August 6, 1844: Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Part II. Marriage.

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Alfred Duke of Edinburgh, Duke of Edinburgh, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Emperors of Russia, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, Grand Duke Ludwig II of Hesse and by Rhine, Marie of Hesse and By Rhine, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Marriage

During a visit to her maternal relatives, the Princes of Battenberg, at Jugenheim in August 1868, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, then fifteen years old, met Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s second son, was a shy and handsome young man, with a career in the British navy. He was visiting his sister, Princess Alice, who was married to Maria Alexandrovna’s first cousin, Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine

Alfred’s voyage around the world with the Royal Navy kept him away, traveling for the next two years. Maria and Prince Alfred saw each other again in the summer 1871, when Emperor Alexander II and his wife visited the Battenbergs again at their schloss, Heiligenberg. The Emperor and his wife were accompanied by seventeen-year-old Maria and her two elder brothers.

Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia

Alfred also happened to be there, along with the Prince and Princess of Wales. During that summer, Maria and Alfred felt attracted to each other, spending their days walking and talking together. They had a common love of music; Alfred was an enthusiastic amateur violinist, while Maria played the piano. Although they wished to marry, no engagement was announced, and Alfred returned to England.

Their parents were against the match. Emperor Alexander II did not want to lose his daughter, to whom he was deeply attached. He presented his daughter’s youth as the main obstacle and suggested a waiting period of at least one year before any definitive decision should be taken. The Emperor also objected to a British son-in-law, due to the general anti-English feeling in Russia following the Crimean War.

The Empress regarded the British customs as peculiar and the English people as cold and unfriendly. She was convinced that her daughter would not be happy there. However, marriage negotiation began in July 1871, only to be stalled in 1872.

Queen Victoria was also against the match. No British prince had ever married a Romanov, and she foresaw problems with Maria’s Orthodox religion and Russian upbringing. The Queen considered that Russia was generally “unfriendly” towards Britain. Victoria was also suspicious about Russian moves in the direction of India.

The Queen was dismayed, therefore, when she heard that official negotiations had restarted in January 1873. There were rumors going about St Petersburg that Maria Alexandrovna had compromised herself with Prince Golitsyn, the Emperor’s aide-de-camp, and her family were anxious to see her settled.

Alfred refused to believe those rumors and he was prepared to fight to marry the woman he loved. Queen Victoria therefore swallowed her pride and said nothing. Both mothers continued to look for other partners for their children, but Alfred and Maria would not have anyone else.

Marie liked neither the Prince of Württemberg nor the Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz that were presented to her as alternatives. As the Empress failed to find a German prince acceptable for her daughter, a meeting among Alfred, the Empress and her daughter took place in Sorrento, Italy in mid April 1873.

The reunion did not go as planned because Marie came down with fever and Alfred could spend only a short time with her. That year, there was an Anglo-Russian dispute over the Afghan border. The Queen’s ministers thought that a marriage might help to ease the tension between the two countries, if only by putting the monarchs into closer contact with one another.

In June 1873, Emperor Alexander II joined his wife and daughter at Ems, and Alfred was invited to meet them at Jugenheim. Alfred arrived in early July. On July 11, he Officially asked for Maria Alexandrovna’s hand In marriage and she accepted him. He was nearly twenty-nine; she was nineteen. He sent a telegram from Germany back to his mother: “Maria and I were engaged this morning. Cannot say how happy I am. Hope your blessing rests on us.”

The Queen sent her congratulations, but confined her misgivings to her diary on July 11, 1873: “Not knowing Marie, and realizing that there may still be many difficulties, my thoughts and feelings are rather mixed.” When breaking the news to her eldest daughter, Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia, Queen Victoria simply said: “The murder is out.”

On January 23, 1874, the Duke of Edinburgh married the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, the second (and only surviving) daughter of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and his first wife Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, daughter of Ludwig II, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Wilhelmine of Baden, at the Winter Palace, St Petersburg.

To commemorate the occasion, a small English bakery made the now internationally popular Marie biscuit, with the Duchess’ name imprinted on its top. The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh made their public entry into London on March 12, The marriage, however, was not a happy one, and the bride was thought haughty by London Society.

Maria, the new Duchess of Edinburgh, was surprised to discover that she had to yield precedence to the Princess of Wales and all of Queen Victoria’s daughters and insisted on taking precedence before the Princess of Wales (the future Queen Alexandra) because she considered the Princess of Wales’s family (the Danish royal family) as inferior to her own. Queen Victoria refused this demand, yet granted her precedence immediately after the Princess of Wales. Her father gave her the then-staggering sum of £100,000 as a dowry, plus an annual allowance of £32,000.

For the first years of her marriage, Maria Alexandrovna lived in England. She neither adapted to the British court nor overcame her dislike for her adopted country. She accompanied her husband on his postings as an Admiral of the Royal Navy at Malta (1886–1889) and Devonport (1890–1893). The Duchess of Edinburgh travelled extensively through Europe. She visited her family in Russia frequently and stayed for long periods in England and Germany attending social and family events.

August 6, 1806. Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.

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Confederation of the Rhine, Emperor of the French, Emperors of Russia, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire occurred de facto on August 6, 1806, when Emperor Franz II abdicated his Imperial title and released all imperial states and officials from their oaths and obligations to the empire. Although the abdication was considered legal, the dissolution of the imperial bonds was not and several states refused to recognise the end of the empire at the time.

Although today is the date the empire was dissolved, in many ways it was a mere formality as the empire had been deteriorating since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years War. The treaty gave the numerous states within the empire autonomy, ending the empire in all but name. The Swiss Confederation, which had already established quasi-independence in 1499, as well as the Northern Netherlands, also left the Empire at this juncture. The Habsburg Emperors then began to focus on consolidating their own estates in Austria and elsewhere.

