Was Alix of Hesse disliked by British royals?

[Eddie_uk]

Did Alexandra feel sorry for herself?? With such a strong religious conviction I would have thought that Alexandra would have believed her sons disease to be gods will & taken it on the chin!

[Robert_Hall]

I think she felt guilt, which  would be natural in this case, but sorrowful ?

[Alixz]

That is one of the contradictions of Alexandra. She had strong religious convictions, but still kept trying to find someone who could "heal" or control Alexei's illness.

Instead of saying "God's will", she continued to look for anyone who could change what was. Actually begging God to listen to her.

And is "feeling sorry" for one's self the same as sorrowful?

[historyfan]

That is one of the contradictions of Alexandra. She had strong religious convictions, but still kept trying to find someone who could "heal" or control Alexei's illness.

Instead of saying "God's will", she continued to look for anyone who could change what was. Actually begging God to listen to her.

And is "feeling sorry" for one's self the same as sorrowful?

Is that not a normal reaction for a mother of a seriously ill child? She didn't seek help for herself (interpret that however you will!) but she did for her son.

[Kalafrana]

I don't think all parents of seriously ill children necessarily react in the same way.

Victoria of Prussia's treatment of Wilhelm verged on the brutal. The parallel with Alexei isn't exact because the withered arm wasn't going to kill him.

Not all parents of seriously ill children put all their trust in dubious faith healers.

Ann

[feodorovna]

I think it likely that Alexandra believed that her son's illness was God's punishment of her. I believe that in her isolation following the deaths of her mother and sister she felt herself to be in some way, responsible, in the way children do unless things are explained very carefully to them. I imagine this guilt was to big to discuss with anyone, so would have remained with her and may have been why she found it so hard to convert-the risk of yet again offending God-and when she finally did, why she threw herself into it totally, almost as if, by so doing, she could win God's approval and persuade him to cure her son. I think if there were moments of self pity, they were followed swiftly by feelings of guilt, which in turn would have led to deeper religious fervour. Ad infinitum. It becomes ever more difficult to recall that, as a child, she earned herself the nickmane "Sunny" because that's how she was seen to be.

[darius]

That is one of the contradictions of Alexandra. She had strong religious convictions, but still kept trying to find someone who could "heal" or control Alexei's illness.

Instead of saying "God's will", she continued to look for anyone who could change what was. Actually begging God to listen to her.

And is "feeling sorry" for one's self the same as sorrowful?

Many very religious people believe in faith healing and that the illness was sent to test them and that through prayer and holy intercession they may find a cure.  I see no contradiction other than those which normally arise when taking into consideration the minefield of faith and religion.

[historyfan]

I don't think all parents of seriously ill children necessarily react in the same way.

Victoria of Prussia's treatment of Wilhelm verged on the brutal. The parallel with Alexei isn't exact because the withered arm wasn't going to kill him.

Not all parents of seriously ill children put all their trust in dubious faith healers.

Ann

No, I understand that. That's not exactly what I meant. I meant, the need to seek help for the child, as opposed to feeling sorry for oneself.

[Alixz]

And what a minefield it it.  I have always wondered how it is that both sides in a war think that "God" is on their side.

To bring a very flimsy example.  Everyone here in New England was divided over the recent football game where the Broncos played the New England Patriots. Both sides thought that they could pray to "God" to win even the quarterback of the now defeated Broncos, Tim Tebow was seen kneeling in prayer on the field before the game.

Is it possible that "God" is on both sides all the time? Not just in football, but in war and in the fatal illness of a child?  Why would a "just" God punish the child for the sins of the mother? If that mother even has any sins, as Alexandra thought she had and some here say that she might have had?  That seems to be a little over the top even for a "just" God. Give Alexei hemophilia because Alix just might have sinned in her past?  Yikes!

I myself have pondered this very question when considering the illnesses of children whose parents feel that they have somehow offended their "God" and so they deserve punishment through the illness of an innocent child.

I can't pretend to know if Alix felt she was in any way responsible for the deaths of her mother and May.  If so, then how much more guilty was Ernst as Alice kissed him and then came down with diphtheria herself?

Life is a "crap shoot". 

But the topic is still "Was Alix disliked by the British Royal Family" or others she was either related to by birth or by marriage, not how we here feel about her.

I am just as guilty as anyone for taking the thread off topic and, again, I apologize.

[Helen]

I always tend to forget, as Alexandra may have, that Alexei was NOT the only hemophiliac child, grandchild or great grandchild of Queen Victoria.

I very much doubt that Alexandra 'forgot' this. How could she have forgotten? She and her siblings had had a brother who had died from haemophilia and who was more than a name - he was missed in the family, like May was missed, too ; she and her siblings had had to consult doctors to get information on inter-family marriages and the risk of the disease; her favorite uncle had died from haemophilia; and her sister Irene had two sons who had haemophilia, one of whom died as an infant. Alexandra, Irene and their relatives faced the disease and its various consequences for their family again and again, as a painful reality in every day life.

