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Hi all. I've decided to start this thread based on a storyline I've had kicking around for a couple of months. Technically, the POV for this is 1894, but the time line doesn't start changing until 1905 so I've placed it here. Hope everyone enjoys.

The Curious Friendship of Alexandra I and Mary R, or Imperial Russia's Hail Mary Pass

Prologue

Queen Mary's Pebbles
redirected from Prince John's Memorial

Queen Mary's Pebbles make up the path created in Norfolk, England as a memorial to Queen Mary's youngest son, Prince John. They were collected by the children of Russia in 1919 for the Empress Alexandra, who was a lifelong friend of Queen Mary. Originally, the two only wrote each other to vent about their difficulties in dealing with an often hostile aristocracy, who had preferred the far more hedonistic lifestyle under their predecessors. However, when their last children (born less than a year apart) were both born with physical ailments, the two royal women grew even closer. It is often said that without Queen Mary there would have been no Empress Alexandra.

At the time of Prince John's death, the Russian heir (the future Alexei II) was healthy, having lived under a regimen designed to keep him safe but also entertained. [citation needed] Alexandra was very upset and demanded the Russian court go into mourning. This was frustrating for the still grudging aristocracy, but the people of Russia, who had grown to love their imposing Empress in visits modeled after the King and Queen of the UK, wore black armbands for this foreign prince for several months.

Poverty was still a serious problem in Russia (though it had gotten much better after the 1905 constitution, which had turned Russia into a Westminster style parliamentary monarchy), so the first few children wanting to offer their condolences could only offer the local governors what they thought were the nicest pebbles they could find. The pebbles almost weren't passed on, but the Empress was delighted and made it known that any pebbles sent to her would be 'shipped to England to be used to create a memorial to Prince John'. In all, over seven million pebbles were collected which cost several thousand rubles to ship to the UK.

This in turn, created a problem for the British government, which would have spent far more using the pebbles than it would have without them. The pebbles sat, unused, in a pile for nearly four months before Queen Mary, and the Queen Mother Alexandra, paid to have the pebbles formed into a walkway and low wall between the Royal family's house at Sandringham and the house Prince John stayed at during the war years, Wood Farm. The Empress Alexandra came to England in 1921 for the official opening of the memorial.

from the Wikipedia article
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