Holy Roman Empire

By the reign of Louis XIV of France in the mid 17th and early 18th centuries, France began to surpass the Holy Roman Empire as the dominant power in Europe. Also, the Habsburgs were chiefly dependent on their hereditary lands to counter the recent rise of Prussia; some of whose territories lay inside the Empire. Throughout the 18th century, the Habsburgs were embroiled in various European conflicts, such as the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Polish Succession, and the War of the Austrian Succession. The German dualism between Austria and Prussia dominated the empire’s history in the 18th century as the two states vied for supremecy over the German lands.

From 1792 onwards, revolutionary France was at war with various parts of the Empire intermittently. 1792 was also the year Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II died and was succeeded by his son as Emperor Franz II, the last Holy Roman Emperor.

Franz II (February 12, 1768 – March 2, 1835) born in Florence, the capital of Tuscany, where his father reigned as Grand Duke at the time. His parents were Emperor Leopold II (1747–1792) and his wife Maria Luisa of Spain (1745–1792), (daughter of King Carlos III of Spain, Naples and Sicily and Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony, a daughter of the newly elected Polish king Augustus III and his (ironically) Austrian wife Maria Josepha of Austria.) Though Franz had a happy childhood surrounded by his many siblings, his family knew He was likely to be a future Emperor (his uncle Emperor Joseph II had no surviving issue from either of his two marriages), and so in 1784 the young Archduke Franz was sent to the Imperial Court in Vienna to educate and prepare him for his future role.

Franz II-I, Holy Roman Emperor and Emperor of Austria

As Emperor and the leader of the large multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, Franz II felt threatened by Napoleon’s social and political reforms, which were being exported throughout Europe with the expansion of the first French Empire. Franz had a fraught relationship with France. His aunt Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI and Queen consort of France, was guillotined by the revolutionaries in 1793, at the beginning of his reign. Franz, on the whole, was indifferent to her fate (she was not close to his father, Leopold II and although Franz had met her, he had been too young at the time to have any memory of his aunt). Georges Danton attempted to negotiate with the Emperor for Marie Antoinette’s release, but Franz was unwilling to make any concessions in return.

In 1804, with the growing ambitions of Napoleon, who had himself proclaimed Emperor of the French that year, Franz, knowing the end of the Holy Roman Empire was drawing nigh, established the Austrian Empire and became Franz I, the first Emperor of Austria, ruling from 1804 to 1835. This act made him the only Doppelkaiser (double emperor) in history.For the two years between 1804 and 1806, Franz used the title and style by the Grace of God elected Roman Emperor, ever Augustus, hereditary Emperor of Austria and he was called the Emperor of both the Holy Roman Empire and Austria. He was also Apostolic King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia as Franz I.

With Napoleon’s victory over Austria at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805, the French Emperor “transformed himself from the guarantor of the Reich to the arbiter of its fate.” The subsequent Peace of Pressburg (December 26) created deliberate ambiguities in the imperial constitution. Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg were to have full sovereignty while remaining a part of the Germanic Confederation, a novel name for the Empire.

With the the signing of the Peace of Pressburg Emperor Franz II recognized the kingly titles assumed by the Electors of Bavaria and Württemberg, which foreshadowed the end of the Holy Roman Empire. At this point, he believed his position as Holy Roman Emperor to be untenable, so on August 6, 1806, he abdicated the throne, declaring the empire to be already dissolved in the same declaration. This was a political move to impair the legitimacy of the new entity, the Confederation of the Rhine, which had been created by Napoleon.

Napoleon, Emperor of the French

After the defeat of Napoleon the major European powers convened the Congress of Vienna. The objective of the Congress was to provide a long-term peace plan for Europe by settling critical issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. The goal was not simply to restore old boundaries but to resize the main powers so they could balance each other and remain at peace. The last Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, in his role as Emperor of Austria served as the first president of the German Confederation following its confirmation by the Congress in 1815.

June 17, 1901: Birth of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. Part II.

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Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Emperors of Russia, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, Princess Alix of Hesse by Rhine, Russian Empire, Russian Revolution, World War I

World War I and Russian Revolution

During World War I, Anastasia, along with her sister Maria, visited wounded soldiers at a private hospital in the grounds at Tsarskoye Selo. The two teenagers, too young to become Red Cross nurses like their mother and elder sisters, played games of checkers and billiards with the soldiers and tried to lift their spirits. Felix Dassel, who was treated at the hospital and knew Anastasia, recalled that the grand duchess had a “laugh like a squirrel”, and walked rapidly “as though she tripped along.”

In February 1917, Anastasia and her family were placed under house arrest at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo during the Russian Revolution. Nicholas II abdicated on March 15 [O.S. March 2] 1917. As the Bolsheviks approached, Alexander Kerensky of the Provisional Government had them moved to Tobolsk, Siberia. After the Bolsheviks seized majority control of Russia, Anastasia and her family were moved to the Ipatiev House, or House of Special Purpose, at Yekaterinburg.

The stress and uncertainty of captivity took their toll on Anastasia as well as her family. At Tobolsk, she and her sisters sewed jewels into their clothing in hopes of hiding them from their captors, since Alexandra had written to warn them that she, Nicholas and Maria had been searched upon arriving in Yekaterinburg, and had items confiscated. Their mother used predetermined code words “medicines” and “Sednev’s belongings” for the jewels.

However, even in the last months of her life, she found ways to enjoy herself. She and other members of the household performed plays for the enjoyment of their parents and others in the spring of 1918. Anastasia’s performance made everyone howl with laughter, according to her tutor Sydney Gibbes.
In a May 7, 1918, letter from Tobolsk to her sister Maria in Yekaterinburg, Anastasia described a moment of joy despite her sadness and loneliness and worry for the sick Alexei:

We played on the swing, that was when I roared with laughter, the fall was so wonderful! Indeed! I told the sisters about it so many times yesterday that they got quite fed up, but I could go on telling it masses of times … What weather we’ve had! One could simply shout with joy.