Perhaps more than Irene or Ena ... I wonder if those other women with hemophiliac sons got tired of Alexandra's attitude of martyrdom.

I wonder, was Ena ever a witness of this alleged 'attitude of martyrdom'? How often did they meet after Alexei had been born?

We might also bear in mind that in some ways Ena was under an even greater imperative to produce healthy sons, ... I can't help thinking that the adjective some of Alexandra's relations might have used of her was 'tiresome' - her air of martyrdom, her self-righteousness and obsession with her children.

If this applies to anyone at all, it probably does not apply to Ena. Ena was barely 7 years old, when Alexandra moved to Russia, so they probably did not know each other well at all by the end of 1894, and they did not see much of each other after 1894 either.

[Janet Ashton]

Just finished reading 'The German Woman', from which lots of interesting issues emerge (must remember that it is a novel!). One suggestion which emerges is that Alexandra seemed to think that her situation with Alexei was uniquely bad, in that the other mothers of haemophiliacs all had at least one healthy son.

Do I say this? It's been such a while since I wrote it - or even proofed it - that I don't remember quite what I impute to my fictional Alexandra. I tried to keep most of what I wrote within the bounds of what the evidence suggests, but because it's a novel and is designed to evoke the reader's sympathy for her I did try to explore how a mother might feel when she learned that after years of striving without success somehow to produce the son she was required to have she learned that the one, longed-for boy was afflicted with a disease that seemed to appear randomly in her family, at intervals, to mothers whose other children - other sons - were healthy. Even her sister Irene, the mother of two haemophilic children (a unique situation when Alexei was born, because Ena was still unmarried then, and despite what some biographers assert Beatrice does NOT appear to have had two sons with haemophilia; nor was she close to her children and particularly affected by their suffering) also had one healthy son, so I speculate that Alexandra may well have felt in trying to make sense of her situation as a mother that fate had treated her with particular caprice. As it had.

I don't think I suggest that she felt her overall situation in life was in any way worse than anyone else's.  My take on Alexandra, and the thesis motivating "The German Woman", is that her obsessive love for Nicholas gave her life meaning, and everything she did or believed arose from her feelings for him. He infected her religious views, her political opinions, and her feelings as a mother. Throughout her correspondence she repeats her opinion that her married life has been a very happy one; that marriages like this are not common at all; that her family life was "an ideal one". At no point did she suggest, and thus neither do I, that her overall situation was worse than that of her cousin Ena. If anything, if she knew of Alfonso's failings as a spouse (and since European royalty corresponded freely, passing on gossip and all, I think she might well have done) I think Alexandra might have drawn comfort from the contrast between her husband and Queen Ena's.

[Janet Ashton]

To put my views in a nutshell: Alexandra's situation as a mother of a hemophilic child and heir WAS more or less unique in royal circles at that time. It doesn't follow that her situation as an Empress and wife was uniquely difficult, or that she felt it to be.

[Kalafrana]

Janet

This is my take on what you've written, which is not necessarily what you set out to write. As a writer of fiction myself, I've had people make comments on points in my writings which have never occurred to me!

Alexandra and Ena probably did not know one another all that well (large age gap), but Ena's eldest son was near contemporary with Alexei (born in 1907), though the Infante Jaime did not become deaf-mute until 1912 and the haemophiliac Infante Gonzalo was not born until 1914.

Ann

[Helen]

Ena's eldest son was indeed near contemporary with Alexei. However, as Alexandra and Ena didn't know each other well and hardly ever met each other after 1894, it seems rather unlikely that Ena's personal contacts with Alexandra gave her much reason to think that Alexandra was 'tiresome' because of an alleged "air of martyrdom, her self-righteousness and obsession with her children".

We might also bear in mind that in some ways Ena was under an even greater imperative to produce healthy sons, ... I can't help thinking that the adjective some of Alexandra's relations might have used of her was 'tiresome' - her air of martyrdom, her self-righteousness and obsession with her children.

[Kalafrana]

I'm not necessarily thinking that Ena herself would find Alexandra tiresome, but that those who knew them both were likely to make comparisons between them.

As to Princess Beatrice, there is some circumstantial evidence that her son Leopold was a haemophiliac, but I find it very surprising that anyone should suggest that Maurice was - after all, he attended Wellington, as very physical public school, then Sandhurst, and was an ordinary junior officer at the time he was killed. If it is correct that Leopold was haemophiliac, then Beatrice had that to cope with while being a widow from when Leopold was seven. I'd be interested to see the evidence that Beatrice was not close to her children and not much concerned with their suffering.

Ann