King George V
Part Two, Chapter Twenty-Nine: Goodbye Lottie
In 1948, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer took several liberties with the truth for their motion picture
The Little Empress. One of these inaccuracies concerned the arrival of Princess Charlotte Louise in St Petersburg and her subsequent wedding to the Tsarevich on the 29th of November 1840. In the film, the Tsar (Basil Rathbone) forbids the Princess (Deborah Kerr) from seeing any of her visiting family because he takes an immediate dislike to her when she is cheered by crowds of shivering peasants lining the Nevsky Prospect. He locks Charlotte Louise away in a tower to prevent her from seeing her brother and sister-in-law during the pre-wedding festivities and then claims she is ill after the ceremony robbing her of a last goodbye to the King. Of course, this serves the invented narrative of the film well (Charlotte Louise eventually telling the Tsar on his deathbed that one day she shall rule Russia…) but it bears little relation to the actual events surrounding the wedding of George V’s sister to the Russian Tsarevich.
The King was determined that he wouldn’t enjoy a single second of his time in Russia. He was deliberately obstinate in delaying his preparations for the trip and kept complaining that the Tsar and his wife were “crashing old bores” who would “make the whole thing vulgar and prolonged”. The Queen on the other hand was greatly looking forward to their trip. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was in fact Louise’s cousin (Alexandra’s mother Louise was the Queen’s aunt), though the pair hadn’t actually met because Alexandra married just before Queen Louise was born. To that end, the Russian Empress had invited every Mecklenburg-Strelitz relative she had to St Petersburg and so as the King would not feel outnumbered, she extended the same generosity to the Hesse-Kassels too. Whilst the Queen said how nice that would be, the King retorted, “Oh not another family reunion Sunny, I’m worn out with them all crowding about us at every turn”. When Louise reminded him that the Empress was a relation, the King replied; "Aren't they all?". [1]
There would however be one less immediate family member for George to worry about. Princess Victoria had extended her visit to Britain following the death of her aunt Augusta to attend the Service of Thanksgiving for her cousin’s marriage. She intended to travel with the King and Queen to Russia to be present at the wedding ceremony itself but that all changed when her grandfather-in-law, King William I of the Netherlands, abdicated. It was now imperative that Victoria return to Holland as soon as possible as her father-in-law’s inauguration and the accompanying festivities were to be held on the 28th of November. But Victoria had other ideas. She insisted that she would still be going to St Petersburg for Princess Charlotte Louise’s wedding on the 29th of November and feeling that she had found just the ruse needed to get her own way, she wrote to her husband saying; “I really should be in St Petersburg and after all, Mama is the Tsar’s sister and she should be represented by someone of senior rank in the family”. The Prince of Orange wrote back a ferocious note reminding his wife that if anyone was to represent the new Queen Anna in Russia, Queen Anna herself would decide who that was to be. In actual fact, she’d already taken care of that, asking her sister Maria (Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach) to do the honours. [2]
The inauguration of King William II of the Netherlands. Victoria can be seen standing to the right hand side of Queen Anna.
In a sulk, Victoria left her return travel plans distinctly vague much to the frustration of her husband. Eventually he booked Victoria a passage for the 20th of November and told her that if she was not on board when the ship sailed, he would divorce her. This was an idle-threat on William’s part (he was prone to fits of bad temper in which he intimidated his wife with all kinds of horrible consequences when he felt she had slighted him) but when Victoria complained to her cousin King George about the situation, he sided with his cousin-in-law and admonished Drina for being “quite unreasonable and very silly”. Victoria ultimately returned to the Netherlands as arranged, though the Dutch court knew full well that she had caused unhappiness and some felt slighted that once again she seemed to put her British relatives over her duties in the Netherlands. They were further put out when Victoria left the inauguration ball early on the 28th of November complaining of a headache, yet the following morning she was seen riding out in her carriage with her ladies in waiting. In a letter to her cousin Charlotte Louise, she wished her every happiness in Russia but insensitively warned; “You must of course expect to be hated in your new country because all English princesses are in foreign courts. We are treated most unreasonably because they all know that they are mostly the muddled offspring of princelings and parvenus, whilst we are granddaughters of King George III”.