In his memoirs, one of the guards at the Ipatiev House, Alexander Strekotin, remembered Anastasia as “very friendly and full of fun”, while another guard said Anastasia was “a very charming devil! She was mischievous and, I think, rarely tired. She was lively, and was fond of performing comic mimes with the dogs, as though they were performing in a circus.” Yet another of the guards, however, called the youngest grand duchess “offensive and a terrorist” and complained that her occasionally provocative comments sometimes caused tension in the ranks. Anastasia and her sisters helped their maid darn stockings and assisted the cook in making bread and other kitchen chores while they were in captivity at the Ipatiev House.

In the summer, the privations of the captivity, including their closer confinement at the Ipatiev House negatively affected the family. According to some accounts, at one point Anastasia became so upset about the locked, painted windows that she opened one to look outside and get fresh air. A sentry reportedly saw her and fired, narrowly missing her. She did not try again.

My Favorite Crowns. #6: The Imperial Crown of Russia. Part II.

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Agathon Fabergé, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Emperor Paul of Russia, Emperors of Russia, Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, Empress Maria Feodorovna, Imperial Crown of Russia, Lesser Imperial Crown, October Revolution, Peter Carl Fabergé, The Duma

Part II

There was also a Lesser Imperial Crown, very similar in style and workmanship to the Great Imperial Crown, only smaller and entirely set with diamonds, made for Empress Maria Feodorovna, the consort of Paul I, that was used for the coronation of the Empress. At the coronation of Nicholas II in 1896, the smaller crown was worn by Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, as was her right as a crowned Empress.

Lesser Imperial Crown

A second identical lesser Imperial Crown was made for the young Empress Alexandra Feodorovna to wear. Dowager Empresses outranked reigning Empress Consorts at the Russian Court.
In 1900, the workshop of Peter Carl Fabergé in St. Petersburg made a replica in miniature of the Imperial Regalia (the Great Imperial Crown, the Lesser Imperial Crown, the Imperial Orb and Sceptre) out of silver, gold, diamonds, sapphires, and rubies, the whole set on a marble pedestal. The work is now in the collection of the Hermitage Museum.

Following the tradition of the Byzantine Emperors, the Tsar of Russia placed the crown upon his own head. This left no doubt that, in the Russian system, the imperial power came directly from God. The prayer of the Metropolitan, similar to that of the Patriarch of Constantinople for the Byzantine Emperor, confirmed the imperial supremacy.

Emperor Paul of Russia wearing the Imperial Crown

A few days prior to the crowning service itself, the Emperor made a processional entry into Moscow, where coronations were always held (even when the capital was in St. Petersburg). Following this, the Imperial regalia were brought from the Kremlin armory into the Tsar’s Kremlin palace, where they would accompany the new emperor on his procession to the Dormition Cathedral on the morning of his coronation. This procession commenced at the Red Porch and ended at the church doors, where the presiding prelate and other bishops blessed the Tsar and his consort with holy water and offered them the Holy Cross to kiss.

After the Emperor entered the cathedral, he and his spouse venerated the icons there and took their places on two thrones set up in the center of the cathedral. After the sovereign had recited the Nicene Creed as his profession of faith, and after an invocation of the Holy Ghost and a litany, the emperor assumed the purple chlamys, and the crown was then presented to him. He took it and placed it on his head himself, while the Metropolitan recited:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

The Metropolitan would then make the following short address:
Most God-fearing, absolute, and mighty Lord, Tsar of all the Russias, this visible and tangible adornment of thy head is an eloquent symbol that thou, as the head of the whole Russian people, art invisibly crowned by the King of kings, Christ, with a most ample blessing, seeing that He bestows upon thee entire authority over His people.

Following this, the new Emperor crowned his consort, first briefly with his own crown (by touching it momentarily to her head before putting it back on his own), then with a smaller crown of her own. Further prayers and litanies were read, then the Emperor was anointed just prior to reception of Holy Communion during the Divine Liturgy. He was invited to enter the altar area through the Royal Doors (normally reserved solely to the clergy) and partake of Communion as a priest would. Further prayers and blessings concluded the service, which was followed by a special feast held in the Kremlin’s Palace of Facets.

Russia’s last coronation was in 1896, for Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra. The last occasion on which the Great Imperial Crown was officially used was the State Opening of the Duma in 1906.

Emperor Nicholas II wearing the Imperial Crown

In 1913, Agathon Fabergé, son of Peter Carl Fabergé of the House of Fabergé, the crown jewellers, recommended that the Imperial regalia be re-catalogued and overhauled. The Emperor gave his approval and by July 1914, work on the Imperial orb and sceptre had been completed, and work was about to commence on the crowns. Rising tensions and the outbreak of the First World War put a stop to further work, and the regalia items were loaded into nine strong-boxes and sent from Saint Petersburg to Moscow for safekeeping. They were stored in the Kremlin Armoury. The crown remained there with the rest of the regalia during and after the February and October Revolutions in 1917.

In 1922, they were re-catalogued and transferred to the State Treasury. The crown and other pieces of jewellery and regalia were collected into the State Depository of Treasures, later the Diamond Fund, and discussions were carried out with French and British experts as to the possibility of selling off some of the crown jewels to raise foreign currency. The experts advised against selling such pieces as the crown, orb and sceptre, arguing that they were unlikely to attract their historic worth. Nevertheless, the crown jewels were exhibited in 1922 for two journalists of the New York Times, who later wrote:

‘Here’, says Begasheff [head of the jewellery commission], opening the box with hands that tremble ever so little despite his air of unconcern, ‘is the crown of the Emperor, 32,800 carats of diamonds.’
‘Is it heavy?’
‘No’, said one of the workmen, ‘5 pounds at most – try it,’ and placed it straight away on my head.

