“Russia I could not wish for any of you,” wrote Victoria, but failed to prevent the marriage. This state of affairs alarmed Victoria, especially when her granddaughter Princess Elisabeth (Ella) of Hesse wanted to marry Alexander III’s brother, Grand Duke Sergei. The reactionary Alexander III lived under the constant threat of terrorism. In 1881, Victoria was shocked to hear that the liberal Tsar Alexander II had been assassinated by a terrorist bomb just as he was about to grant concessions to his people. England tried to avoid being dragged into the conflict. When war broke out between Russia and Turkey in 1878, the Russian marriage became a problem. She demanded to be known as ‘Imperial and Royal Highness’ and take precedence over the Queen’s daughters. The autocratic Marie did not like living in England. Image Credit: Chris Hellier / Alamy Stock Photo Prince Alfred with Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, c. In 1855, in the middle of the conflict, Nicholas died. Britain fought against Russia and Tsar Nicholas I became known as “an ogre”. Trouble was brewing between Russia and the Ottoman Empire at the time, and in 1854 the Crimean War broke out. To her surprise they got on splendidly, but Nicholas’ political discussions with the Queen’s ministers did not go so well and the good personal relations did not last. Victoria, now married to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, was not amused. In 1844, Tsar Nicholas I arrived in Britain uninvited. But the Tsar quickly summoned his heir home: there could be no question of a marriage between the Queen of England and the heir to the Russian throne. “I really am quite in love with the Grand Duke,” the twenty-year-old Queen wrote. Despite reservations about meeting him, Victoria was bowled over by the handsome Alexander during balls at Buckingham Palace. Two years later, Tsar Nicholas I sent his heir Tsarevich Alexander to England. Stories about Julie’s treatment soured Victoria’s relations with the Romanovs. Constantine was sadistic, coarse and brutal, and by 1802 Juliane had fled Russia. Juliane was 14 years old, Constantine 16. In 1795, Russia’s Catherine the Great chose the attractive Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld to make an arranged marriage with her grandson, Grand Duke Constantine. Here’s the history of Queen Victoria’s strained relationship with the Romanov tsars of Russia. Yet her empire and country would always come before family connections. What she did not envisage was that some of the Romanovs would marry into her own close family and that one of her granddaughters would occupy what she called “this thorny throne”. The personal centred on the bad treatment of Victoria’s aunt who married a Romanov.ĭuring her long reign, Victoria met all of the tsars whose sovereignty coincided with her own: Nicholas I, Alexander II, Alexander III and Nicholas II. The political centred on Britain’s historic mistrust of Russian expansion since the reign of Peter the Great, which threatened the route to India. Queen Victoria never trusted the Romanovs, and the reasons for this were both political and personal.
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