Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, the former Princess Dagmar of Denmark. Part II

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Alexander II of Russia, Alexander III of Russia, Assumption Cathedral, Dagmar of Demark, Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Gatchina Palace, George I of the Hellenes, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Maria Feodorovna of Russia, Moscow, the Kremlin

Maria Feodorovna was beloved by the Russian public. Early on, she made it a priority to learn the Russian language and to try to understand the Russian people. Baroness Rahden wrote that “the Czarevna is forming a real, warm sympathy for that country which is receiving her with so much enthusiasm.” In 1876, she and her husband visited Helsinki and were greeted by cheers, most of which were “directed to the wife of the heir apparent.”

Maria rarely interfered with politics, preferring to devote her time and energies to her family, charities, and the more social side of her position. She had also seen the student protests of Kiev and St. Petersburg in the 1860s, and when police were beating students, the students cheered on Maria Feodorovna to which she replied, “They were quite loyal, they cheered me. Why do you allow the police to treat them so brutally?” Her one exception to official politics was her militant anti-German sentiment because of the annexation of Danish territories by Prussia in 1864, a sentiment also expressed by her sister, Alexandra.

Prince Gorchakov remarked about that policy that ‘it is our belief, that Germany will not forget that both in Russia and in England [sic] a Danish Princess has her foot on the steps of the throne”. Maria Feodorovna suffered a miscarriage in 1866 in Denmark while she was horseback riding.

Maria arranged the marriage between her brother George I of Greece and her cousin-in-law Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia. When George visited St. Petersburg in 1867, she contrived to have George spend time with Olga. She convinced Olga’s parents of her brother’s suitability. In a letter, her father Christian IX of Denmark praised her for her shrewd arranging of the marriage: “Where in the world have you, little rogue, ever learned to intrigue so well, since you have worked hard on your uncle and aunt, who were previously decidedly against a match of this kind.”

On May 18, 1868 Maria gave birth to her eldest son, Nicholas. Her next son, Alexander Alexandrovich, born in 1869, died from meningitis in infancy. She would bear Alexander four more children who reached adulthood: George (b. 1871), Xenia (b. 1875), Michael (b. 1878), and Olga (b. 1882).

As a mother, she doted on and was quite possessive of her sons. She had a more distant relationship with her daughters. Her favorite child was Nicholas, and Olga and Michael were closer to their father. She was lenient towards George, and she could never bear to punish him for his pranks. Her daughter Olga remembered that “mother had a great weakness for him.”

Maria’s relationship with her father-in-law, Alexander II of Russia, deteriorated because she did not accept his second marriage to Catherine Dolgorukov. She refused to allow her children to visit their grandfather’s second wife and his legitimized bastards, which caused Alexander’s anger. She confided in Sophia Tolstaya that “there were grave scenes between me and the Sovereign, caused by my refusal to let my children to him.”

At a Winter Palace reception in February 1881, she refused to kiss Catherine and only gave Catherine her hand to kiss. Alexander II was furious and chastised his daughter-in-law: “Sasha is a good son, but you – you have no heart”.

In 1873, Maria, Alexander, and their two eldest sons made a journey to the United Kingdom. The imperial couple and their children were entertained at Marlborough House by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The royal sisters Maria and Alexandra delighted London society by dressing alike at social gatherings. The following year, Maria and Alexander welcomed the Prince and Princess of Wales to St. Petersburg; they had come for the wedding of the Prince’s younger brother, Alfred, to Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, daughter of Emperor Alexander II and the sister of the tsarevich.

Empress of Russia

On the morning of March 13, 1881, Maria’s father-in-law Alexander II of Russia was killed by a bomb on the way back to the Winter Palace from a military parade. In her diary, she described how the wounded, still living Emperor was taken to the palace: “His legs were crushed terribly and ripped open to the knee; a bleeding mass, with half a boot on the right foot, and only the sole of the foot remaining on the left.” Alexander II died a few hours later.