March 23, 1801: Assassination of Emperor Paul of Russia.

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Catherine II of Russia, Catherine the Great, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Paul of Russia, Emperor Peter III of Russia, Emperor Peter the Great, Emperors of Russia, Empress Elizabeth of Russia, Empress of Russia, Paul Petrovich of Russia

Paul I (October 1, 1754 – March 23, 1801) reigned as Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. Officially, he was the only son of Peter III and Catherine the Great, although Catherine hinted that he was fathered by her lover Sergei Saltykov.

Paul’s “father” was as Charles Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp the only child of Charles Friedrich, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (the son of Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, sister of Carl XII of Sweden) and Anna Petrovna (the elder surviving daughter of Peter the Great).

Tsarevich Paul Petrovich of Russia

Paul was born in Saint Petersburg. His nominal father, the future Emperor Peter III, was the nephew and heir apparent of the Empress Elizabeth of Russia the daughter of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia, by his second wife, Catherine I, Polish or Lithuanian peasant woman, born Marta Samuilovna Skavronskay. His mother, Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst born the daughter of a minor German prince, Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, who would later depose her own husband (Paul’s father) and reign in her own right as Catherine II, known to history as Catherine the Great.

Paul was taken almost immediately after birth from his mother by the Empress Elizabeth, whose overwhelming attention may have done him more harm than good. Some claim that his mother, Catherine, hated him and was restrained from putting him to death. Robert K. Massie is more compassionate towards Catherine; in his 2011 biography of her, he claims that once Catherine had done her duty in providing an heir to the throne, Elizabeth had no more use for her and Paul was taken from his mother at birth and allowed to see her only during very limited moments. In all events, the Russian Imperial court, first of Elizabeth and then of Catherine, was not an ideal home for a lonely, needy and often sickly boy.

Emperor Peter III and Empress Catherine II of Russia

Empress Elizabeth died in 1762, when Paul was 8 years old, and he became crown prince with the accession of his father to the throne as Peter III. However, within a matter of months, Paul’s mother engineered a coup and not only deposed her husband but, for a long time, was believed to have had him killed by her supporters. It was later found that Peter III probably died due to a fit of apoplexy when exerting himself in a dispute with Prince Feodor, one of his jailers.

In 1772, her son and heir, Paul, turned eighteen. Paul and his adviser, Panin, believed he was the rightful Emperor of Russia, as the only son of Peter III. His adviser had also taught him that the rule of women endangered good leadership, which was why he was so interested in gaining the throne. Distracting him, Catherine took trouble to find Paul a wife among the minor princesses of the Holy Roman Empire. She chose Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstad, (who acquired the Russian name “Natalia Alexeievna”), a daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and Countess Palatine Caroline of Zweibrücken.

Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstad, “Natalia Alexeievna”

The bride’s older sister, Frederika Louisa, was already married to the Crown Prince of Prussia (the future Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia). Around this time, Catherine allowed Paul to attend the Council in order that he might be trained for his work as Emperor. Wilhelmina died in childbirth on April 15, 1776, three years after the wedding.

After her daughter-in-law’s death, Catherine began work forthwith on the project of finding another wife for Paul, and on October 7, 1776, less than six months after the death of his first wife, Paul married again. The bride was the beautiful Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg, a daughter of Friedrich II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg and his wife, Princess Friederike of Brandenburg-Schwedt. Sophia Dorothea received the new Orthodox name Maria Feodorovna. Their first child, Alexander, (future Russian Emperor) was born in 1777, within a year of the wedding, and on this occasion the Empress gave Paul an estate, Pavlovsk.

Paul was of difficult character but Maria Feodorovna was completely satisfied with her fate. “My dear husband is a perfect angel and I love him to distraction” she wrote to a friend. Maria Feodorovna never changed her feelings for Paul, and despite everything that happened later, despite his difficult and often tyrannical character, she truly loved him.

Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg, Maria Feodorovna

The close relationship between Paul and Catherine Nelidova, one of Maria’s ladies-in-waiting, was the cause of the first crack in their marriage. Paul’s liaison, a deeply intense but, according to him, only platonic attachment to Nelidova, was particularly painful for Maria Feodorovna as the other woman had been her friend. Her relations with Nelidova became very bitter for several years. Later, however, she began to accept Paul’s word that it was only a friendship, and eventually Maria Feodorovna not only reconciled with the idea, but joined forces with Nelidova in an attempt to moderate Paul’s increasingly neurotic temperament.

Catherine Nelidova

Paul’s early isolation from his mother created a distance between them that later events would reinforce and from which the relationship would never recover. She never considered inviting him to share her power in governing Russia. And once Paul’s son Alexander was born, it appeared that she had found a more suitable heir. The use made of his name by the rebel Yemelyan Pugachev, who impersonated his father Peter, tended no doubt to render Paul’s position more difficult.

As Catherine grew older, she became less concerned that her son attend court functions; her attentions focused primarily on the future Emperor Alexander I. It was not until 1787 that Catherine may have in fact decided to exclude her son from succession. After Alexander and his brothers Constantine and Nicholas were born, she had them placed under her charge, just as Elizabeth had done with Paul.

Catherine suffered a stroke on November 17, 1796, and died without regaining consciousness. Paul’s first act as Emperor was to inquire about and, if possible, destroy her testament, as he feared it would exclude him from succession and leave the throne to Alexander. These fears may have contributed to Paul’s promulgation of the misogynist Pauline Laws, which established the strict principle of primogeniture in the House of Romanov, leaving the throne to the next male heir.

