Historical Wedding Weekend

 

On January 24, 1874, Prince Alfred, son of Queen Victoria, married Grand Duchess Marie, daughter of the Russian tsar, in an amazingly lavish ceremony in St Petersburg!  In my book Playing the Duke's Fiancee, I sent my characters off to Russia to attend the wedding, and absolutely loved researching the grand event!  Here's a bit about how it all went...

 

When I started writing Violet’s story, I was so excited to combine two of my old passionate interests into one book—the history of the British royal family, and nineteenth century Russia!  I also got to bring in another interest of mine, which might not really seem to fit into the 1870s—1930s screwball comedies!  I love it when strait-laced Cary Grant begins to enjoy life thanks to Katherine Hepburn or Irene Dunn, learning to have fun at last.  I also got to learn something quite new to me, Victorian photography.

 

Much like Prince Charles and Lady Diana in the 1980s, Prince Alfred (second son of Queen Victoria, a career naval officer) and Grand Duchess Marie, only daughter of Tsar Alexander II (who had many, many sons!) was the wedding of the year.  They met in 1868, but neither family approved of the match, and they didn’t marry until January1874.  It was a very lavish wedding at the Winter Palace, an Orthodox ceremony followed by an Anglican blessing, then a banquet for 700 and ball for 3000 until the early hours of the morning.  It was the sensation of the newspapers, with a Who Is Who guest list of people like the Prince and Princess of Wales, Princess Royal Vicky and her husband, Prince Arthur, and the elderly Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Coburg (who had no legitimate children so Alfred eventually was his heir).  (For more wedding details, I love the sadly now defunct blog, Order of Sartorial Splendor, whose archives are a gold mine!). 

The couple had five children, one son and four daughters (including the famous Marie of Romania), but it was not a happy union in the end.  They had little in common, and the prince was often gone on his naval assignments.  They moved often, including to Malta and Coburg, and came to be titled Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh.  Marie did not like English life, and was a Russian Orthodox grand duchess all her life.  She died in 1920 in Switzerland, long after her husband, in reduced circumstances.  I am sure Violet and William are MUCH happier in their life together!

(One quick note on the photographic exhibit Violet visits—it’s based on a famous display in 1864, a “Bazaaar for the benefit of female artists” at the Horticultural Gardens at Chiswick.  The photographers Julia Cameron, Clementina Hawarden, Lewis Carroll, and Oscar Rejlander are of course real figures, as are the royal family.)

If you’re curious about the time period, I loved these sources for further study!  And visit me at ammandamccabe.com for more info!

 

Photography

• Todd Gustavson, Camera: A History of Photography (2009)

• Alma Davenport, The History of Photography: An Overview (1991)

• Bruce Bernard, Photo Discovery: Masterworks of Photography 1840-1940 (1980)

• Victoria Olson, From Life: Julia Margaret Cameron (2003)

• Victorian Giants: The Birth of Photography (exhibition catalog)

• BEC Howarth-Loomes, Victorian Photography (1974)

 

Royalty

• Daphne Bennett, Queen Victoria’s Children (1980)

• John Van Der Kiste, Alfred: Queen Victoria’s Second Son (2013)

• Julia Baird, Victoria the Queen (2016)

• Adrian Tinniswood, Behind the Throne: A Domestic History of the British Royal Household (2018)

• Daphne Bernard, Vicky: Princess Royal of England and German Empress (1971)

• Jane Ridley, The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII (2013)

• Marie, Queen of Romania, The Story of My Life (reprint 2019)

• Richard Hough, Edward and Alexandra

 

Russia

• Stefano Papi, Jewels of the Romanovs (2010)

• Mathilde Kschenssinskaya, Dancing in Petersburg (1961)

• The Last Grand Duchess: Memoirs of Grand Duchess Olga (1964)

• Russia: Art, Royalty, and the Romanovs

• Susan McCaffray, The Winter Palace (2018)

Heroine of the Weekend--Empress Marie Feodorovna

Happy Easter, everyone!  I am taking a small break from stuffing myself with Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs (the most perfect food in the world) to take a look at another heroine, the vivacious and courageous Dowager Empress Marie of Russia (owner of the gorgeous Winter Egg).

She was born, as all fairy princesses should be, in a palace, as Princess Dagmar of Denmark, second daughter of King Christian IX (the first being the future Queen Alexandra of England, Dagmar's lifelong best friend).  The family was relatively poor as far as royal families went, but were very close to each other, and had a lighthearted time together.  Dagmar loved to swim and ride, play cards, and collect dogs.  In 1864, she became betrothed to the Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia ("Nixa") a handsome and sensitive young man, whom she sincerely loved.  Sadly, he died in April of 1865, leaving Dagmar broken-hearted.  She was comforted by letters from Nicholas's brother, Alexander, and in June 1866 she accepted his proposal.  They were married in a lavish ceremony at the Winter Palace on November 9, after she converted to Orthodoxy and was named Marie Feodorovna.  Of the wedding night, her new husband wrote, I took off my slippers and my silver embroidered robe and felt the body of my beloved next to mine... How I felt then, I do not wish to describe here. Afterwards we talked for a long time

Welcomed by her new win-laws, the new Grand Duchess quickly made herself very popular in Russia.  Pretty, outgoing, fashionable, she became a leader of Society as well as renowned for her charitable activities (especially the founding of new hospitals and orphanages, as well as patronizing the arts), she was exactly what the country wanted.  She also quickly did her foremost duty of heir-producing.  Nicholas was born in May 1868, followed by Alexander in 1869 (who died in infancy), George, Xenia, Michael, and Olga (1882).  She proved a loving if slightly commanding mother (much like her sister Alexandra).

