Inglorious Royal Marriages

by Leslie Carroll

  As for Ducky and Kirill’s children, Masha’s husband became the 6th prince of Leiningen in 1939. They had seven children, one of whom died in infancy, before the prince was forced to join the German army during the Second World War. Taken prisoner by the Russians at the end of the war, he died of starvation in 1946 in a Soviet labor camp at Saransk. Masha died of a heart attack in 1951. Their third child, also named Marie, would eventually wed her first cousin, Prince Andrei of Yugoslavia, Marie of Roumania’s grandson.

  The beautiful raven-haired Kira and her husband, Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, also had seven children. During World War II, the prince collaborated with the underground, working against the Nazis, but he and Kira were both arrested and sent to the concentration camp at Dachau. They were finally liberated by U.S. troops in 1945. In 1951, upon the death of his father, Louis Ferdinand became the titular emperor of Germany. A woman with an essentially cheerful nature and a zest for life, Kira unfortunately died too young. She suffered a heart attack in 1967 at the age of fifty-eight, while she was visiting her brother.

  During the Second World War, the anti-Nazi Vladimir remained under their watchful eye. He was essentially under house arrest at Ker Argonid until 1944, when the Nazis feared he might fall into the hands of the Allies, and compelled him to move to Germany. Vladimir had inherited his father’s throne, nebulous as it was, but, unlike Kirill, he never referred to himself as emperor or czar, instead retaining his title of grand duke. When the war ended, he returned to Saint-Briac, marrying Princess Leonida of Bagration-Moukhransky, the widow of a Jewish American killed by the Nazis. After the collapse of the USSR in December 1991, monarchists believed he might still have a voice in Russian politics. Unfortunately, Vladimir died of a heart attack during a news conference in Miami on April 21, 1992.

  His parents’ marriage had been that rare royal love match. But Ducky and Kirill’s illicit passion and eventual nuptials had broken rules of God and law, the sacred beliefs of their families, and the tenets of polite society, and for one reason or another, it remained a scandal throughout its thirty-one-year duration, casting it in a decidingly inglorious light. Moreover, whatever sin Kirill had committed against Ducky toward the end of their marriage was so shameful that she literally could not reveal or discuss it.

  Another of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters, Ducky’s former sister-in-law Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, de-Germanized her name in the wake of the First World War to become Victoria Mountbatten, the widowed Marchioness of Milford Haven. She eloquently explained such long-held objections to this particular unholy marriage of first cousins, even after the world had changed so much. “I dare say Royalty is nonsense and it may be better if it is swept away. But as long as it exists, we must have certain rules to guide us.”

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks as always to my brilliant agent, Irene Goodman: This makes twenty books together—and counting! A huge thank-you to my terrific editor, Claire Zion, and the fabulous team at NAL for the wonderful work they’ve done, and always do, for all the books in my nonfiction Royal series. Thank you to my own prince—my remarkably patient husband, Scott, who heard the phrase, “I’m on deadline, honey!” more than anyone has a right to within the space of a year. And most of all, to my readers, without whom there would be no books, and to royals, past and present—without whom there would be no stories.

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  ARTICLES

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  WEB SITES

  http://www.inveraray-castle.com/home.html

  http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/duntxt2.htm#P30

  http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography

  http://englishhistory.net

  http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/stuart_23.html

  Photo by Ron Rinaldi

  Leslie Carroll is the author of several works of historical nonfiction, women’s fiction, and, under the pen names Juliet Grey and Amanda Elyot, is a multipublished author of historical fiction. Her nonfiction titles include Royal Romances, Royal Pains, Royal Affairs, and Notorious Royal Marriages as well as The Royals, a brief overview of English royal history containing removable reproductions of famous documents, commissioned by Sterling, the publishing arm of Barnes & Noble. Leslie is also a classically trained professional actress with numerous portrayals of virgins, vixens, and villainesses to her credit, and is an award-winning audio book narrator.

  A frequent commentator on royal romances and relationships, Leslie has been interviewed by numerous broadcast, online, and print media, including MSNBC.com, USAToday, the Australian Broadcasting Company, NPR, Hearst Television, Inc., and she was a featured royalty historian on the CBS Evening News in London during the royal wedding coverage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. She also appears as an expert on the love lives of Queen Victoria, Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great, and Napoleon on the Proper Television series The Secret Life of . . . [fill in the name of famous figure] for Canada’s History Channel, and as an expert on the French royal family’s ill-fated flight to Varennes for the Travel Channel’s “Greatest Mysteries” series. Leslie and her husband, Scott, divide their time between New York City and Washington, D.C.

  CONNECT ONLINE

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