After her father-in-law’s gruesome death, she was worried about her husband’s safety. In her diary, she wrote, “Our happiest and serenest times are now over. My peace and calm are gone, for now I will only ever be able to worry about Sasha.” Her favorite sister, the Princess of Wales, and brother-in-law Prince of Wales, stayed in Russia for several weeks after the funeral.

Alexander and Maria were crowned at the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin in Moscow on May 27, 1883. Just before the coronation, a major conspiracy had been uncovered, which cast a pall over the celebration. Nevertheless, over 8000 guests attended the splendid ceremony. Because of the many threats against Maria and Alexander III, the head of the security police, General Cherevin, shortly after the coronation urged the Emperor and his family to relocate to Gatchina Palace, a more secure location 50 kilometres outside St. Petersburg.

The huge palace had 900 rooms and was built by Catherine the Great. The Romanovs heeded the advice. Maria and Alexander III lived at Gatchina for 13 years, and it was here that their five surviving children grew up.

Under heavy guard, Alexander III and Maria made periodic trips from Gatchina to the capital to take part in official events.

Maria was a universally beloved Empress. Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin wrote that Maria’s “bearing, her distinguished and forceful personality, and the intelligence which shone in her face, made her the perfect figure of a queen… She was extraordinarily well-loved in Russia, and everyone had confidence in her… and [was] a real mother to her people.

September 12, 1837: Birth of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine.

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Alexander II of Russia, Alice of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, Austro-Prussian War, German Confederation, Ludwig IV of Hesse and by Rhine, Morganatic Marriage, Nicholas II of Russia, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Ludwig IV (September 12, 1837 – March 13, 1892) was the Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, reigning from June 13, 1877 until his death. Through his own and his children’s marriages he was connected to the British Royal Family, to the Imperial House of Russia and to other reigning dynasties of Europe.

Early life

Ludwig was born at the Prinz-Karl-Palais in Darmstadt, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine in the German Confederation, the first son and child of Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine (April 23, 1809 – March 20, 1877) and Princess Elisabeth of Prussia (June 18, 1815 – March 21, 1885), granddaughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia.

Prince Charles’ older brother was Ludwig III (1806-1877), the reigning Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, who had been married to his first wife since 1833. Ludwig III’s first wife was Princess Mathilde Caroline of Bavaria, eldest daughter of King Ludwig I of Bavaria and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen (1792–1854), the daughter of Friedrich, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Their wedding was the occasion of the first-ever Oktoberfest.

The marriage of Ludwig III of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Mathilde Caroline of Bavaria, produced no children. Princess Mathilde Caroline died in 1862, and in 1868 the Grand Duke remarried, morganatically, to Magdalene Appel who was created Baroness of Hochstädten. This union also did not produce children either. Also, since the union was morganatic any children would not have had succession rights. Without legitimate children Prince Ludwig was from birth second-in-line to the grand ducal throne, after his father.

First marriage

On July 1, 1862, Ludwig married Princess Alice, a daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. On the day of the wedding, the Queen issued a royal warrant granting her new son-in-law the style of Royal Highness in the United Kingdom. The Queen also subsequently made Prince Ludwig a knight of the Order of the Garter.

Although an arranged marriage orchestrated by the bride’s father Albert, Prince Consort, the couple did have a brief period of courtship before betrothal and they wed willingly, even after the death of the Prince Consort left Queen Victoria in a protracted state of grief that cast a pall over the nuptials.

Becoming parents in less than a year following their marriage, the young royal couple found themselves strapped financially to maintain the lifestyle expected of their rank. Princess Alice’s interest in social services, scientific development, hands-on child-rearing, charity and intellectual stimulation were not shared by Ludwig, although dutiful and benevolent, was bluff in manner and conventional in his pursuits. The death of the younger of their two sons, Friedrich (Frittie), who was afflicted with hemophilia and suffered a fatal fall from a palace window before his third birthday in 1873, combined with the wearying war relief duties Alice had undertaken in 1870, evoked a crisis of spiritual faith for the princess in which her husband does not appear to have shared.