In March 1881, tragedy struck.  Her father-in-law, Alexander II, was assassinated, leaving Marie with sharp, lifelong anxieties for her family--Our happiest and serenest times are now over. My peace and calm are gone, for now I will only ever be able to worry about Sasha.

She was crowned with her husband on May 27, 1883, in a lavish ceremony at the Kremlin, attended by over 8000 guests, including her sister, who stayed for many weeks.  After, the Imperial family moved to Gatchina, a 900-room palace a few miles outside St. Petersburg for security reasons.  Marie missed the lively city life, the balls and theaters, though her husband preferred the quieter, more spartan life of Gatchina.  Despite their different temperments, they loved each other all their marriage, and had a very successeful union.

But it wasn't one that last as long as she would have liked.  By 1894, it was clear that the formerly robust tsar was very ill,   The choice of wife by their son Nicholas also had them worried.  Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, was beautiful, but also shy, retiring, and in poor health most of the time, not strong enough for the challenges of life in Russia.  But Nicholas was in love, and reluctantly his parents agreed to the engagements.  Marie would never have much in common with her daughter-in-law, and often disapproved of her behavior, but the couple were married a week after Alexander's funeral.

Marie was still the leader of Society, since Alexandra seldom cared to take precedence, and she also often traveled abroad.  In 1906, she and her sister bought a danish villa, Hvidore, which would prove to be her last home.  In 1914, she was in England when war broke out, and rushed back to Russia.  There she threw herself into the war effort, becoming president of the Russian Red Cross and outfitting hospital trains.  In 1916, concerned about the evil effects of Rasputin on her son's family and unable to reason with him, she moved to Kiev, and it was from there that she fled to the Crimea when revolution exploded.  At first, she refused to leave Russia, sure that rumors her son was dead were not true, until her sister persuaded her to come to England.  King George sent the warship "Marlborough" to fetch his aunt, and she left with other relatives, carrying one Faberge egg with her, in 1919.

She made her home in Denmark, a leader of the Russian exiles, and always hoped her son would prove to be alive.  She still believed that when she herself died, October 13, 1928, and was buried at Roskilde Cathedral.  In 2006, her dearest wish was finally carried out, and she was reburied next to her husband in the Cathedral of Peter and Paul in St. Petersburg.

I love Marie for her energy, style, and level-headed intelligence, and also feel heartbroken for her in all the sorrow she had at the end of her life.

A great source for more about her is Coryne Hall's Little Mother of Russia: A Biography of Empress Marie Feodorovna (2006)

Happy Easter! And A New Blog Day

It's been much, much too long since I've visited this little blog of mine, and I've found lately that I really miss it (especially getting to discover and research some heroines in history).  It's a great break from deadline writing, so I am back here again, hopefully starting out with a couple posts a week, and maybe a giveaway or two in the near future.

To start out--happy Easter weekend, everyone!  I love this time of year, when the flowers start to peek out, the trees start to bud, and little girls wear their fluffy holiday dresses and white shoes (I always insisted on getting my spring clothes Easter weekend, even if it was still 40 degrees outside!).  To celebrate, here's a little look at my very favorite Easter egg of all--Faberge's Winter Egg of 1913.

From 1885 to just before 1917, the workshops of Faberge created two Imperial Easter eggs every year, one each for the tsar's mother, Dowager Empress Marie, and his wife, Empress Alexandra.  (There were a handful of non-royal eggs, as well).  Out of about 50 made, 43 are known to survive, and each one is an exquisite masterpiece.  My personal favorite is the Winter Egg, made for Empress Marie in 1913.  At the time, it was the most expensive of the eggs, costing 25,000 rubles (about $12,000); it vanished for many years, only to be bought in 2002 by the Emir of Qatar for 6.4 million pounds.

The Winter Egg was designed by Alma Pihl, the only female designer at Faberge, and was created from rock crystal fashioned to look like ice patterns, on a crystal base that appeared to be melting.  It used 1660 diamonds to create a snow-like sparkle.  The "surprise" inside the egg was a basket of flowers made of quartz on a bed of gold moss, made with 1378 more diamonds.  It's very elegant, just like the Dowager Empress herself (who is a favorite of mine!)

Here's a great overview of all the known Easter eggs.  Which is your favorite??