Alix of Hesse
1872 – 1918 · Generation XXXV · Empress consort of Russia
Alix of Hesse (1872–1918). Empress consort of Russia. Married Nicholas II Romanov in 1894. Died with her family at Yekaterinburg in 1918. The sixth child of Louis IV of Hesse and Princess Alice, she lost her mother and her sister Marie to diphtheria when she was six, and Queen Victoria thereafter treated her almost as her own child. The Queen hoped she would marry her cousin Eddy, but Alix refused him, finally in 1890. She had met and fallen for Nicholas at her sister Ella’s wedding in 1884, yet balked at abandoning her Lutheran faith until Ella persuaded her at Coburg in 1894 that conversion did not demand it. The wedding followed within weeks of Alexander III’s death, and many Russians saw her as an ill omen. Shy and aloof, she was deeply unpopular at court and a firm upholder of autocracy. Their only son, Alexei, had haemophilia, and her faith in Rasputin’s power to help him drew political criticism. The Russian Orthodox Church canonised her in 2000.
Place in the family
- Alix of Hesse was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
- Alix of Hesse was the younger of 2 children of Louis IV of Hesse and Alice of the United Kingdom recorded in this archive.
Line of descent: Owen Tudor → Edmund Tudor → King Henry VII → Margaret Tudor → King James V of Scotland → Mary Queen of Scots → King James I → Elizabeth Stuart → Sophia of Hanover → King George I → King George II → Frederick Prince of Wales → King George III → Edward Duke of Kent → Queen Victoria → Alice of the United Kingdom → Alix of Hesse.
Parents
- Louis IV of Hesse (1837 – 1892)
- Alice of the United Kingdom (1843 – 1878)
Siblings
- Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (1863 – 1950)
Partners
- Married Nicholas II Romanov (1868 – 1918) in 1894
Life
- 1872 — Born
- 1894 — Married Nicholas II Romanov
- 1918 — Died