Meanwhile, another royal cousin proved himself far amenable. Prince George of Cumberland did not expect to be invited to join the King and Queen in Russia and was making arrangements to go home to Berlin. But when King George V heard this, he protested; “But then you’d miss our Christmas at Hanover House! No no, you must stay here and I will make sure you have everything you need”. So it was that Prince George ended up staying on at Buckingham Palace. This did not please the Duke of Cumberland at all however and he wrote to his sister Mary that for Prince George to be included in family events whilst the Duke and his wife were not “is so very spiteful and I am afraid poor Freddie is laid low by the whole ghastly business”. He added somewhat imperiously; “The King should not forget that I am his uncle when all is said and done and I should take precedence over my son. Neither should the Queen forget that Freddie is her aunt and so has as much right to be invited to such events as that dreadful little Underwood creature, perhaps more so”. Cumberland later claimed it was the promotion of his son in the King’s affections at the cost of his own continued exile that made his wife unwell. The Duchess of Cumberland died in June the following year aged 63. [3]
The British government were much in agreement with the sentiments of the unenthusiastic King but dreaded the forthcoming wedding for very different reasons. A particularly unkind piece had appeared in a newspaper (no doubt motivated by Russophobic opinion on the part of the editor) which said “His Majesty has now committed to a further six weeks abroad which has the unhappy consequence of making the King absent from these shores yet once again. In these last twelve months, the King has spent almost 5 of them outside of his Kingdom – yet these travels did not include a visit to Hanover, as was so controversially pointed out earlier this year – and we have to wonder whether he will ape his ancestors in making England his part-time residence, preferring the comfort of continental courts to the his many English estates”. Of course this was derided by those in the know as deeply unfair. George V extended his summer holiday to Germany only to accommodate the wishes of his government in making a trip to Normandy; likewise, it had been the Foreign Secretary who asked him to prolong his absence to represent the United Kingdom at the funeral of the King of Prussia. George was hardly in a position to refuse and as far as Russia was concerned, had the Tsar allowed two wedding ceremonies to take place the King might not have found himself obligated to head for St Petersburg in the first place.
The HMS Royal Sovereign.
Charlie Phipps was determined to nip this criticism in the bud and cleverly, he suggested that the Royal Party might prefer to travel on the
Royal Sovereign and not the
Royal George, departing from London instead of Southampton. [4] Phipps reasoned that the
Sovereign was not only bigger and more comfortable but that it had a special connection which the Russians would appreciate; at a review of the fleet in 1814 held to celebrate the Treaty of Paris, the Tsar’s predecessor and older brother Alexander I had joined the Prince Regent and the King of Prussia on board the Sovereign to lead fifteen ships of the line and thirty-one frigates out to sea. The King was impressed by this thoughtful gesture and was certain the Tsar would be too. In reality, Phipps knew the
Sovereign to be a faster vessel than the
George which would cut the King’s trip abroad in half from six weeks to just three [5]. The only problem was that there might not be enough room to accommodate everybody on board. Fortunately, circumstances intervened and the Cambridges elected not to join the King and Queen in Russia on the grounds that the Duchess was suffering from a head cold. It’s more likely they did not want to be met with gossip about their son and heir. Instead, the Duke of Cambridge sent some money to his daughter Augusta and told her to join her grandparents in Neustrelitz so that she could represent the Cambridges in St Petersburg instead. Augusta was delighted as it meant an opportunity to see her cousin Fritz (the Queen’s eldest brother) once again. The two had kept up some correspondence for some time and everybody in the family saw the prospect of wedding bells in the future.