Military career

During the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Ludwig the Hessian cavalry in support of the Austrian side. The Austrians were defeated in the War, and the Hessian grand duchy was in jeopardy of being awarded as the spoils of war to victorious Prussia, which annexed some of Austria’s other allies (Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau). Hesse-Darmstadt appears to have been spared this fate only by a cession of territory and the close dynastic kinship between its ruler and the Emperor of Russia (Alexander II’s consort, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, was the sister of Hesse’s Grand Duke Ludwig III and of Prince Charles).

In the Franco-Prussian War provoked by Bismarck’s manipulation of the Ems telegram in 1870, Hesse and by Rhine this time found itself a winning ally of Prussia’s, and Prince Ludwig was credited with courageous military service, especially at the Battle of Gravelotte, which also afforded him the opportunity of mending the previous war’s grievances with the House of Hohenzollern by fighting on the same side as his brother-in-law and future emperor, Prince Friedrich of Prussia. He had good relationship with Prince Friedrich of Prussia and his wife Victoria, the Princess Royal, all of his lifetime. He also visited him on his deathbed in 1888.

Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine

In March 1877, Ludwig became heir presumptive to the Hessian throne when his father died and, less than three months later, found himself as the reigning grand duke upon the demise of his uncle, Ludwig III.

A year and a half later, however, Grand Duke Ludwig IV was stricken with diphtheria along with most of his immediate family. He recovered; but his four-year-old daughter Marie succumbed, along with his wife of 16 years. From then on, he reigned and raised his five surviving children alone. His daughter Alix married Emperor Nicholas II of Russia two years after his death in 1894.

Second marriage

The marriage of Princess Beatrice, youngest daughter of Queen Victoria was problematic. The Queen was so set against her youngest daughter marrying that she refused to discuss the possibility. Nevertheless, many suitors were put forward, including Louis Napoléon, Prince Imperial, the son of the exiled Emperor Napoleon III of France, and Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, the widower of Beatrice’s older sister Alice.

Grand Duchess Alice having died in 1878, Ludwig IV contracted a morganatic marriage on April 30, 1884 in Darmstadt (on the eve of the wedding of his eldest daughter, for which Queen Victoria and other relatives of his first wife were gathered in the Hessian capital) with Countess Alexandrine Hutten-Czapska (September 13, 1854 – May 8, 1941), daughter of Count Adam Hutten-Czapski and Countess Marianna Rzewuska.

Countess Alexandrine was the former wife of Aleksander von Kolemin, the Russian chargé d’affaires in Darmstadt. But the couple, facing objections from the Grand Duke’s in-laws, separated within a week and the marriage was annulled within three months. As a compensation, she received the title Countess von Romrod on May 13, 1884 and a financial compensation. Alexandrine later married for the third time to Basil von Bacheracht.

Death

Grand Duke Ludwig IV died on March 13, 1892, of a heart attack in the New Palace in Darmstadt and was succeeded by his son, Ernst Ludwig. After his second marriage, he was largely excluded from his first wife’s British royal family, but his funeral was attended by Victoria, the Empress Dowager of Germany, by the Dowager Duchess of Albany, and by the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, by the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, by the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augusterburg and by the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. It was not attended by his other two surviving in-laws, the Prince and Princess of Wales or by Queen Victoria due to her poor health. His remains are buried at Rosenhöhe, the mausoleum for the Grand Ducal House outside of Darmstadt

September 3, 1851: Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Queen of the Hellenes. Part I.

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Alexander II of Russia, Alexander III of Russia, Duke of Edinburgh, Felipe VI of Spain, King George I of the Hellenes, Nicholas Constantinovich of Russia, Nicholas II of Russia, Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Philip of Gr÷ce and Denmark, Poland, Queen of the Hellenes, Russian Empire

Olga Constantinovna of Russia (September 3, 1851 – June 18, 1926) was queen consort of the Hellenes as the wife of King George I. She was briefly the regent of Greece in 1920. Olga was the Grandmother of Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh and the great-great-grandmother of Spains current king, Felipe VI.

