Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires
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Darmstadt was “shrouded temporarily in dishonor,” according to one historian. Alexandra’s enemies used the scandal in their ongoing campaign of vilification against the empress. The “Romanovs discovered a fresh reason to be contemptuous of Ernie’s sister Alix, who could not, they supposed, have been ignorant of her brother’s unmentionable proclivities.”457 Not everyone was ready to use the scandal against Alexandra, however. Her mother-in-law, Minnie, offered her support. “It is simply awful,” she wrote after a sleepless night. “I am also extremely sorry for poor Alix, knowing well how dear Ernie is to her …”458
What made her brother’s divorce so much more painful for Alexandra (which she blamed solely on his now ex-wife) was that Ducky had run off with Grand Duke Kyril Vladimirovich, one of the tsar’s cousins. Alexandra’s Victorian sensibilities were offended when the divorced Ducky was admitted into Russia’s ruling family—Ernie remarried in 1905 to Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich. So too was Nicholas. He stripped Kyril of his title, rank, honors, and commission in the navy. Despite a violent altercation with Kyril’s father, his uncle the Grand Duke Vladimir, Nicholas refused to back down. Kyril’s mother, Miechen, blamed the tsar’s reaction on Alexandra’s contempt for Ducky. “And why all this?” she wrote to her uncle Henry VII of Reuss. “Because the Tsarina does not want her hated ex-sister-in-law in the family.”459 In the hopes of winning the tsar’s favor for Ducky, her sister the Crown Princess Marie of Romania named her newborn son Nicolas. This gesture seemed to have little impact on the tsar’s decision, which included forcing the newlyweds to live in exile. It would be another eight years before Kyril and Ducky were allowed to return to Russia.
Dubbed by the international press as “the Colonial Tour,” the Duchess of Cornwall’s trip around the world began inauspiciously. Her passage aboard the Ophir only increased her aversion to sea travel. Seasickness left her bedridden in her cabin for most of the first few weeks. “I detest the sea,” she wrote home from the Indian Ocean. “I like seeing the places and being on land, the rest of it is purgatory to me.”460 The Ophir’s first official stop was Gibraltar, followed by Malta, where George had made many visits during his youthful naval days. Malta held a special place in George’s heart because it was here that he experienced first love. His uncle the Duke of Edinburgh was stationed on the island when he commanded the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Squadron. George fell in love with the duke’s beautiful daughter Marie (“Missy”), but her mother would have none of it. The formidable Duchess of Edinburgh loathed the English court and quickly put an end to George and Missy’s adolescent romance. She later saw to it that Missy married Crown Prince Ferdinand of Romania.
From Valletta, the Ophir sailed on to Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon. May deeply enjoyed her time on the exotic island. She became the first English princess to visit a Buddhist monastery. She also received the unique honor of observing a procession of Peraharu priests, an ancient sect of Hindu. Their next stop was Singapore. During lunch at the Government House, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall were introduced to the four sultans of the Federated Malay States, a British-protected political union on the Malay Peninsula. In the afternoon, May held a private audience with the numerous wives of the Perak sultan and some of the tribe’s lesser chiefs.
Singapore was the last stop before the much-anticipated visit to Australia. “It seems so wonderful to be actually in Australia,” the duchess wrote home. “It is like a second England, with the same people and the same towns, only the scenery is different.”461 May’s first glimpse of Australia was fittingly that of Melbourne, the bustling embodiment of English influence stretching to the other side of the globe. The city was named for Lord Melbourne, the famous British prime minister who had once been a close friend and adviser to Queen Victoria in the first few years of her reign. This city, renowned for being built in less than fifty years, welcomed the Duchess of Cornwall and her husband with such exuberance that it nearly eclipsed the fanfare that surrounded her own wedding. The route from their hotel to the Parliament House was lined with triumphal arches erected high above excited crowds numbering in the thousands. The royal couple was present at the opening session of Parliament for the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia, which had united for the first time the provinces of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia.
