The Princesses of Hesse were the five daughters of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, a daughter of Queen Victoria, and Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine: Victoria, Elizabeth, Irene, Alix and Marie. Following the deaths of young Marie and their mother Alice of diphtheria in 1878, Queen Victoria took a special interest in her granddaughters. Against her advice, two daughters married into Russia: Alix married Emperor Nicholas II in 1894, and Elizabeth married Nicholas’s uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in 1884. Irene married her first cousin, Prince Henry of Prussia, in 1888, and Victoria married Prince Louis of Battenberg in 1884.
All four sisters met with much upheaval in their lives, and two of the sisters passed haemophilia to their children. Both Alix and Elisabeth were murdered by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution.
The Lives and Deaths of the Princesses of Hesse by Frances Welch is a very readable biography of all the sisters, which does not focus exclusively on Alix and Elizabeth. It was lovely to read about the two more unknown sisters, but the number of errors bothered me. I am a bit on the fence about recommending this book, but it is a nice introductory read.
The Lives and Deaths of the Princesses of Hesse by Frances Welch is available now in the UK and the US.
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