King, Kaiser, Tsar

The Late Queens’ grandfather, King
George V, was a grandson of Queen Victoria, and King George V had two first cousins of whom he disapproved - The German Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Russian Tsar Nikolai (Nicholas) II.

Both of them were grandsons of Queen Victoria.

The funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II took place on Monday 19 September 2022. Heads of State and assorted Royalty attended in London.

China sent their Deputy Premier. The Ambassador of Thailand stood in for King Rama X of whom King Charles III did not approve. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, President of the Russian Federation, did not receive an invitation because of the war in Ukraine which had earned him international pariah status. The Queen’s grandfather did not approve of his cousins Tsar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm II but they attended his Coronation in 1910. Less than ten years later, both had gone: Wilhelm went into exile and Nikolai was shot in a cellar along with his entire family. That year, 1918, saw the abdication of the last Emperor of Austria and the last Sultan of Turkey. A wit observed that there would soon be only five kings in Europe - the four in a pack of cards and George V.

A Tale of Two Sisters

Princess Alexandra of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1844 - 1925), daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark, married Victoria and Albert’s son Edward who became King Edward VIII. She took the title Queen Alexandra and was the mother of King George V.

Princess Marie Sophie Frederikke Dagmar of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1847 - 1928) daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark, married the son of Tsar Alexander II who became Alexander III. She was mother of Tsar Nicholas II. Her Imperial Title was Tsarina (or Empress) Maria Fyodorovna Romanova.

So, the family connections are that Dagmar (Maria Fyodorovna) was sister of Queen Alexandra and aunt of George V. Her son Nikolai (Nicholas), the last Tsar of Russia, married another of Queen Victoria’s grandchildren - Alexandra daughter of Princess Alice of By Hesse and By Rhine. This was the Alexandra who was shot in a cellar along with her husband and children in 1918.

However, despite the bloodbath of Romanovs, quite a few of the family survived; among them were Dagmar (Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna), the Tsar’s mother, and her daughter Grand Duchess Ksenia (Xenia) Aleksandrovna (1875-1960) who was the youngest sister of Tsar Nicholas. They escaped to Crimea during the Russian Civil War.

Dowager Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom told her son George V to get her sister and her niece out of there. King George sent a warship to rescue them. Dowager Empress Dagmar (Maria Fyodorovna) returned to Denmark but Xenia remained in Windsor where she was granted a pension and the grace and favour home of Frogmore Cottage - later to be taken by Harry and Meghan. She spent the rest of her life at Windsor and at Hampton Court Palace.

Queen Elizabeth knew the Grand Duchess Xenia well. Xenia had children from an early marriage and the Romanov claim to the Russian throne descends through her.