GDss Marie and Louis "Dickie" Mountbatten

However, Lord Mountbatten's wife was Edwina Ashley, not Marina.

Though I do think the idea of Louis loving Maria for the rest of his life is sweet, I don't know if they would have had a happy marriage. What feelings did Maria have for Louis if any? I don't dislike Louis Mountbatten, I actually feel he and his father were kind of mistreated by the royals and upper classes of England; but Louis appears to be quite ambitious for someone like Maria. In my dream world where the family wasn't murdered, I do see young Louis and young Maria together, but don't know about Louis circa 1940s.

Marie definitely wanted the life of a military wife & mother very much like the life her Aunt Victoria Milford Haven lived. Romanov money would have made this more possible.

We have to bear in mind that Marie and Mountbatten were first cousins, so the Orthodox Church would not have married them. I know of nothing to suggest that Mountbatten was all that religious, but would Marie have been prepared to abandon Orthodoxy?

Ann

We have to bear in mind that Marie and Mountbatten were first cousins, so the Orthodox Church would not have married them. I know of nothing to suggest that Mountbatten was all that religious, but would Marie have been prepared to abandon Orthodoxy?

Ann

That's true. Even if Maria had abandoned Orthodoxy and all, in her country she would have always been seen as a sinner or something like this.
Remember this (much more important than Nicholas' refusal to give the permission) was the reason why Kirill & Ducky's marriage was considered morganatic. They were FIRST COURSINS!

We have to bear in mind that Marie and Mountbatten were first cousins, so the Orthodox Church would not have married them. I know of nothing to suggest that Mountbatten was all that religious, but would Marie have been prepared to abandon Orthodoxy?

Ann

That's true. Even if Maria had abandoned Orthodoxy and all, in her country she would have always been seen as a sinner or something like this.
Remember this (much more important than Nicholas' refusal to give the permission) was the reason why Kirill & Ducky's marriage was considered morganatic. They were FIRST COURSINS!

Sunny, this is incorrect. Morganatic marriages were/are marriages of social unequals whereby the children of such marriages did not obtain the ranks of their fathers. Kirill and Ducky's marriage was never considered morganatic by anyone! They were social equals, both being the offspring of cadet branches of major Imperial houses.

As I have pointed out before, the Orthodox Church's objection to cousin marriages does not take into account degrees of cousinhood, so technically, all the Romanov marriages from Catherine the Great on were "sinful" by your reckoning but no one stopped them from happening, least of all the Church. Vladimir and Miechen's marriage was a cousin marriage, as both were descendants of Emperor Paul, as were Elizabeth of Saxe Altenburg and KR, Nicholas and Alexandra were second cousins, both being descendants of Wilhelmine of Baden.

There is also a completely different distinction between a morganatic marriage, in which the children do not enjoy succession rights, but is still a legal marriage, and extralegal marriages such as you describe where the church forbids the marriage (and presumably forces the couple to marry in another faith). The Emperor was on thin ice legally, and knew it precisely for the opposite reasons you cite, in "forbidding" the marriage. First, Kirill and Ducky were socially equal, so he could not forbid them to marry based on social equality. Second, like Michael and Natasha, they married in the Orthodox Church, so religiously, the marriages were ecclesiastically valid and could not be annulled by the Russian Church just because the Tsar didn't like them. Third, the penalties left to the Emperor came down to taking away their money and their military ranks. He tried taking away Kirill's title but had to reverse himself because it violated the Fundamental Law. Note he didn't bother doing this when Misha married against his wishes

I understand, Sunny, that 1st cousin marriages upset you, but they happened with great regularity in Europe, especially before the 20th century. You are certainly entitled to your opinions, but I must ask that you not muddy the facts of marital law with this opinion. Yes, K & D were 1st cousins as were GD Maria Nicholievna & Louis Mountbatten, that is correct. But technically all the latter Romanov dynastic marriages were cousin marriages and all were allowed by the church.

I understand, Sunny, that 1st cousin marriages upset you, but they happened with great regularity in Europe, especially before the 20th century. You are certainly entitled to your opinions, but I must ask that you not muddy the facts of marital law with this opinion. Yes, K & D were 1st cousins as were GD Maria Nicholievna & Louis Mountbatten, that is correct. But technically all the latter Romanov dynastic marriages were cousin marriages and all were allowed by the church.

To be honest, no, it does not upset me; where i live it's common also nowadays.
Anyway, thanks for correcting the differenc from morganatic! My ideas were quite confused.

Of course i intented that only FIRST COUSIN marriage is not allowed in Orthodox Church, not "cousin marriage" in general. If i expressed myself incorrectly, i'm sorry, I wasn't aware. AF and Nicholas were second cousin, if i remember well, which is different from FIRST cousin. So, in the end, cousiins could marry if not FIRST cousin, is it this way?

I understand, Sunny, that 1st cousin marriages upset you, but they happened with great regularity in Europe, especially before the 20th century. You are certainly entitled to your opinions, but I must ask that you not muddy the facts of marital law with this opinion. Yes, K & D were 1st cousins as were GD Maria Nicholievna & Louis Mountbatten, that is correct. But technically all the latter Romanov dynastic marriages were cousin marriages and all were allowed by the church.