George’s visit to Russia marked the first ever made by a reigning British sovereign but he was only to make the journey in a private capacity; this was no state visit but a personal one for an intimate family occasion, though just how intimate a ceremony that hosted 800 guests could be is perhaps left to the interpretation of the reader [6]. Whilst it was custom for a delegation from the Foreign Office to join the Sovereign whenever he travelled abroad, the King had tried to maintain the non-political nature of his sister's wedding by asking the Prime Minister if he had any objection at all to the King taking the Joint Clerk of the Privy Council William Bathurst with him instead of someone more senior. Sir James was more than content with this arrangement until news came from Egypt just days before the King and Queen were to leave for Russia; Ibrahim Ali had capitulated. Faced with an ultimatum and the loss of the defected Ottoman Fleet which proclaimed their allegiance for the Sultan once more, any hopes of his taking Constantinople had been dashed. He must now await the outcome of the London Conference the following year. [7]
Politically this was a great triumph for the Tories. They roared their approval in the Commons as the Whigs, led by Henry Labouchere on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition Lord Normanby, tried to deny just how close to a Europe-wide conflict the Great Powers had come. They were reminded in no uncertain terms that had the Whigs remained in power, Lord Palmerston would have insisted on sending gunboats whilst Sir James Graham’s government had wrestled victory from the Alis without a single shot fired. This was very much the tone the majority of the newspapers took and there was much talk of how the improved Anglo-Russian relationship had prevented a terrible crisis. Consequently, anti-Russian sentiment seemed to thaw just enough to see the odd favourable comment made in the Tsar’s favour. This would prove to be a huge relief to the King who was concerned that nobody would turn out to see his sister’s departure from St Katharine’s Dock but it was also something that saw Sir James Graham about face, wishing now to warm the Russian relationship further ahead of the all-important peace talks in February 1841. Rather than the Joint Clerk of the Privy Council, Lord Derby himself was to accompany the royal party to Russia which confused the King who remarked; “So much for this thing being kept in the family”. Also joining the royal party on their journey to St Petersburg were the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, Major Billy Smith and Charlie Phipps.
On the evening before the
Sovereign was due to set sail, the King gave a small family dinner party at Buckingham Palace for the Tsarevich and Princess Charlotte Louise. It was an incredibly simple affair, very much to the private tastes of the King and Queen. Indeed, there were no servants with the Queen ordering a simple hot and cold buffet to which those invited could help themselves. The Sussexes, Princess Mary, the Cambridges and Princess Sophia were all invited to bid their niece goodbye and there was much toasting with champagne and long drawn-out speech giving for the duration. As the guests departed, only a handful held back; Princess Mary, the Duke of Cambridge and of course the Tsarevich and Princess Charlotte Louise. Princess Mary’s farewell to her niece was particularly touching. In her diary, Queen Louise recorded how; “Poor Aunt Mary really was so very overcome which surprised us all. She kept weeping and kissing dear Lottie on the cheek and holding her hand very tightly. She said, ‘Now do not forget your silly old Aunt Mary little one’ and begged her to remember to write often. When she finally came to leave, Aunt Mary seized Sasha in her arms and kissed him too saying ‘You must bring her back to us whenever you can, you must promise you will do that’. And then she tottered away and we could hear her crying all the way!”.
The following morning, a great procession was staged from the early hours of the morning as carts were loaded up to take the King and Queen’s luggage to St Katharine’s Dock, as well as Princess Charlotte Louise’s personal possessions she had chosen from Marlborough House to take to her new home. But inside Marlborough House, there was another parting to be concluded. Charlotte Louise’s lady in waiting, childhood friend and most devoted companion Lady Anne Anson had asked if she might be spared waving the Princess off from the dockside. “I could not bear to see you grow smaller and smaller in the distance Ma’am”, she said sadly. Lady Anson had been the closest thing to a sister Charlotte Louise had, she was perhaps even closer to Anne than she was to her cousin Princess Victoria. It had been Charlotte Louise’s wish to take Lady Anne with her to Russia as a lady-in-waiting but Lady Anne’s husband saw no life for the pair in St Petersburg and besides, the Empress forbad it. “It would be quite improper for you to bring an English lady with you”, she said, “For I have taken great trouble and care to choose ladies from my own household who would be most upset if you were to favour an old friend over new acquaintances”. Lady Anson would always remain a close friend to Princess Charlotte Louise, indeed they corresponded for decades to come and the Ansons made frequent trips to Russia to visit. But for Charlotte Louise, it now became apparent that every link she had to her homeland was being removed from her; she was to travel to Russia with only her husband to support her following their marriage.
By the time the carriages carrying the King and Queen and Princess Charlotte Louise and the Tsarevich left Buckingham Palace, quite a crowd had formed which was sustained all the way to Tower Hill. It was an enthusiastic one too, though some miserly journalists suggested this was more because Londoners always enjoyed a bit of pageantry to brighten their dull working day and in no way reflected any change of heart concerning the Princess’ marriage. It was noted that some Russian emigres had joined the crowds to present Princess Charlotte Louise with a posy of flowers before she boarded the Sovereign and it was also noted that she removed the taffeta scarf keeping her hat secure so that she might use it to wave goodbye to those who had come to wish her well. “There was no public farewell in a formal sense”, the Times reported, “For His Majesty was present and will say a private goodbye to his dear sister in the grandest of settings, no doubt a more comfortable experience than it might have been had the King been forced to wave his sister off to her new home from the noisy London dockside”. Princess Charlotte Louise recalled later that she wished she had been able to see the crowds from the deck of the ship as she left but her eyes were simply too full of tears.