Family and early life

Olga was born at Pavlovsk Palace near Saint Petersburg and was the second child and elder daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Grand Duchess Alexandra, a former princess of Saxe-Altenburg. Through her father, Olga was a granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, a niece of Emperor Alexander II and first cousin of Emperor Alexander III.

Her childhood was spent at her father’s homes, including Pavlovsk Palace and estates in the Crimea. Her father was a younger brother of Alexander II, and her mother was considered one of the most intelligent and elegant women of the court. Olga was particularly close to her older brother, Nicholas, and was one of the few members of the imperial family to keep in touch with him after he was banished to Tashkent.

Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovich of Russia had an affair with a notorious American woman Fanny Lear. Due to his affair, he stole three valuable diamonds from the revetment of one of the most valuable family icons. He was declared insane and he was banished to Tashkent.

As a child, Olga was described as a simple and chubby little girl with a broad face and big blue eyes. Unlike her younger sister, Vera, she had a calm temperament, but she was also extremely shy. For example, when interrogated by her tutors during lessons, she burst into tears and ran from the classroom.

In 1862, Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich was appointed viceroy of Russian Poland by his brother and moved to Warsaw with his wife and children. The stay in Poland proved difficult for the Grand Duke, who was the victim of a nationalist assassination attempt the day after his arrival in the Polish capital. Although Constantine embarked on a program of liberalization and re-instated Polish as an official language, Polish nationalists agitating for reform were not appeased. Finally, an uprising in January 1863 and the radicalization of the separatists pushed the Emperor to recall his brother in August. Olga’s difficult experiences in Poland marked her profoundly.

Engagement and marriage

The 17 year old King George I of Greece visited Russia in 1863 to thank Olga’s uncle Emperor Aexander II for his support during George’s election to the throne of Greece. Whilst there, George met the then twelve-year-old Olga for the first time.

George visited Russia again in 1867 to meet with his sister Dagmar, who had married Tsarevitch Alexander (later Alexander III) the year before. He was determined to find a wife and the idea of an alliance with a Russian grand duchess, born into the Eastern Orthodox Church, appealed to him.

Olga fell in love with George, but she was nevertheless anxious and distraught at the thought of leaving Russia. Her father was initially reluctant to agree to their marriage, thinking that at the age of fifteen she was too young and, being close to his daughter, concerned by the distance between Greece and Russia.

For her part, Grand Duchess Alexandra was much more enthusiastic than her husband and, when some members of the imperial family noted the extreme youth of her daughter, she replied that Olga would not always be as young. Eventually, it was decided that Olga and George would marry when she had reached her sixteenth birthday. Meanwhile, she would continue her schoolwork until her wedding day.

Olga and George married at the chapel of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg on October 27, 1867. After five days of festivities, they spent a brief honeymoon at Ropsha, south-west of Saint Petersburg. Over the following twenty years, they had eight children:

Constantine (August 2, 1868 – January 11, 1923), who was born ten months after the marriage of his parents; he married Princess Sophia of Prussia and succeeded his father as king;

George (June 24, 1869 – November 25, 1957), High Commissioner of Crete from 1898 to 1906, married Princess Marie Bonaparte;

Alexandra (August 30, 1870 – September 24, 1891), married Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia; their children included Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, one of the assassins of Grigori Rasputin;

Nicholas (January 22, 1872 – February 8, 1938), married Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia;

Marie (March 3, 1876 – December 14, 1940), married firstly Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia and secondly Perikles Ioannidis;

Olga (April 7, 1880 – November 2, 1880);

Andrew (February 2, 1882 – December 3, 1944), he married Princess Alice of Battenberg, their children included Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; and

Christopher (August 10, 1888 – January 21, 1940), father of Prince Michael of Greece.