May was immensely popular in Australia and New Zealand. She was the embodiment of the word royal. Her tall, stately beauty was even greater than what the populace had believed. She also greatly impressed everyone by her knowledge of the region. Lady Mary Lygon, one of her ladies-in-waiting, wrote home, “Her Royal Highness has quite got over all her shyness abroad … Her smile is commented on in every paper and her charm of manner: in fact, she is having a ‘success fou.’” Lady Lygon wrote later, “Every state has successively fallen in love with her looks, her smile, and her great charm of manner. She is at last coming out of her shell and will electrify them at home as she has everyone here.”462
For the final and most in-depth part of the colonial tour, the duke and duchess headed to Canada. The Ophir skirted around Cape Town and up the coast of West Africa before crossing the Atlantic and docking in Montreal. It was here that May received one of her most treasured possessions: a gold maple leaf covered with enamel and diamonds. It would remain one of her favorites, especially once she became queen. May and George’s Canadian visit soon turned into a real adventure. Political parties, dignitaries, and ordinary folk clamored over one another for the Duchess of Cornwall’s attention. But it was with the last group, ordinary people, with whom she was most at ease. When she visited the home of one of the local dockworkers, the hostess was somewhat tongue-tied and embarrassed. Seizing the opportunity, May asked if she could see her children’s nursery and suddenly asked, “And may I show you my children’s pictures?”463
Ottawa was next on the itinerary. The duke and duchess were impressed by the towering buildings. Later, they watched an awe-inspiring evening of entertainments on the sprawling lawn of the Parliament building, where Edward VII laid the foundation stone during his 1860 visit. Actors recreated a lumberjack’s life and the discovery of Canada by French explorers, followed by a dinner of pea soup and pork and beans to add a dose of reality to the local flavor. After a walking tour of Hull—just across the provincial border in Quebec—it was back to Ottawa for a presentation ceremony in the Senate Chamber. More than a thousand people were paraded past George and May, who had taken up seats on the thrones normally occupied by the governor general and his consort. The Senate Chamber ceremony, in which May was seated beneath a glistening diamond-studded canopy surrounded by thousands of miniature lamps, was exhausting but a success. According to one witness, both George and May “were uniformly gracious to all, without exception, who came with their tribute of respect and duty.”464
The rest of the hectic journey was loaded with speeches, luncheons, banquets, and public ceremonies. In Winnipeg, May presided over a rose-themed ball decorated with sparkling lights awash in pinks and yellows, followed by a torchlight procession to the train station.
The entire route … was lined with cheering spectators, determined to get a good view of the Duke and Duchess, which the gaily illuminated streets rendered an easy matter. Along Assiniboine avenue and down Donald street as far as St. Mary, were stationed lines of torch-bearers. As the royal carriage passed by, these fell in behind, and with the bands at different points playing spirited airs, presented a spectacular appearance along the whole route extending over a mile and a half.465
May and George always tried to write home to King Edward and Queen Alexandra about their experiences. “Darling May is of the greatest possible help to me & works very hard, I don’t think I could have done all this without her,” George wrote to his mother. “Everybody admires her very much which is very pleasing to me. I hope you are as proud of your daughter in law as I am of my wife.”466
The list of places visited continued to mou
nt—Calgary, Banff, Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Hamilton, London, Niagara Falls, Belleville, and Kingston. Thousands flocked to local train stations as the royal carriage made one stop after another. The royal couple visited many of the same places that Edward VII had when he visited Canada more than forty years earlier. The most interesting part of the colonial tour was May’s encounter with nearly two thousand representatives of North America’s western native tribes. Anticipation of the royal visit prompted a gathering of the Black Foot, Blood, Piegan, Sarcee, Stony, and Cree natives, the likes of which had not been seen in Canada in two decades. The couple was welcomed at a marquee built by the tribes themselves bearing the inscription “Kitaisimatsimpmom—We Greet You.” George and May entered a pavilion, where they were met by six tribal chiefs. The only blemish that marred the day’s theatrical events occurred when Joseph Samson, chief of the Cree Nation, refused to shake hands with May, since “a woman was deemed unworthy in their eyes of consideration upon an occasion of such solemnity.”467
After boarding a train for Halifax, the duke and duchess sailed from the East Coast back to England in November 1901. When the Ophir arrived, May was somewhat pale because the Atlantic crossing had been a stormy one. On the eight-month voyage across the globe, they “covered 45,000 miles, laid 21 foundation stones, received 544 addresses, presented 4,329 medals, reviewed 62,000 troops, and shook hands with 24,855 people at official receptions.”468 In a speech to the Lord Mayor of London, George expressed his happiness at returning home and what the journey meant to him.
We rejoice at being home again, and our hearts are full of thankfulness for the protection which has been vouchsafed to us during our long and deeply interesting journey.… Our journey has extended over 33,000 miles by sea and 12,500 by land. Everywhere we have been profoundly impressed by the kindness and affectionate enthusiasm extended to us, by the universal declarations of loyalty to the Throne, and by the conscious pride in membership of our great Empire which so unmistakably declared itself. We have gained great, pleasant, and profitable experience, and we have made many friends.469
George was under no illusions as to who really deserved the credit for the success of the 1901 colonial tour. Shortly after their return, he wrote to May, “Somehow I can’t tell you, so I take the first opportunity of writing to say how deeply I am indebted to you darling for the splendid way in which you supported and helped me on our long Tour. It was you who made it a success.”470
Much to the delight of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, the couple’s return coincided with the king’s birthday on November 15. A few days after the celebration, Edward VII conferred on George and May the coveted titles Prince and Princess of Wales. “May purred with pleasure at her elevation …” wrote one of her biographers.471 Many felt it was long overdue and that the couple should have been feted immediately when George’s parents ascended the throne. Unlike his own parents, the king wanted to ensure that his heir was properly trained for the day he would become king. Throughout his six decades as Prince of Wales, Edward was denied all but the most cursory role as heir to the throne. Queen Victoria was fiercely protective of her sovereign prerogatives, and it was widely known that, for many years, she felt her son was not up to the task of being king. In contrast, Prince George was given access to state documents by his father, which he in turn presented to May for her insights. Along with their elevation in status came an increase in the standard of living for May and her family. Parliament voted on providing the couple with an annual income of £100,000. To put this amount in context, in 1901 “a farm labourer earned no more than forty pounds a year, and a domestic servant half that.”472 In today’s money, George and May enjoyed an annual income of more than $11 million.473
Their new titles and fortune meant a change of address for the new Wales family. They moved from their modest yet comfortable official residence, York House at Saint James’s Palace, to the palatial, red-brick Marlborough House, located a few blocks away from Buckingham Palace. George’s parents had lived there for decades, after Queen Victoria asked Parliament in 1849 to allow the Prince of Wales to live there when he turned nineteen. After £60,000 worth of renovations, George’s parents moved in after their wedding and remained there until they ascended the throne in January and, naturally, took up residence at Buckingham Palace. Now, it was home to May as she raised the next generation of Britain’s royal family, which expanded on December 20, 1902, with the birth of her fifth child at York Cottage, a son whom she named George Edward Alexander Edmund.
As Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma grew into a vivacious, kind young woman, one of the things that made a profound impact on her life was religion. Years later, she would take as her personal motto “More for you than for me.”474 Her family was devoutly Roman Catholic. From the age of eight, Zita undertook catechism lessons under a certain Father Travers, which were followed by her First Communion in 1902 in the chapel at Pianore. Faith was more than just a religious practice to the Duke and Duchess of Parma. They encouraged Zita and her siblings to seek after God with all their hearts and to make prayer and faith the very foundations of who they were. To help make this a reality for their children, the duke and duchess took their family to Rome in 1903 for the Silver Jubilee celebrations in honor of Pope Leo XIII. Only ten years old at the time, Zita recalled “the splendid ceremony, the chants, the grandeur of it all.”475 Like Alexandra of Russia, religion for Zita was not simply a pair of gloves to be taken on and off. It was a serious commitment to God. She and her sisters were trained from an early age to serve and minister to those in need not in spite of their royal position but because of it. Duke Robert I was one of those truly remarkable, enlightened royals who believed it was the duty of all people of high position to benefit and help those less fortunate. He made it a point to donate 10 percent of his income to the poor.
The Bourbon-Parma princesses made regular visits to textile factories where they bought up unused pieces of fabric and then personally sewed them into clothes to be handed out to peasants living in the villages near their estates. Around Pianore, where the standard of living was especially low and the people were desperately poor, Zita and her sisters routinely handed out clothing, food, and medicines to many who were sick with tuberculosis. The Duchess of Parma insisted her daughters think of themselves as “Little Sisters of the poor.” Each night after returning home, she made sure her daughters promptly changed all their clothes and disinfected themselves with alcohol. When someone once asked the duchess if there was any danger of infection to her daughters, she famously replied, “Love of one’s neighbour is the best disinfectant.”476
For the Bourbon-Parma family, religion truly began at home. Three of Zita’s sisters—Adelaide, Francesca, and Maria Antonia—became nuns, as did her maternal grandmother, Queen Adelaide of Portugal, whom she called “Mère Adelheide.” In light of such a devout upbringing, it came as no surprise that Princess Zita’s education was thoroughly religious. In 1902, Duke Robert sent her to a boarding school at Zangberg in Upper Bavaria to complete her formal schooling. Her parents felt it was suitable since the school itself was administered by Salesian nuns from the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary. Though most children would have been terrified to be sent off to a strange school at the age of ten in a country they did not know, for Zita, it was just another family affair. Her sisters were studying at Zangberg as well, and it was close to the homes of so many of her French and Austrian relatives. At Zangberg, from dawn until dusk, every part of Zita’s studies in history, art, languages, and music were submitted to the careful eyes of the nuns. “She always kept others at a certain distant [sic],” one of the nuns recalled of Zita, “and, though she had a fiery temper, never gave the slightest difficulty to the nuns or teachers.”477 She learned to play the piano but actually preferred the organ, which she played every Sunday at Mass. The princess fit in perfectly, and she felt safe and content during her time in Bavaria.
The grief that Tsarina Alexandra experienced over not having produ
ced a son only grew worse with time. In spite of the damaging episode with Philippe Vachot, she still was drawn to the circle of mystics to which Stana and Militza belonged. It did not take long for Militza to introduce Alexandra to the teachings of another holy man, this one a monk named Seraphim of Sarov, who died in 1833. According to the Montenegrin sisters, it hardly mattered that he had been dead for decades. They claimed Alexandra must seek Seraphim’s intercession to conceive a son, but more than that, it “was imperative,” insisted Militza, “that Seraphim be declared a saint in order for Alexandra to benefit from his prayers. Never mind that it was too soon for Seraphim to be made a saint, never mind that there was opposition from the church against such a move.” Determined against all odds, Alexandra pleaded with Nicholas to use his position as head of the Russian Orthodox Church “to press for Seraphim’s case.”478