#Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine

[foreverinthepagesofhistoryy]

Princess Alice throughout her childhood in Photographs

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1848 (first ever photograph taken of her, age 5)

1852 (age 9)

1853 (age 10)

1854 (age 11)

1855 (age 12)

1856 (age 13)

1857 (age 14)

1858 (age 15)

1859 (age 16)

1860 and 1861 (ages 17 + 18)

~

[ykzzr]

Grand Duchess Eleonore of Hesse and by Rhine, Prince Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and his wife, Hereditary Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine and Prince Louis of Hesse and by Rhine at the Bayreuth Festival in 1932.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Princess Alice of Hesse and her daughter Victoria, 1863

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Princess Alice VA CI (Alice Maud Mary; 25 April 1843 – 14 December 1878) was Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine from 13 June 1877 until her death in 1878 as the wife of Grand Duke Louis IV.

She was the third child and second daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Alice was the first of Queen Victoria's nine children to die, and one of three to predecease their mother, who died in 1901.

Her life had been enwrapped in tragedy since her father's death in 1861.

Victoria Alberta Elisabeth Mathilde Marie Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven VA (born Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine; 5 April 1863 – 24 September 1950) was the eldest daughter of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

[thehessiansisters]

Painting of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia by François Flameng, 1894.

[royal-confessions]

“It's an understatement to say that Alice of Hesse's daughters had a profound influence on the 20th century. Victoria, the grandmother of Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who was the husband of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Elisabeth, who is venerated as a saint and was canonized by the Russian, Greek, and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Irene, who identified Anastasia/Anna Anderson as a fraud. Alix, the Empress of the Russian Empire, exerted significant influence on Russia's domestic and international policies, albeit often for the worse, later canonized as a Saint and a holy martyr. And poor little Marie, whose untimely death at an early age played a pivotal role in shaping Alix's shy and sorrowful personality.” - Submitted by Anonymous

[archduchessofnowhere]

The daughters of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, by Joseph Karl Stieler. Mathilde, Adelgunde, Hildegard and Alexandra.

[incoherentbabblings]

Portrait Versus Photograph

Queen Victoria's Daughters

Vicky (1840-1901), married Frederick, future Emperor of Germany. She had four sons, including Wilhelm II of Germany, and four daughters, including Queen Sophia of Greece.

Alice (1843-1878), married Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by the Rhine. She had two sons and five daughters, including Empress Alexandra of Russia.

Helena (1846-1923), married Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. She had four sons and two daughters.

Louise (1848-1939), married John Cambell, future Duke of Argyll. She had no children.

Beatrice (1857-1944), married Prince Henry of Battenberg. She had three sons and one daughter, including Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain.

[loiladadiani]

Princess Alice of Battenberg (Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie; 1885 – 1969) - Princess of Greece and Denmark

One of her Great-Grandmothers was Queen Victoria; her maternal grandmother was Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine; her mother was Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, sister of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia; her father was Prince Louis of Battenberg. Her son was Prince Phillip, consort of Queen Elizabeth II.

She married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark

She had five children: Margarita, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg

Theodora, Margravine of Baden

Cecilie, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Hesse

Sophie, Princess George of Hanover

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Alice suffered incredibly through her life, but she did not let that stop her from always thinking of others; she was born with a hearing deficit and her brilliant mother Victoria, taught her to lip read not in one but several languages. She had a husband who preferred to gamble in Montecarlo to being with his wife and children or...anything else. She was diagnosed with squizophrenia (there is no evidence that this was a correct diagnosis even though it was issue by Dr. Freud himself) and her pelvic organs irradiated to produce an early menopause (this was supposed to relieve the symptoms according to the medical thinking of the times). She lost her daughter Cecilie in a plane crash.

Yet, like her grandmother Alice, helping others came to her naturally. Israel gave her the award Righteous Among the Nations, bestowed on people who risked their own lives to help Jewish people survive the Holocaust. She worked for the Swiss Red Cross.

The princess founded a nursing order of Greek Orthodox nuns, the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, modelled after the convent that her aunt, the martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, had founded in Russia in 1909. She dedicated herself to helping others but eventually the order failed because of lack of funds.

And besides all of that, she was beautiful.

She died at Buckingham Palace at the age of 84.

(I have to add something here: Alice's smile in the picture is one of the most open, sweetest, tenderest, and most beautiful smiles I have ever seen. It filled me with awe, and thinking about her life brought tears to my eyes)

[februaryfrost]

Princess Victoria of Battenberg and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna.

Moscow. 1910.

[postcard-from-the-past]

Princess Elisabeth Alexandra Luise Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia as a nun

Russian vintage postcard

[loiladadiani]

Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and By Rhine and his niece Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna

I have read that Ernst Ludwig was full of energy and full of fun and was always coming up with ways to amuse himself and those around him, especially children. He might have been more compatible with Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna. Olga looks somewhat serious here...I am sure she loved the lovable Uncle Ernie as much as everybody else but probably did not have his high-octane energy.

Grand Duchess Olga. Livadia. 1912

[foreverinthepagesofhistoryy]

Prince Ernst Louis of Hesse and By Rhine (later Grand Duke) posing for a set of official photographs in a Scottish outfit and kilt, 1871 🤍

“Ernie's kilt was sent him by Mr. Mitchell. He admired Ernie so much at Berlin that he said he would send him a Scotch dress, and I could not refuse. It is rather small as it is, and I hope that you will still give him one, as from his Grandmama it would be doubly valuable.” - Princess Alice of Hesse and By Rhine to Queen Victoria, April 8th 1871

[ykzzr]

Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevnia and her cousin, the hereditary Grand Duke Georg Donats of Hesse and by Rhine 1910s.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

BORN ON THIS DAY:

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia (born Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine; 1 November 1864 – 18 July 1918) was a German Hessian and Rhenish princess of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt.

She was the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, the fifth son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine.

A granddaughter of Queen Victoria and an older sister of Alexandra, the last Russian Empress, Elisabeth became famous in Russian society for her dignified beauty and charitable works among the poor.

After the Socialist Revolutionary Party's Combat Organization assassinated her husband with a bomb in 1905, Elisabeth publicly forgave Sergei's murderer, Ivan Kalyayev, and campaigned without success for him to be pardoned.

She then departed the Imperial Court and became a nun, founding the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent dedicated to helping the downtrodden of Moscow.

In 1918, she was arrested and ultimately killed by the Bolsheviks.

She was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1981 and by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1992 as Holy Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna (Saint Elizabeth Romanova / Saint Elizabeth the New Martyr).

[thehessiansisters]

Full length portrait of Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and by Rhine, with Princess Alix and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, 1890s.

[royal-confessions]

“I still hope they make an accurate drama series on Princess Alice of Battenberg. Given how dramatic and fascinating her life was, there's no real need to fabricate or embellish. Same with the lives of the Hessian sisters. There's a lot of potential.” - Submitted by Anonymous