Paul, Emperor of Russia

Emperor Paul was idealistic and capable of great generosity, but he was also mercurial and capable of vindictiveness. In spite of doubts of his legitimacy, he greatly resembled his father, Peter III and other Romanovs as well and shared the same character. During the first year of his reign, Paul emphatically reversed many of his mother’s policies. Paul’s early foreign policy can largely be seen as reactions against his mother’s. In foreign policy, this meant that he opposed the many expansionary wars she fought and instead preferred to pursue a more peaceful, diplomatic path.

Paul’s premonitions of assassination were well-founded. His attempts to force the nobility to adopt a code of chivalry alienated many of his trusted advisors. The Emperor also discovered outrageous machinations and corruption in the Russian treasury. As he repealed Catherine’s law allowing corporal punishment of the free classes, directed reforms that resulted in greater rights for the peasantry, and provided for better treatment for serfs on agricultural estates, most of his policies were viewed as a great annoyance to the noble class and induced his enemies to work out a plan of action.

A conspiracy was organized, some months before it was executed, by Counts Peter Ludwig von der Pahlen, Nikita Petrovich Panin, and Admiral de Ribas, with the alleged support of Great Britain’s representative in Saint Petersburg, Charles Whitworth. The death of de Ribas in December 1800 delayed the assassination, but on the night of March 23, 1801, a band of dismissed officers murdered Paul in his bedroom in the newly-built St. Michael’s Castle. The assassins included General Bennigsen, a Hanoverian in the Russian service, and General Yashvil, a Georgian.

They charged into his bedroom, flushed with drink after dining together, and found Paul hiding behind some drapes in the corner. The conspirators pulled him out, forced him to the table, and tried to compel him to sign his abdication. Paul offered some resistance, and Nikolay Zubov struck him with a sword, after which the assassins strangled and trampled him to death. Paul’s successor on the Russian throne, his son, the 23-year-old Alexander, was actually in the palace at the time of the killing. General Nikolay Zubov announced his accession to the heir, accompanied by the admonition, “Time to grow up! Go and rule!” Alexander I did not punish the assassins, and the court physician, James Wylie, declared apoplexy the official cause of death.

Historians still debate Alexander’s role in his father’s murder. The most common theory is that he was let into the conspirators’ secret and was willing to take the throne but insisted that his father should not be killed. Becoming emperor through a crime that cost his father’s life would give Alexander a strong sense of remorse and shame.

On the night of her husband’s assassination, Maria Feodorovna thought to imitate the example of Catherine II and tried to claim the throne on the grounds that she had been crowned with Paul. It took Maria’s son, Alexander I, several days to persuade her to relinquish her reckless claim, for which she had no party to support her. For some time afterward, whenever her son came to visit, the Dowager Empress would place a casket between them containing the bloodstained nightshirt that Paul was wearing on the day of the murder, as a silent reproach.

Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia.

The Life of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia. Part III, Marriage.

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Cannes, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Emperors of Russia, Frederick VIII of Denmark, Grand Duchess Xenia, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, Natalia Brasova, Tsarevich Alexei

In early December 1907, Michael was introduced to Natalia Sergeyevna Wulfert, the wife of a fellow officer, and from 1908 they began a deep friendship. Natalia was a commoner who had a daughter from her first marriage. By August 1909, they were lovers, and, by November 1909, Natalia was living apart from her second husband in an apartment in Moscow paid for by Michael.

In an attempt to prevent scandal, Nicholas transferred Michael to the Chernigov Hussars at Orel, 250 miles from Moscow, but Michael travelled from there several times a month to see Natalia. Their only child, George (named after Michael’s dead brother) was born in July 1910, before her divorce from her second husband was finalised. To ensure that the child could be recognised as his, rather than Wulfert’s, Michael had the date of the divorce back-dated. Nicholas issued a decree giving the boy the surname “Brasov”, taken from Michael’s estate at Brasovo, which was a tacit acknowledgement that Michael was the father.

Natalia Brasova

In May 1911, Emperor Nicholas II permitted Natalia to move from Moscow to Brasovo and granted her the surname “Brasova.” In May 1912, Michael went to Copenhagen for the funeral of his uncle King Frederik VIII of Denmark, where he fell ill with a stomach ulcer that was to trouble him for years afterwards. After a holiday in France, where he and Natalia were trailed by the Okhrana, Michael was transferred back to Saint Petersburg to command the Chevalier Gardes. He took Natalia to the capital with him and set her up in an apartment, but she was shunned by society and, within a few months, he had moved her to a villa in Gatchina.

Marriage

In September 1912, Michael and Natalia spent a holiday abroad and, as usual, they were trailed by the Okhrana. In Berlin, Michael announced that he and Natalia would drive to Cannes and instructed his staff to follow by train. The Okhrana was under instructions to follow by train rather than car, so Michael and Natalia would be unaccompanied on their journey south. Michael’s journey was a deliberate ruse. On the way to Cannes, the couple diverted to Vienna, where they were married on October 16, 1912 by Father Misitsch at the Serbian Orthodox Church of Saint Sava.

Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia

A few days later, after travelling through Venice and Milan, they arrived at Cannes, where George and Natalia’s daughter from her first marriage joined them. Two weeks after the marriage, Michael wrote to his mother and brother to inform them. They were both horrified by Michael’s action. His mother said it was “unspeakably awful in every way”, and his brother was shocked that his brother had “broken his word … that he would not marry her.”

Emperor Nicholas II was particularly upset because his heir, Alexei, was gravely ill with haemophilia, which Michael cited as one of his reasons for marrying Natalia. Michael feared that he would become heir presumptive again on Alexei’s death and would never be able to marry Natalia. By marrying her beforehand, he would be removed from the line of succession early and preclude losing Natalia. In a series of decrees over December 1912 and January 1913, Nicholas relieved Michael of his command, banished him from Russia, froze all his assets in Russia, seized control of his estates and removed him from the Regency.

