Was Alix of Hesse disliked by British royals?

[Robert_Hall]

I agree, Thomas, Massie was just the start.

[RealAnastasia]

Massie's book is perhaps not the best argument - written at a time when huge part of the significant personal documents were still not available for most people.

It is sad that so many people seem to judge historical figures just out of their own sympathies - or the contrary...
Most have barely read part of the immense correspondence etc...

I agree...I think we can't avoid our own sympathies toward historical characters...and of course our OWN political views.

In my case, Massie pushed me to read more and more books about the Romanovs:correspondence, memories, diaries, etc...And the result was that my understanding for Alix growed a great deal. But I must confess that my own judgement was a lot for my sympathetic views about her. Other people would find her repulsive if they judge her by their "hates" and "loves".

Well...In a nutshell I'm saying that there isn't any "objective" biography. All we can do is not to hide documentation to support our own ideas or quoting it out of context...

RealAnastasia.

[Kalafrana]

Real Anastasia

I agree. Inevitably, we are going to filter information about historical figures through our own particular set of prejudices. This is partly why some figures attract such extreme reactions.

I have to say that I am largely unsympathetic towards Alexandra. She was convinced that she was always right, she was a disaster as an Empress, and, according to my particular set of prejudices, she wasn't even a good parent, since she was quite unable to see the wood from the trees, especially where Alexei was concerned. He and Anastasia were spoilt rotten, while poor Olga was dumped on - witness the episode where Alexei caused trouble at a lunch party and Olga was the one who got into trouble for not keeping him under control (here my prejudice as an eldest with a spoilt younger brother creeps in!). I have said before, probably on this thread, that a successful ruler needs a streak of ruthlessness, and to be able to put family affection aside for the good of his monarchy. George V could do that. Nicholas and Alexandra emphatically could not. They needed to realise that there was a strong possibility that Alexei would not live long enough to succeed, and so establish good relations with the next heirs (find Mikhail a suitable wife, for starters), instead of treating them all as threats.

Ann

[CountessKate]

Well...In a nutshell I'm saying that there isn't any "objective" biography. All we can do is not to hide documentation to support our own ideas or quoting it out of context...

I believe absolutely that one must examine the evidence.  My earlier post was not to refute any question of Nicholas and Alix's love but rather to point out a discrepancy between hindsight and perception at the time, in this case that "Nicky and Alix were the worst possible combination you could think of, and I am sure that the other royals of Europe also thought so, not least of all Queen Victoria" (my italics).  Neither Queen Victoria, nor any other royal, appeared to voice this view at the time, nor did Maria Feodorovna, at least in so many words.  It is interesting, too, that biographers such as David Duff (who seems to have been followed blindly by quite a number of other authors) pictured the Balmoral visit as one where Alix was haughty and aloof, pressaging the image of her much later, and where the visit was apparently ended in a feeling of mutual relief.  In fact this was entirely untrue, as all parties who recorded the visit (Queen Victoria and two female courtiers, at least one of whom was far from uncritical) expressed their impressions of a very shy, sweet, retiring but kindly young woman who, if anything, could take a bit more interest in politics, and the only unpleasant thing bout the visit was the weather.  I am absolutely at one with the view that Nicholas and Alix's partnership did not work well for their political situation, and her dependence on Rasputin and her dislike of society and tendency to retreat into her family circle or entirely virtuous but low-profile nursing activities was disastrous at a time when the imperial family needed to appear transparently dedicated to the nation at war in a very high profile way, but on the surviving evidence it wasn't something which was spotted at the time of her engagement and marriage to Nicholas or for some years to come.  I really don't think anyone should be condemned for such offences as being "a haughty woman dressed in white serge.  She no longer smiled." (David Duff, Hessian Tapestry) when the only evidence-based statement here is that she wore white serge.  I have cited Duff extensively because his view, almost totally reliant on hindsight, is amazingly pervasive even after a great deal of new material is now available which contradicts it.

[Alixz]

I always get tired of hearing what a wonderful love Nicholas and Alexandra had.  That has absolutely nothing at all to do with whether or not either was a good ruler or consort.  I also agree that Alexandra was not a good parent as she kept her children too close and spoilt Alexei and Anastasia and allowed them to do things that a "good parent" would not have tolerated.