The
Sovereign’s route to St Petersburg took seven days across the North Sea, along the Skagerrak and Kattegat, into the Baltic Sea and across the Gulf of Finland. Empress Alexandra had sent a very detailed catalogue of what the British arrivals should expect but surely nothing could prepare them for the welcome staged on their behalf by the Tsar and his wife. A beautiful barge highly decorated was sent out to bring the party ashore, the dock teeming with people craning their necks so that they might be the first to spy their future Tsarevna [8]. It was 2 degrees below and so against the pure white of the snow that covered everything in sight in an elegant soft blanket, the colours of the Union flag and the Imperial standard were made that much brighter. A huge dais had been constructed with almost every member of the Tsar’s family waiting to receive the British party, the ladies covered in sumptuous furs with small silver boxes filled with coals hidden in their muffs to keep their gloved hands warm in the freezing temperatures – an idea supposedly imported from Manchuria. The men tried their best not to shiver in their military uniforms.
The Palace Square, Winter Palace, St Petersburg, 1840.
When the royal party arrived at the dais, the Tsar greeted the King before he greeted his own son. Kissing George on each cheek and shaking his hand, the Empress did likewise, taking Queen Louise in her arms before kissing her future daughter in law. Then the carriages arrived. The Tsarevich and Princess Charlotte Louise might be the happy couple but they were to travel in the second landau – the first was reserved for the Tsar and his wife. After them came smaller carriages for King George and Queen Louise, the rest of the Romanov clan and the court officials. Lord Derby was surprised to find himself sharing a carriage with the Tsar’s daughter the Grand Duchess Maria (Duchess of Leuchtenberg) who noticed how cold the Foreign Secretary looked and who nodded to her coachman who then produced a bottle of vodka from his coat. “Never have I welcomed the sight of strong drink as I did that day”, Derby later remarked. He would need some sustenance. Instead of being driven directly to the Winter Palace for the welcome reception, the Tsar had planned a procession around the city with his guests treated to the magnificent sights of Kazan Cathedral, the Bolshoi Theatre and St Isaac’s. It would be another hour before the British contingent found themselves in the splendour (and warmth) of the Winter Palace.
The welcome reception was quite informal by Romanov standards. The King and Queen were given a suite of rooms to use temporarily so that they might change out of their travelling clothes but they were a little unsure as to what they should wear for what appeared to be a kind of buffet-style afternoon tea. The Empress sent word to the Duchess of Buccleuch that she wanted to know what Queen Louise had decided to wear for the occasion. Sensing a French-style trick at hand, the Duchess replied, “Oh something warm and comfortable”. The reply came back; “It is only that Her Imperial Majesty wished to know whether or not the Queen was still observing half mourning for the late Princess Augusta and should like to have shown sympathy if that were the case”. The Duchess of Buccleuch was suitably admonished and when the King and Queen finally appeared in what might best be described as country estate comfortables, the Tsar took great interest in the tweed of the King’s jacket. George would later send him bolts of a similar material for Nicholas to have made up into suits.
There was of course to be much formality over the next few days but in this corner of the Winter Palace, everything was put onto the level of a family get together. The King and Queen’s extended family would not arrive until the next day but the Empress made a point of talking about her Strelitz relations to put the Queen at ease whilst the Tsar and the Tsarevich gave the King and Lord Derby a tour of one of the many picture galleries. As they wandered, the Tsar noticed that the King looked a little on edge; “Well gentlemen”, he said as if the idea had just struck him, “What say we leave the ladies for a brief moment and have a smoke”. Lord Derby would note later that he had never seen anyone light up as happily as the King did that afternoon. For someone who had dreaded his trip, the King admitted in a letter to his uncle Sussex that “The Tsar and his wife really have gone to great lengths to make us feel very welcome and most comfortable, though I do find all the excess of the place a little vulgar”.