Society in Russia was shocked at the severity of Nicholas’s reprisal, but there was little sympathy for Natalia. She was not entitled to be known as Grand Duchess; she instead used the style “Madame or Countess Brasova”.[54]
For six months, they stayed in hotels in France and Switzerland without any decrease in their standard of living. They were visited by Michael’s sister Grand Duchess Xenia and cousin Grand Duke Andrew.

In July 1913, they saw Michael’s mother in London, who told Natalia “a few home truths”, according to Xenia’s diary. After another trip to continental Europe, Michael took a one-year lease on Knebworth House, a staffed and furnished stately home 20 miles north of London. Michael’s finances were stretched as he had to rely on remittances sent from Russia at Nicholas’s command, and Nicholas still controlled all his estates and assets.

On this day in history: December 4, 1878, birth of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich. Part I.

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Christian IX of Denmark, Dagmar of Denmark, Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Emperors of Russia, Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, Princess Alix of Hesse by Rhine

Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich was born in the Anitchkov Palace, St. Petersburg, the youngest son and fifth child of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna, and his wife, Maria Feodorovna (known before her marriage as Princess Dagmar of Denmark). His maternal grandparents were King Christian IX of Denmark and Louise of Hesse-Cassel.

His paternal grandmother Empress Maria Alexandrovna (known before her marriage as Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine) a daughter of Ludwig II, Grand Duke of Hesse and By Rhine and Princess Wilhelmine of Baden, died before his second birthday.

His paternal grandfather, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, was assassinated on March 1, 1881 and, as a result, Michael’s parents became Emperor and Empress of All the Russias before his third birthday. After the assassination, the new Emperor Alexander III moved his family, including Michael, to the greater safety of Gatchina Palace, which was 29 miles southwest of Saint Petersburg and surrounded by a moat.

Michael was raised in the company of his younger sister, Olga, who nicknamed him “Floppy” because he “flopped” into chairs; his elder siblings and parents called him “Misha”. Conditions in the nursery were modest, even spartan. The children slept on hard camp beds, rose at dawn, washed in cold water and ate a simple porridge for breakfast.

On November 1, 1894, Alexander III died at the untimely age of 49. Michael was almost 16 when his father fell fatally ill; the annual trip to Denmark was cancelled. Michael’s eldest brother, Nicholas, became Emperor and Michael’s childhood was effectively over.

In November 1898, he attained legal adulthood and, just eight months later, became heir presumptive to Nicholas as the middle brother, George, was killed in a motorcycle accident. George’s death and the subsequent change in the line of succession highlighted that Nicholas lacked a son. As the succession was limited to males, his three daughters were ineligible.

When Nicholas’s wife, Alexandra, became pregnant in 1900 she hoped that the child would be male. She manoeuvred to get herself declared regent for her unborn child in the event of Nicholas’s death, but the government disagreed and determined that Michael would succeed regardless of the unborn child’s gender. She was delivered of a fourth daughter the following year.

Michael was perceived as unremarkable, quiet and good-natured. He performed the usual public duties expected of an heir to the throne. In 1901, he represented Russia at the funeral of Queen Victoria and was given the Order of the Bath. The following year he was made a Knight of the Garter in King Edward VII’s coronation honours.

Michael was heir presumptive until August 12, 1904, when the birth of Tsarevich Alexei to Nicholas and Alexandra provided an heir apparent. Michael again became second-in-line to the throne, but was named as co-regent for the boy, along with Alexandra, in the event of Nicholas’s death.

Part II tomorrow.

The life of Alexandra of Oldenburg (Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna of Russia) 1838 – 1900.

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Alexandra of Oldenburg, Arranged Marriage, Catherine Chislova, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Emperors of Russia, Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievich, Russian Empire, Sister Anastasia

On Monday I posted about the life of Grand Duchess Catherine (Ekaterina) Pavlovna of Russia. This post is about her granddaughter, Alexandra of Oldenburg, who also married into the Romanov family a lead a very sad life.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna of Russia (Born Duchess Alexandra Frederica Wilhelmina of Oldenburg; June 2, 1838 – April 25, 1900) was a great-granddaughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia and the wife of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia, the elder. She was the eldest of the eight children of Duke Peter of Oldenburg and his wife Princess Therese of Nassau-Weilburg, half-sister of Sofia of Nassau, queen consort of Oscar II of Sweden. Alexandra belonged to the House of Holstein-Gottorp but grew up in Russia, where her family was closely related to the Romanov dynasty. Her father was a nephew of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia.

Princess Alexandra of Oldenburg

After Alexandra made her debut at court with a series of dinners and receptions, her parents arranged a high-status marriage for her. During a family dinner at the Anichkov Palace, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, the third son of Emperor Nicholas I and Princess Charlotte of Prussia, and also her first cousin once removed, proposed and she accepted to marry him. The engagement was announced publicly that same day, October 25, 1855.

The Russian Imperial family, in an attempt to control the Grand Duke’s excesses, he was a notorious womanizer, had propelled Grand Duke Nicholas to marry Alexandra, hoping that she would have a good influence on him. Alexandra, who had been raised in the Lutheran church, converted to the Russian Orthodox faith on January 7, 1856, and was styled as: HIH Alexandra Petrovna, Grand Duchess of Russia. The wedding took place on February 6, 1856 at Peterhof Palace and it was followed by a dinner ball at the Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace.

Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Of Russia

Alexandra was described by Anna Tyutcheva (1829-1889), a lady in waiting to Empress Maria Alexandrovna, as: “a sweet and docile creature… Although not beautiful, she is captivating with the freshness of her seventeen years of age, and also with the sincerity and kindness that shines on her face”. Tyutcheva later commented about Alexandra: “her complexion is, in fact, the only thing that’s good about her. Her facial features are rather plain and quite irregular”.