I also agree that she probably had an undiagnosed disorder that probably wasn't even discovered in others until much later in the 20th century.

While I know that the quotes from Empress Marie's letters to her sister were made during a time of great strife in the Russian capital and very close to the murder of Grand Duke Sergei, I commend her for taking the time to try to make the Alexander Palace a more cheerful place for those who lived there and those who were hardly ever invited to visit.  In times of strife, we should be able to depend on our friends and relatives, but Alexandra had shunned most and condemned the rest and so had no one to look to for support and/or advice.

Is it possible that many of those who wrote to glowingly of visits with Nicholas and Alexandra while they were on their 1986 tour, had yet to see (they had no precognitive vision) how bad a consort Alexandra would become. So bad that at the end, she banished her own sister for trying to help her?

In 1896, she had yet to grow into the "haughty, self absorbed, selfish" woman she would become.  By the time this had happened, visits to Russia and visits outside Russia were pretty much suspended by family quarrels and then, the 1905 revolution, and then the war.

I don't know if the British Royals disliked her.  Their true opinions will probably never be known as correspondence was destroyed and much was probably said and never put on paper.

[RealAnastasia]

Yep. I was not speaking about Alix and Nicky true love. I think this is out of question. I was speaking about Alix as an independetn human being.

But all of us will be judging her by our own political or cultural ideas. We can't avoid it.

As for British Royals, it's true. We'll never know what they REALLY thought about Alexandra.

RealAnastasia.

[Kalafrana]

There is a definite note of exasperation in Princess Marie Louise's account of Alexandra, which is unusual for Marie Louise, who was clearly a very kind-hearted person.

Ann

[CountessKate]

I don't know if the British Royals disliked her.  Their true opinions will probably never be known as correspondence was destroyed and much was probably said and never put on paper.

Well, quite a lot on paper has survived, and it shows that British royals close to Alix - Queen Victoria, a surrogate mother, and Marie Louise, ("we were inseparable, more like sisters than cousins"), and George Duke of York, first cousin of both Nicholas and Alix and great friend of Nicholas, did not demonstrate any hostility, or concerns about Alix's fitness for her position to their intimates and were supportive and kind about her engagement and marriage.  Fifty years later, Marie Louise painted an attractive picture of her cousin and loyally defended Alix's relationship with Rasputin ("It is difficult to convey what the agony of the mother must have been, seeing her adored child in such awful pain, and she would resort to any means to relieve it") and the charges of being pro-German ("she was passionately Russian.  Her one idea was to preserve the autocracy.....").  George V unquestionably turned against her, but there is no evidence that this happened before the war.  His correspondence with Queen Mary survives, and if he had written any criticism of Alix which suggests he foresaw any of what happened later, it would surely have been extracted before now.  Queen Victoria's extensive correspondence with her daughter the Empress Frederick and with Alix's sister Victoria of Battenburg survives, and shows that the Queen expressed no problems about Alix's fitness for an imperial role, and indeed would have been delighted had she accepted the Duke of Clarence's offer of marriage and become Queen-Empress of Great Britain.  The Duke of Clarence obviously liked her enough to propose marriage, and there is no evidence that either of his parents expressed concerns about this at the time (as Queen Victoria would undoubtedly have conveyed this to her correspondents).  So the historical evidence - not what we think

should

have happened if only they could see more than a decade into the future, shows that the majority of the British royals did not dislike her, and indeed, quite a few liked her very much.  Some changed their views later, some didn't. 

[Alixz]

That was my point. In from 1894 through the birth of Alexei, Alexandra did not show any of the harsher tendencies that came later. Those who expressed admiration for her and an acceptance of her in the role of Empress had not yet (at that time) seen what she would become later.

Also, true friends and confidants would not have shown (with perhaps the exception of George V) their mounting exasperation with her or their loss of confidence in her judgement. We always keep trying to make excuses for those we care about and I think that the Royal family was no different then than we are now.

Queen Victoria loved her and wanted her to accept Prince Eddy. In the role of Queen Consort, Alix would not have had the latitude that she had as Empress of Russia and there would have been no change of religion to stoke the fires of fanaticism.