To be honest, no, it does not upset me; where i live it's common also nowadays.
Anyway, thanks for correcting the differenc from morganatic! My ideas were quite confused.

Of course i intented that only FIRST COUSIN marriage is not allowed in Orthodox Church, not "cousin marriage" in general. If i expressed myself incorrectly, i'm sorry, I wasn't aware. AF and Nicholas were second cousin, if i remember well, which is different from FIRST cousin. So, in the end, cousiins could marry if not FIRST cousin, is it this way?

Thank you for the clarrification. I am not an Orthodox Christian, but my research indicates (and I have never found anything contrary to this) that the Church does not make distinctions between 1st and 2nd cousins. So, while there is apparently0

(to finish comments from yesterday):

The prohibition against cousin marriages is apparently something that is a rule in the Orthodox Church but my impression is, it is one that was not followed in Imperial Russia by dynasts. This is perhaps analogous to the rule against contraception in the Roman Catholic Church - a rule but one that is not followed. Or Sunny may be right in that it was selectively followed as to 1st cousins only.

I also owe Sunny an apology in that I personalized some of her comments which were not in fact her personal opinion. I drew this conclusion because she capitalized "1st cousin" but per her follow up clearly shows this is not the case (that she personally objects to cousin marriages).

As I understand it, the Orthodox Churches prohibit first cousin marriages, but not the marriages of other cousins. The marriage between Kirill and Victoria Melita took place in a Lutheran Church and was retrospectively recognised by a reluctant Nicholas, so doesn't constitute an exception in my view. I can't think of any other first cousin marriages among Romanov dynasts, although they were common enough among other royal families (Victoria and Albert, Franz Josef and Elizabeth, Heinrich of Prussia and Irene of Hesse etc etc).

Ann

I also owe Sunny an apology in that I personalized some of her comments which were not in fact her personal opinion. I drew this conclusion because she capitalized "1st cousin" but per her follow up clearly shows this is not the case (that she personally objects to cousin marriages).

No problem at all, it was just a misunderstanding!

As I understand it, the Orthodox Churches prohibit first cousin marriages, but not the marriages of other cousins. The marriage between Kirill and Victoria Melita took place in a Lutheran Church and was retrospectively recognised by a reluctant Nicholas, so doesn't constitute an exception in my view. I can't think of any other first cousin marriages among Romanov dynasts, although they were common enough among other royal families (Victoria and Albert, Franz Josef and Elizabeth, Heinrich of Prussia and Irene of Hesse etc etc).

Ann

Thanks Ann i thought Ducky&Kirill were married in Orthodox Church! I apologize for my ignorance in my previous posts about it.
I'm sure there were 1st cousin marriages among Europe, as i said it's pretty common also nowadays where I live, i was just poiting put that Orthodox Church doesn't allow 1st cousin marriages. On the contrary, Lutheran & Catholic Church allow them (so that's why Victoria & Albert - Lutheran - and Franz Joseph and Sisi - Catholic - could marry).
But I'm not a Orthodox myself, so I could have been wrong!

My maternal grandparents - Church of England - were first cousins. I'm not aware of any religious issue over it, but they kept the closeness of their relationship secret even from their own children! Obviously they had encountered some opposition.

Ann

http://www.riuo.org/RussianImperialSuccession/russianimperialsuccession.html

The article above is a well considered discussion of the Succession to the Imperial House. I won't try to dilute it, but in essence:

1. It is correct that the marriage of Kirill and Ducky was performed in the Lutheran Church.
2. The Emperor Nicholas II recognized the marriage and subsequently approved it after the fact. He had the discretion to do this under the Law of the Russian Empire.

I think the thing you have to remember is that GD Marie was Lord Mountbatten's FIRST love, from his official biography this is acknowledged as his first serious romantic attachment. He was by all accounts extremely anxious for GD Marie after the revolution broke out and devastated by her subsequent death. Its true to say that even if it doesn't last or never develops beyond an 'infatuation' the first time or rather the first person you fall in love with can never be forgotten.

Personally I don't see how that reflects on his marriage. GD Marie had died before he even met Edwina Ashley, whom he married, had children and spent the rest of his life with. Therefore of course it was she and not GD Marie that was 'the love of his life'.

But the fact that he kept Marie's picture by his bedside throughout his life (he and his wife did not share a bedroom as was the custom for upper class couples and not an indication of the state of their marriage (Nicholas and Alexandra being a notable exception of course) does rather prove that the attachment was a lasting one and much more than just a childhood crush.

I think it also gives a tangible glimpse of what GD Marie was like. In a BBC documentary Lord Mountbatten describes how extraordinarily attractive the four GD's were, in his words '' much more than their photographs show''. Marie as the 'middle' sister we know often felt overlooked but not so by Louis, to him she was the special one and even as an elderly, battle weary statesman he was still rather 'bashful' when describing her. I don't think we should try to take that away from either of them.

Very nicely put!