Alexandra loved her husband and her sons deeply but she felt it was also her duty to help those in need. She embraced wholeheartedly charitable work, spending her allowance on donations to schools, hospitals and other institutions. Plain and unsophisticated, Alexandra liked simplicity and preferred to dress modestly, avoiding public life. She dedicated her time to religion and to her consuming interest in medicine.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna of Russia

In spite of the differences in character and outlook, Alexandra and her husband lived in harmony for the first ten years of their married life. Initially, Grand Duke Nicholas respected and admired his wife’s interest in charities and medicine as well as her being extremely religious.

However, as time went by, Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievich grew tired of Alexandra’s increasing preoccupation with religion and began complaining of his wife’s lack of glamour and distaste for society. In 1865, the grand duke started a permanent relationship with Catherine Chislova, a dancer from the Krasnoye Selo Theater. Nicholas Nicholaievich did not attempt to hide his affair. He installed his mistress in a house visible from the study of his palace in St Petersburg. In 1868, Catherine Chislova gave birth to the first of the couple’s five illegitimate children.

Catherine Chislova

Alexandra Petrovna was deeply upset by her husband’s infidelity. She was torn between her duties, the breaking up of her marriage and the death of her sister Catherine Petrovna in 1866. By 1870, nothing was left of her marriage except the bitterness. Alexandra found solace in her two sons and her charity work while her husband divided his time between his children with Alexandra and his second family. The couple’s palace in St. Petersburg was so large that they did not have to see each other.

When the Grand Duke arranged a change of class into the gentry for his mistress and the couple’s illegitimate children, Alexandra Petrovna appealed to Alexander II to intervene, but she found her brother-in-law less than sympathetic. “You see,” he bluntly told her, “your husband is in the prime of his life, and he needs a woman with whom he can be in love. And look at yourself! See even how you dress! No man would be attracted”.

Emperor Alexander II of Russia

In 1879, determined to get rid of his wife, Grand Duke Nicholas expelled Alexandra from the Nicholas Palace, publicly accusing her of infidelity with her confessor, Vasily Lebedev. Grand Duchess Alexandra, leaving behind her jewelry, clothes and possessions, had to move to her parents’ house. The same year, Alexandra suffered a carriage accident which left her almost completely paralyzed She could move neither her legs nor her right arm. Alexandra asked her brother-in-law, Emperor Alexander II, for help. Appalled by the scandal, Alexander II was not sympathetic towards Alexandra and instead made her leave Russia indefinitely to seek medical treatment abroad. Alexander II himself paid for the trip expenses.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna of Russia

In November 1880, the Grand Duchess left for Italy with her two sons on board the naval steamer Eriklik. She was hoping to find relief for her ailments in the mild climate of Naples. Her godson Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his brother Grand Duke Paul, who were on an Italian tour, visited her for two days. In January 1881, her estranged husband, Grand Duke Nicholas, arrived unexpectedly and took both their sons with him. According to Alexandra: he “made me experience things I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy”.

Alexandra left Naples in early 1881 and sailed to Northern Greece. With the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in March 1881, Alexandra asked for help from her nephew Alexander III, who was sympathetic towards her, unlike his father. Alexander III disliked his uncle and removed him from all his posts. He also lifted Alexandra’s exile, allowing her to return to Russia.

Alexandra started a new life in Kiev. Initially, she settled at the Mariyinsky Palace, the Emperor’s residence in Kiev, in the hope that she could recover. She completely relied on religion for solace and comfort. Bound to a wheelchair, the Grand Duchess decided to stay in Kiev for good. This was convenient for her husband, who wanted to divorce her so he could marry his mistress. Alexandra vehemently refused to grant a divorce and Nicholas hoped that he could be a widower so he could remarry, as it had been the case of his brother Alexander II, who after his wife’s death married his mistress. Alexandra, in spite of her poor health, outlived both her husband and her husband’s mistress.

In the summer of 1889, she recovered the mobility of her legs. She bandaged them tightly to relieve the pain. Alexandra became a nun, as Sister Anastasia, taking Holy Orders on November 3, 1889 in Kiev, while her husband was still alive. For the rest of her life, she worked at the hospital performing nursing duties, helping contagious patents and cleaning infected wounds. She often assisted in surgeries.

Catherine Chislova died in 1889, and Grand Duke Nicholas survived his lover by only two years. When he died in the Crimea in 1891, Alexandra Petrovna did not attend the funeral. She also refused to pay homage to her dead husband when the funeral catafalque, taking his body for burial in the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg, came by train via Kiev on its route from the south.

Grand Duchess Alexandra as Sister Anastasia

The Grand Duchess remained close to her sons, who had taken her side in the family breakup. She was in the Crimea in 1898 when her daughter-in-law, Grand Duchess Militsa, gave birth to twin daughters, one of whom died shortly after birth. Alexandra took her granddaughter’s remains with her and buried the coffin in the convent cemetery in Kiev.

Afflicted with stomach cancer, Alexandra Petrovna died at Kievo Pechersky Monastery in Kiev on April 25, 1900, when she was 61. She was buried within the monastery graveyard in a plain white coffin, wearing her monastic habit. On the day of her burial, Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna attended a memorial service held in the Moscow Kremlin palace church.

In the 1950s, Alexandra’s remains were moved to the Lukianovskoe Cemetery. She was reburied in the garden at the St. Nicholas Cathedral of the Pokrov Monastery on November 2, 2009. Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna was canonized by the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on November 24, 2009 as the locally venerated Reverend Grand Duchess Anastasia of Kiev, patron saint of all divorced men and women. Today her grave in the convent garden is again tended by nuns and her works continues.

Life of Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (later Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia the Elder).