In this, George was possibly referring to his billet for the duration of his stay in Russia. The Tsar had decided to give the Anichkov Palace, that grand 18th century imperial palace at the intersection of the Nevsky Prospect and the Fontanka River, to the Tsarevich and his bride as their St Petersburg home. It had been renovated by Alexander I some 20 years earlier when the Grand Duchess Elena vacated it but it showed no signs of age. Anichkov was grand and imposing of course but the private rooms were almost cosy. “I do not want you to think we did not want you to stay with us here”, the Empress explained as she bid the Queen farewell on the journey to Anichkov, “But I thought that it might be nice for Lotya to spend her first night in her new home with her English family. That way she will always think of you there and not so far away in London”.
At Anichkov, the King and Queen were given a small army of servants to care for them with valets and ladies’ maids on hand to provide anything Their Majesties might need. Even their breakfast trays had been carefully thought out with tea provided instead of coffee and the Empress had even ordered her Chamberlain to order “English sundries” from London with two large hampers especially brought over from Fortnum & Mason packed with jams and marmalades, gentlemen’s relish and even Scotch Eggs which the Empress assumed was some kind of breakfast food. [9] The same comforts were extended to Princess Charlotte Louise of course, though she had far more important things to worry about than what she was to eat first thing in the morning. In her suite, she was introduced to the ladies of the court set aside to help her prepare for the two important ceremonies ahead; her reception into the Orthodox Church and of course, her wedding day. But she needn’t have worried. The Empress travelled to Anichkov personally to put her at her ease and when the Princess responded in Russian, Alexandra kissed her gently whispering kindly; “Oh no my dear, they would much prefer French”. [10]
Anichkov, 1850.
The Tsar was uncertain as to whether the King and Queen would want to attend the ceremony for Charlotte Louise’s reception into the Orthodox faith, after which there was to be a “family-only” reception. “On the contrary”, the King replied, “We must see the way things are done here”. He possibly regretted the decision when a few hours later he found himself forced to stand in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace for what seemed an eternity. He didn’t understand a single word, though Grand Duke Michael stood beside the King and Queen trying helpfully to explain what was happening. The King muttered; “We brought Missy into our church within 25 minutes”. Fortunately, Princess Charlotte Louise was far more moved by the experience. Dressed in a white gown embroidered with an olive branch motif, she was anointed with chrism oil in the sign of the cross on her forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, breast, hands and feet so as to be sealed with the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Empress stood as her godmother and was the first to say out loud the name by which the Princess would now be known for the rest of her life;
Maria Georgievna. [11]
Though she was never as pious as some of her relatives (or indeed her own children), Maria Georgievna was nonetheless a sincere convert to Orthodoxy. She came to appreciate its traditions and rituals, though it was noted that she nonetheless continued to celebrate Christmas Eve on the 24th of December as she did in England as well as celebrating the occasion according to the Russian Orthodox liturgical calendar later in January. Her children were always grateful for this and indeed, her daughter the Grand Duchess Maria (later Queen of the Netherlands) recalled how for nearly a whole month her mother celebrated Christmas with parties and gift-giving well before the other Romanovs began their own festivities. Her son Grand Duke George remembered how his mother “Introduced us all very early to the traditions of an English Christmas, though none of us were ever reconciled to that horrid fruit pudding she so adored, neither did we care for English songs which we all thought sounded very ugly”.
After the reception ceremony, there was a grand luncheon held at Anichkov where the extended Hesse-Kassel and Mecklenburg-Strelitz relations had finally arrived. “Everything had an atmosphere of comfort and ease to it”, Maria Georgievna later recalled, “I was very grateful to my mother-in-law for that for she made a very difficult thing so very easy. I was allowed to take my first steps in my new homeland surrounded by those I knew and loved well and I hope my own children feel I did the same for their husbands and wives when the time came for them to marry”. For Queen Louise, the whole mood of the trip was now transformed as she could spend time with her parents and siblings. The King too enjoyed being with his Hesse relations, though he noted later that he couldn’t help but wonder if they had been invited because “the Empress still has more children to see married off yet”. That evening there was another banquet, this time to push the focus to the following day’s wedding ceremony. It was here that the Tsar and his wife presented gifts. For their new daughter-in-law, there was a large ikon of St Edward the Martyr, King of England from 975 until 978 and venerated as a Saint in both the Anglican and Orthodox churches. Lord Derby perhaps took the shine off this gift when he said, a little too loudly, “Murdered, wasn’t he?”.
