Engagement
Alix was married relatively late for her rank in her era, having refused a proposal from Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale (the eldest son of the Prince of Wales) despite strong familial pressure. It is said that Queen Victoria had wanted her two grandchildren to marry, but because she was very fond of Alix she accepted that she did not want to marry him. The Queen even went on to say that she was proud of Alix for standing up to her, something many people, including her own son the Prince of Wales, did not do.
Alix had already met and fallen in love with Grand Duke Nicholas, heir to the throne of Russia, whose mother was the sister-in-law of Alix's uncle, the Prince of Wales, and whose uncle Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was married to Alix's sister Elisabeth.
Alix and Nicholas were related to one another via several different lines of European royalty and nobility: the most notable was their shared great-grandmother Princess Wilhelmina of Baden, making them second cousins via this line; and King Wilhelm II of Prussia, who was simultaneously the great-great-grandfather of Alix and the great-great-great-grandfather of Nicholas.
Nicholas and Alix had first met in 1884 and when Alix returned to Russia in 1889 they fell in love. Nicholas wrote in his diary: "It is my dream to one day marry Alix H. I have loved her for a long time, but more deeply and strongly since 1889 when she spent six weeks in Petersburg. For a long time, I have resisted my feeling that my dearest dream will come true." Alix reciprocated his feelings. At first, Nicholas's father, Tsar Alexander III, refused the prospect of marriage.
Society sniped openly at Princess Alix, safe in the knowledge that Alexander III and his wife Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark), both vigorously anti-German, had no intention of permitting a match with the tsarevich. Although Princess Alix was his godchild, it was generally known that Alexander III was angling for a bigger catch for his son, someone like Princess Hélène, the tall dark-haired daughter of Philippe, comte de Paris, pretender to the throne of France. The prospect of marrying Hélène did not appeal to Nicholas. He wrote in his diary, "Mama made a few allusions to Hélène, daughter of the Comte de Paris. I myself want to go in one direction and it is evident that Mama wants me to choose the other one." Fortunately for Nicholas, Hélène also resisted. She was Roman Catholic and unwilling to give up her faith to become Russian Orthodox. The tsar then sent emissaries to Princess Margaret of Prussia, daughter of German Emperor Frederick III and sister of German Emperor Wilhelm II. Nicholas flatly declared that he would rather become a monk than marry the plain and boring Margaret. Margaret stated in any case that she was unwilling to give up her Protestant religion to become Russian Orthodox. As long as he was well, Alexander III ignored his son's demands. He only relented as his health began to fail in 1894. Alix was troubled by the requirement that she renounce her Lutheran faith, as a Russian tsarina had to be Orthodox, but she was persuaded and eventually became a fervent convert.
She and Nicholas became engaged in April 1894 in Coburg, Germany.
Read more about this topic: Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix Of Hesse)
Famous quotes containing the word engagement:
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—bell hooks (b. 1955)
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—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)