She was still a carrier of hemophilia, though, but with Queen Victoria's example of how to deal (or not deal) with the disease, there would have been, in England, no Rasputin or Rasputin like figure.

I can just see Queen Victoria and King Edward VII putting up with that kind of rubbish.

[Kalafrana]

My reading of Marie Louise is that she was fond of Alexandra but there was still a note of exasperation in her description of her.

I'm not sure when Marie Louise can last have met Alexandra, but I don't think it could have been any later than 1909, when the Imperial Family visited England, and quite possibly she didn't really see much of her once they were adult. They were close as girls, but then their paths took them apart.

I also have Alice of Athlone's book, but I don't think she has much to say about Alexandra.

Ann

[Eddie_uk]

Did Marie Louise ever visit Russia? I presume not as I don't recall it in her memoirs. It is interesting that Helen Victoria did though...pity she didn't write her memoirs too!

[darius]

I think you are all being a little hard on the Empress.  She didn´t have an easy time of it and psychologically the strain must have been immense, with feelings of low self-esteem, guilt, regret...  As a mother I think she was exemplary given the standards of the time and her caste which tended to keep children somewhat secluded.  I don´t think any of us can understand what her feelings must have been regarding Alexei - the long awaited heir.  This boy was the heir to the Autocracy and 3 centuries of Romanov rule.  That she had been the cause of his condition and suffering must have put paid to any lightness of character that she may have had.  I´m not surprised she didn´t feel like going out in society with what she suffered at home.  It is unfair to judge Alexandra 100 years down the line and make a fair assesment.  The Russian empire at the time was a backward and brutal place and social mores have changed so much since then. 

[Thomas_Hesse]

I think you are all being a little hard on the Empress.  She didn´t have an easy time of it and psychologically the strain must have been immense, with feelings of low self-esteem, guilt, regret...  As a mother I think she was exemplary given the standards of the time and her caste which tended to keep children somewhat secluded.  I don´t think any of us can understand what her feelings must have been regarding Alexei - the long awaited heir.  This boy was the heir to the Autocracy and 3 centuries of Romanov rule.  That she had been the cause of his condition and suffering must have put paid to any lightness of character that she may have had.  I´m not surprised she didn´t feel like going out in society with what she suffered at home.  It is unfair to judge Alexandra 100 years down the line and make a fair assesment.  The Russian empire at the time was a backward and brutal place and social mores have changed so much since then.  

Good to read a more tranquil opinion on this - I would like to see any of the ladies posting here being in Alexandra's boots: Empress of Russia at 22 (!), mother of 5 children with uncertain fates concerning their health... it is so VERY easy to judge out of one's private home armchairs -  isn't it?!

[RealAnastasia]

I share your opinion 100%, Thomas_Hesse...But I've learn something by my own epxerience: people doesn't change their historical views easily. If TV and some old books said that Alix was a narrowed-minded woman who loves to torture Russian people and that she was not democratic only in order to destroy Russia, they would believe it. It's just "historical tradition", the worse way of taking history. If "official history" said that "X" was bad, he/she will be bad for ever, whatever new documents and evidence would say.

Other bad habit of us is to judge the past with the eyes of our own times...and of course if we use this method to analyze history, we'll made bad judgements, because people back then had not our parameters , and things that are evident for us were NOT evident for our grandparents...Of course, we must also thing that, maybe for our great-grandchildren we must be judeged as murderers or crazy people just beaucase we'll didn't have their social and cultiral ideas...

RealAnastasia.

[Belochka]

I think you are all being a little hard on the Empress.  She didn´t have an easy time of it and psychologically the strain must have been immense, with feelings of low self-esteem, guilt, regret...  As a mother I think she was exemplary given the standards of the time and her caste which tended to keep children somewhat secluded.  I don´t think any of us can understand what her feelings must have been regarding Alexei - the long awaited heir.  This boy was the heir to the Autocracy and 3 centuries of Romanov rule.  That she had been the cause of his condition and suffering must have put paid to any lightness of character that she may have had.  I´m not surprised she didn´t feel like going out in society with what she suffered at home.  It is unfair to judge Alexandra 100 years down the line and make a fair assesment.  The Russian empire at the time was a backward and brutal place and social mores have changed so much since then.  

What a sensible, well thought out comment!