had forgotten Maud on her birthday, which prompted the dejected princess to confess to May, Frank’s sister, “I nearly shed a tear, but thought no— that might spoil my birthday look! Please laugh; it sounds too funny!

  That Alix should be elevated to such a vaunted position filled Queen Victoria with a sense of awe. “How I thought of darling Alicky, and how impossible it seemed that gentle little simple Alicky should be the great Empress of Russia!” Charlotte Knollys was of the same mind, though she took a more biting tone. In describing the change Alix underwent as she watched the bride enter the room where she was to be dressed, Charlotte recorded how Alix appeared “in a dress of cloth of silver without a single ornament…& then half an hour after she came out with 2 crowns on her head.…What a change! A little scrubby Hessian Princess—not even a Royal Highness & now the Empress of the largest Empire in Europe!”66

  For all the magnificence of the wedding ceremony, Nicholas II confessed to his younger brother, Grand Duke George, that it was “absolute torture both for her and for me. As for superstitious Russians, they had harsher opinions. Whispers were murmured that Alexandra was becoming Empre
ss of Russia in the most inauspicious way. She was coming to them behind a coffin, and for those who disapproved of this, a foreboding swept through them not only for the imperial couple but for Russia itself. When masses of Russians first caught a glimpse of their future tsarina, it was at the funeral procession for the Emperor Alexander. Alix’s arrival at the imperial capital amidst the somber pall of death could not have made a worse impact. Far from being joyous and resplendent, her entry into St. Petersburg was shrouded in dismal shades of black, lending an undeniably sepulchral tone that would cling to her until the end of her life.

  Yet, despite the superstitious whispers and the heavy weight of mourning surrounding her wedding, many Russians greeted their new tsarina and the new reign with excitement. Queen Victoria must have been gratified to hear from Ella that when Nicky and Alix visited the tomb of Alexander III the day after their wedding, people were “kissing Alix’s hands, nearly pulling off her cloak.” And on the wedding day itself, when the bride and groom left the Winter Palace, the crowd who saw the couple went “mad with joy”68

  The days following the wedding were busy ones; often the newlyweds were overwhelmed by the many messages of congratulations that had to be answered. Not until a week after their wedding were Nicholas and Alexandra able to escape for four days to the imperial village of Tsarskoe Selo outside St. Petersburg. Alix, overcome with happiness, wrote in Nicky’s diary: “Never did I believe that there could be such utter happiness in this world, such a feeling of unity between two mortal beings. I LOVE YOU—those three words have my life in them.”

  Tsarina Alexandra did not forget Queen Victoria. Alix wrote to tell her how Nicky’s love for the queen “touches me so deeply, for have You not been as a Mother to me, since beloved Mama died.” Then she added a word about her Wales cousins, saying, “how nice for dear Toria and Maud that they stayed with You at Windsor, as they so seldom really see You.”70