Then came the other gifts in the form of orders of chivalry. Three velvet cushions were brought forward by footmen, two bearing the Order of St Catherine in the rank of a Dame Grand Cordon, awarded to Maria Georgievna and Queen Louise respectively. For King George, there was the Order of St Andrew which fortunately had been mentioned ahead of time and so the King was able to present the Tsar with the Order of the Garter in return. There were also gifts of jewellery, a diamond and ruby brooch for Queen Louise and a diamond cravat pin for the King. The other Romanov relations offered clocks, tapestry cushions and even perfumes which unsettled the King and Queen as they had no idea whether they should have brought small tokens for each of Maria Georgievna’s new in-laws. The evening was finally brought to a close not with dancing but with a speech by the Tsar in which he gave his blessing to the couple ahead of their big day.
At 11.30am on the morning of the 29th of November 1840, the Empress Alexandra departed the Winter Palace for Anichkov. By tradition, she would bring Maria Georgievna to the Grand Church to be married. It was the Empress who would place one of her many tiaras upon daughter-in-law’s head. The Imperial Jeweller also delivered a diamond necklace and matching earrings which had belonged to Catherine the Great for her to wear, though Maria indicated that she would prefer to wear her amethyst parure which her brother had given to her shortly before her departure from England. “I shall see your jewels are brought with us”, her mother-in-law said kindly, “Then when you change into your evening dress, you can put them on for us all to admire”. The bride’s dress was widely complimented by the ladies of the Russian court who dressed her and the English newspapers noted that whilst the ivory satin gown had been made in Russia, the Princess’ veil was made in England from Honiton lace and amidst the Imperial Eagles “one could clearly see the emblems of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland as well as the heraldic supporters of the Lion and the Unicorn”.
Though St Petersburg was blanketed in snow and the weather extremely cold, Maria insisted that she would not travel in a closed carriage. She wanted to be seen by the people, something the Tsar acknowledged and congratulated her for. That said, to keep her warm she had to be covered with a huge fur blanket with a second draped around her shoulders which left her feeling sweaty and hot. Fortunately there was just enough time for her to be made presentable once more before the wedding began. At 12pm precisely, the canons of the Peter and Paul Fortress rang out to announce that His Imperial Highness the Tsarevich was about to marry his bride. The Tsar and his wife led the procession with the King and Queen walking behind. Once at their place before the altar of the Grand Church of the Winter Palace, the groom arrived with his young brothers. And then, finally, in the last steps of a journey that had seemed to last forever, Princess Charlotte Louise – now Maria Georgievna – began her procession. She was followed by the older Romanov ladies, then the Tsarevich’s sisters with Princess Augusta of Cambridge leading some of the younger Hesse-Kassels and Strelitzes.
Archpriest Ivan Popov, the Imperial confessor and chief of the palace clergy, led the ceremony with the rings presented and the couple formally betrothed in front of the congregation. At the very last moment, the Tsar sent a chamberlain to whisper into King George’s ear. Though the King was not Orthodox, Nicholas felt George should have the honour of holding the nuptial crown above his sister’s head whilst Grand Duke Michael did the same for the groom. Unfazed, the King held aloft a diamond crown above Maria Georgievna’s head as the bride and groom were led around the lectern three times. With a final prayer, Alexander and Maria were finally proclaimed man and wife to the applause of all within the Grand Chapel. Queen Louise wrote of the experience; “It was so very moving and I’m afraid I wept absolute tears! Though we were all shaken out of that when suddenly every church bell in Petersburg rang out and there was gunfire from the fortress which we had not expected and which caused all of us to cry out in alarm much to the amusement of the Russians”.
Alexander and Maria Georgievna on their wedding day.
At the subsequent wedding breakfast, the King gave a speech in which he praised his sister’s beauty, elegance and charm, her courage and her determination. Though he bid her a fond farewell, this was not his real goodbye. That came much later when George and Louise prepared themselves to leave St Petersburg following the return banquet held at the Dowager Princess Baryatinskya's palace on the banks of the Neva. The Tsar complimented the King on how splendidly everything had been arranged, though there was a sting in the tail; the Empress remarked that she was glad to see Russian hospitality had not been overshadowed. This was presumably a compliment, had the banquet at the Baryatinsky Palace outshone any of the celebrations staged by the Romanovs it would have been taken as an insult. Still, the Empress' remark did not cast a pall over the proceedings and the guests went home satisfied that all due honour had been done.
