Which Hessian Sister was Most Like Princess Alice?

[bluetoria]

I think that this is discussed somewhere else...but it seems extremely likely, particularly since he was deprived of oxygen during his birth.
His behaviour on many occasions certainly suggests some sort of instability - exacerbated, no doubt, by the humiliation he felt because of his arm & the treatments he received from his doctors & tutors.

[Rosamund]

I see many of Alice's traits in her daughter Alix: her seriousness, high-mindedness, and moral earnestness; her religiosity; her altruism; her need to take charge. But like Bluetoria I see much more resemblance between Alix and her grandmother Victoria - I suppose in the very strength and intensity of the traits they had in common: obstinacy, unyieldingness, reclusiveness, and a recurring and rather extreme emotional dependency on male figures of authority (Victoria with Prince Albert, John Brown and the Munshee, Alix with Rasputin and Dr. Philippe).

I recognise another family parallel to the relationship between Alexandra and Rasputin.  Victoria depended on John Brown and the Munshi for her own comfort whereas Alexandra's great grandmother, the Duchess of Kent, was dependent on Sir John Conroy for the benefit of her child.  Again, as in Russia the relationship was considered to be physical by outsiders and it caused alienation from others in the family.  Conroy, like Rasputin, used a position of trust to attempt to further his own power in the country.  

[LyliaM]

I have often thought that Missy of Roumania would have made an excellent Russian Empress.  She was bright and shrewd (though not in a calculating or unkind way) and possessed the beauty, charisma, ego, and sense of theatricality necessary to the position. Now, what if she and Nicholas had fallen in love and gotten married?  Given his passivity and tendency to defer to close female authority figures (i.e. mother and wife), I imagine that Missy would have tried  to "manage" him to project him as being the powerful, autocratic but benevolent ruler that Russia required.  Since I don't think she could have succeeded in this task, nor do I think the Russian people would have accepted Missy as the one managing the country, I think she could have been a spectacularly successful Tsarina ONLY PROVIDED THAT she were married to somebody whose personal dynamism equalled her own.  

Missy's memoirs indicate that she found Alix a bit of a drag to be around.

[Louis_Charles]

There is a fascinating introduction to THE FALL OF THE ROMANOVS wherein the authors analyze the intellectual histories of Nicholas and Alexandra. They seem to feel that Nicholas is given insufficient credit for believing in himself as autocrat, which I think would have made him unsuitable as an English constitutional monarch.

I think it is one of the great tragedies of Alix's life that Queen Victoria was so old when she became Tsarina, and died before Alix became involved with the mystics and frauds that beset her after 1901. Victoria might have been the one person that could have penetrated the wall of denial Alix erected between herself, her family and the outside world.

[bluetoria]

I think it is one of the great tragedies of Alix's life that Queen Victoria was so old when she became Tsarina, and died before Alix became involved with the mystics and frauds that beset her after 1901. Victoria might have been the one person that could have penetrated the wall of denial Alix erected between herself, her family and the outside world.

What an interesting thought, Louis Charles. Do you think she might have been of great service to Alix? One thing that always strikes me, though, is how Alix's stubborn refusal to get rid of Rasputin, is an echo of her grandmother's refusal to be rid of John Brown. In both cases the entire family was against the perceived 'favourite' but there was no arguing with either Alix or Queen Victoria. I think both of them shared a dependence of their friends (Rasputin & John Brown) but also werestaunchly loyal to them - becoming more so in the face of opposition.

[LyliaM]

Louis Charles, that thought has occurred to me as well.  I am curious to what, if any, extent Queen Victoria's other children may have attempted to intervene with Alix.  The one who, in Queen Victoria's absence, would have been best equipped (in terms of both birth order and native intelligence) would have been Vicky, Empress Frederick, but unfortunately she died within a few months of Queen Victoria.  Vicky and Alice were close and I think Alix may have listened to Vicky. (Another quite unpopular monarch, and sadly for quite unjustified reasons. I think Vicky was an astonishing woman.)

[crazy_wing]

There is a fascinating introduction to THE FALL OF THE ROMANOVS wherein the authors analyze the intellectual histories of Nicholas and Alexandra. They seem to feel that Nicholas is given insufficient credit for believing in himself as autocrat, which I think would have made him unsuitable as an English constitutional monarch.

That is probably caused by the fact that his tutors believed in absolutism and passed that on to him.  Moreover, his father was an autocrat and his grandfather Alexander II, who was very liberal, was murdered brutally.  

Had he been brought up with liberal ideas, he would have been a good english king due to his honesty and uprightness.  

[crazy_wing]

Louis Charles, that thought has occurred to me as well.  I am curious to what, if any, extent Queen Victoria's other children may have attempted to intervene with Alix.  The one who, in Queen Victoria's absence, would have been best equipped (in terms of both birth order and native intelligence) would have been Vicky, Empress Frederick, but unfortunately she died within a few months of Queen Victoria.  Vicky and Alice were close and I think Alix may have listened to Vicky. (Another quite unpopular monarch, and sadly for quite unjustified reasons. I think Vicky was an astonishing woman.)

I don't think they were that close.  Alix didn't even listen to her sister Ella.  I doubt she would listen to Vicky if she had live longer.

[sailor_of_standart]

THis is going to sound stupid but is Alice Alix's mother?

[LisaDavidson]

THis is going to sound stupid but is Alice Alix's mother?

Why do you worry about sounding stupid? It's certainly not stupid to ask about something that you want to know.

In answer to your question, yes, Alice was Alix's mother. She was a younger daughter of Queen Victoria who married into the Grand Ducal House of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Unfortunately, she died young.

[sailor_of_standart]

How did she die? Hope not like her daughters?  

[JaneEyre5381]

How did she die? Hope not like her daughters?  

Hello Sailor_Of_Standardt,

Alice died of I believe diphteria (sp)  Son he caught it from her son Ernst-Ludwig.

I may be wrong, so anyone who know for sure, feel free to correct me.  I'm not at home right now to check my sources.  I apologize.

[bluetoria]

Yes, she died of diphtheria after kissing her son, Ernie, who already had the disease. She kissed him because he was so upset at the death of his little sister, May.

Alice died on 14th December 1878 - the anniversary of the death of her father...and her last words were, "Dear Papa!"  

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

Very interesting thoughts about Alix's similarity to QV in her seclusion and "inherited" dependance upon male support figures.

Regarding the relationship between being an intellectual and seeing the need for constitutional government:
It just struck me that there is a very strong dialectic component in constitutional government, in any Montesquieuesque system of separation of powers and especially in a parliamentary system, which is alltogether lacking in an absolutist system. Do you think an intellectual such as Vicky would be more able the recognize the need for (Hegelian) dialectic in government?