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Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Emperors of Russia, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, Maria Pavlovna the Elder, Russian Empire, Russian Revolution

Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (later Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, known as “Miechen” or “Maria Pavlovna the Elder”; May 14, 1854 – September 6, 1920) was born Marie Alexandrine Elisabeth Eleonore of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Princess Augusta Reuss of Köstritz.

A prominent hostess in St Petersburg following her marriage to the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, she was known as the grandest of the grand duchesses and had an open rivalry with her sister-in-law the Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and born Princess Dagmar of Denmark the daughter King Christian IX of Denmark and Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel.

On August 28, 1874 she married her second cousin, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia (April 22, 1847 – February 17, 1909) the third son of Alexander II of Russia (and a brother of Emperor Alexander III. She had been engaged to George Albert I, Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, but broke it off as soon as she met Vladimir. It took three more years before they were permitted to marry as she had been raised a Lutheran and refused to convert to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia

Emperor Alexander II finally agreed to let Vladimir marry her without insisting on her conversion to Orthodoxy. Upon her marriage she took the Russian name of Maria Pavlovna – the name she is best known by. Maria remained Lutheran throughout most of her marriage, but converted to Orthodoxy later in her marriage, some said to give her son Kirill a better chance at the throne. As a result of marrying the son of a Russian Emperor, she took on a new style Her Imperial Highness; the couple had four sons and one daughter.

Life in Russia

In Russia, she lived at the Vladimir Palace situated on the Palace Embankment on the Neva River. Socially ambitious, it was there that she established her reputation as being one of the best hostesses in the capital. An addiction to gambling, which saw her defy a prohibition by Nicholas II on the playing on roulette and baccarat in private homes, resulted in her temporarily being banned from Court. In 1909, her husband died and she succeeded him as president of the Academy of Fine Arts.

Her Grand Ducal court, was in the later years of the reign of her nephew, Emperor Nicholas II the most cosmopolitan and popular in the capital. The Grand Duchess was personally at odds with Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra. She wasn’t the only Romanov who feared the Empress would “be the sole ruler of Russia” after Nicholas took supreme command of the Russian armies on August 23, 1915 hoping this would lift morale.

Escape from Russia

The Grand Duchess held the distinction to be the last of the Romanovs to escape Revolutionary Russia, as well as the first to die in exile. She remained in the war-torn Caucasus with her two younger sons throughout 1917 and 1918, hoping to make her eldest son Kirill Vladimirovich the Tsar. As the Bolsheviks approached, the group finally escaped aboard a fishing boat to Anapa in 1918. Maria spent fourteen months in Anapa, refusing to join her son Boris in leaving Russia.

When opportunities for escape via Constantinople presented themselves she refused to leave for fear she would be subjected to the indignity of delousing. She finally agreed to leave when the general of the White Army warned her that his side was losing the civil war. Maria, her son Andrei, Andrei’s mistress Mathilde Kschessinska, and Andrei and Mathilde’s son Vladimir, boarded an Italian ship headed to Venice on February 13, 1920.

Nicholas II, Last Emperor of Russia

She made her way from Venice to Switzerland and then to France, where her health failed. Staying at her villa (now the Hotel La Souveraine), she died on September 6, 1920, aged 66, surrounded by her family at Contrexéville.

Her eldest surviving son, Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich, of Russia married, in 1905, his first cousin Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, daughter of Vladimir’s sister Grand Duchess Maria the Duchess of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, spouse of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Gotha (second son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom).

Other than the fact that first cousin marriages were not allowed, she was also the former wife of Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse of and By Rhine, the brother of the Empress Alexandra (born Alix of Hesse and by Rhine daughter of Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (second daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom).

Alexandra, Last Emperess of Russia.

This marriage between Cyril and Victoria Melita was not approved by Nicholas II and Cyril was stripped of his imperial titles. The treatment of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna’s son created a strife between her husband, Grand Duke Vladimir, and the Emperor. However, after several deaths in the family put Cyril third in the line of succession to the Imperial Throne, Nicholas agreed to reinstate Cyril’s Imperial titles, and the latter’s wife was acknowledged as HIH Grand Duchess Viktoria Fedorovna.

These dates in History: October 22nd…

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Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein, Charles Martel, Emperors of Russia, England, German Empress & Queen of Prussia., Ireland, October 22nd, Peter the Great, Prince of Orange, Willem IV

Today, October 22, is my birthday and these are the Royal events that occurred on this date.

1383 – King Fernando of Portugal dies without a male heir to the Portuguese throne, sparking a period of civil war and disorder.

Peter I the Great, Emperor of Russia

* 1721 – Russian Empire is proclaimed by Tsar Peter I after the Swedish defeat in the Great Northern War.

* 1727 – George II and Caroline of Ansbach were crowned King and Queen of Great Britain.

* 1923 – The royalist Leonardopoulos–Gargalidis coup d’état attempt fails in Greece, discrediting the monarchy and paving the way for the establishment of the Second Hellenic Republic.

* 1978 – Papal inauguration of Pope John Paul II.

Births

Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, The German Empress, Queen of Prussia

* 1071 – William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (d. 1126)
* 1197 – Juntoku, Japanese emperor (d. 1242).
* 1689 – John V, Portuguese king (d. 1750)
* 1701 – Maria Amalia, Holy Roman Empress (d. 1756)
* 1781 – Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France (d. 1789).
* 1858 – Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein (d. 1921)
* 1859 – Prince Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavaria (d. 1949)

Deaths

Willem IV, Prince of Orange

* 741 – Charles Martel, Duke and Prince of the Franks, Mayor of the Palace, (b. 688)
* 842 – Abo, Japanese prince (b. 792)
* 1383 – Ferdinand I of Portugal (b. 1345)
* 1751 – Willem IV, Prince of Orange (b. 1711)
* 1761 – Louis George, Margrave of Baden-Baden (b. 1702)
* 2002 – Geraldine, Queen of Albania (b. 1915)

John V, Portuguese king