At the Anichkov Palace the following morning, Queen Louise kissed her sister-in-law goodbye and wished her well; “When the baby is born, you must both come to England”, she said gaily, “I won’t take no for answer!”. With a knowing nod, Sasha led Louise out of the room leaving George and his sister alone together. An awkward silence filled the room. Neither knew what to say.
“You look happy”, George said eventually, holding Maria’s hands in his, “And I am so very proud of you.”
“If I am happy it is because you made it so”
“Oh I doubt that”, the King grinned, “I haven’t been very co-operative in all this. But I…I didn’t want to lose you Lottie. I’ve never wanted to lose you”
Maria began to weep. She held her brother close and whispered in his ear; “You will never lose me Georgie. I’m always with you. Remember that”
Now it was the King’s turn to cry. He smoothed down his coat and tried to ignore the tears falling from his eyes.
“Now you listen to everything Sasha tells you”, he said, his voice breaking with emotion, “And you’ll visit us soon so it won’t be too long before we’re back together again. And I want a letter every day, no excuses now, what?”.
The King made to leave. Just as he reached the door, he turned back to look at his sister. She did look happy. And then George raced forward, throwing his arms about his sister and kissing her cheek.
“I love you Lottie, so very much”, he said, “And I shall love Sasha and your children, I shall love every happiness you know, I shall love every memory you make here. But I shall still love you as if it were just us. We will always be our father's children.”
“How proud he would be”, Lottie nodded through sobs, “How very proud”.
George wiped his eyes. He slowly made toward the door. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t bear to. Just on the other side was the Queen. She held out her hand to her husband and kissed him.
“Let’s go home Georgie”, she said softly, “Let’s go home and meet our baby”.
[1] I had to include this as it always fascinates me as to how members of Royal Families seem far less concerned about their genealogy than we are. In the Duke of Kent's recent memoirs, he mentions his Russian relations ("But I'm not sure how they fit in"). Ah that we should all have such grandmothers...
[2] This is very Victoria. She didn't care so much for whether or not she
should be present for grand occasions but rather based her decision to attend on whether she
wanted to be present. There's a story about a military review in Aldershot in 1867 which she refused to attend because she was still in mourning. After being told that meant the Princess of Wales would have to go (Victoria already being tired of Alexandra's popularity), she claimed she'd always intended to go to Aldershot and that her mourning must come second to her duty. That was all well and good until the Emperor Maximilian got shot and Victoria found a good excuse to cancel the whole thing.
[3] But not in Hanover of course where (in TTL), she was never Queen consort.
[4] At this time, the British Royal Family had access to three royal yachts still in service from the reign of King George III.
Sovereign was the largest.
[5] I've had to use a calculator to work out how long the journey would have taken. The
Sovereign being capable of 10-12 knots, the nearest I can approximate from the Port of London to St Petersburg is 7 days. But I stand to be corrected here as nautical speeds are not my speciality!
[6] It's widely reported that the first visit made by a reigning British sovereign to Russia was the state visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1994. However, Edward VII made a state visit to Russia in 1908 and I believe he had paid a private visit to Russia before then after his accession. From my records, I believe George's visit here
is the first visit made but again, I'm happy to be corrected if someone has other statistics.
[7] A knock on effect from our earlier butterflies where the Oriental Crisis is concerned.
[8] Originally a title for the daughters of the Tsar, by the time Alexander II married Marie of Hesse and by Rhine in the OTL, it had come to be used for the wife of the Tsarevich.
[9] Fortnums had been in business for well over 100 years by this time and boasted the Tsar of Russia among the ranks of their grandest patrons.
[10] The language of the Russian Court was French, Russian was only really spoken in private with German following a close second.
[11] And we'll call her Maria from now on.
Notes
Better late than never! This chapter is a little longer than usual as I have a busy weekend ahead so the next might not be till Monday or Tuesday.
Sadly, this is where we leave Charlotte Louise for a while. With these sorts of marriages, it's hard to go into too much detail without derailing our main focus which is of course King George. As with Princess Victoria, I'll try to drop in little updates here and there and Maria Georgievna will make return visits to England. I'll also try to make sure her children get a mention as they arrive too. But certainly for a little while, she's relegated to a B character rather than an A character.
Many thanks for reading!