Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires (40 page)

For Zita, who was only fifteen years old, the money was of little interest. What was probably the most hurtful to her during this already difficult time was the significant schism from her older half siblings. Robert’s death and the messy court battle that followed marked a turning point in her life, effectively ending her happy childhood. In the weeks that followed the emotional funeral, Zita was at a loss, perhaps for the first time in her life. She idolized her father with great zeal. His death left her with a void with which she was unprepared to cope, but she was not alone. Her maternal grandmother, Queen Adelaide of Portugal, stepped into the fore as a second parent to the heartbroken children, reflecting Queen Victoria’s maternal concern for Tsarina Alexandra when Princess Alice died.

Queen Adelaide urged that Zita and her sister Francesca be allowed to finish their schooling in peace and stability. She invited her granddaughters to join her at Saint Cecilia’s Abbey, which was run by the Benedictine nuns of Solesmes on the Isle of Wight, a stone’s throw away from Queen Victoria’s beloved Osborne House. Adelaide personally took charge of Zita’s education, which covered a wide range of subjects from Latin and history to philosophy and art. But as much as Zita enjoyed studying in Britain, the damp climate on the isle affected her health badly, forcing her to return to the more comfortable climate of southern Europe in November 1909.

In August 1909, Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and their family made their first visit to England in eleven years. They were received on August 2 at Spithead with full military honors. As the Russian imperial yacht
Standart
crossed the Solent, it was escorted by twenty-four battleships, sixteen armored cruisers, forty-eight destroyers, and fifty other ships. It was a rare opportunity for George, May, Nicholas, and Alexandra to all be together. “Dear Nicky looking so well and Alicky too,” George wrote.
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Being back in her beloved England, Alexandra was happier than she had been in years. Touched by Edward VII’s warm hospitality, she wrote how “dear Uncle” was “most kind and attentive.”
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Much to May and Alexandra’s relief, their children got on very well. It was also the only time that the two groups of children got to meet one another. David recalled that it “was the one and only time I ever saw Tsar Nicholas.… Uncle Nicky came for the regatta with his Empress and their numerous children aboard the
Standart
. I do remember being astonished at the elaborate police guard thrown around his every movement when I showed him through Osborne College.” The children especially enjoyed teasing George and Nicholas about how similar they looked. The two cousins looked so alike with their deep eyes and Vandyke beards that many mistook the cousins for twins.

Noticeably absent from the festivities was May’s son Bertie, who had come down with a nasty case of whooping cough. Fearful that if Alexei caught the virus it would lead to internal bleeding, Bertie was quarantined at his boarding school.
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Alexei was wide-eyed with enthusiasm listening to David’s stories of life at the Royal Naval School at Dartmouth. David, in turn, was smitten with Tatiana who, though only twelve to his sixteen, was tall, elegant, and exotically beautiful. More than once did Queen Alexandra hint at a possible dynastic marriage between David and Tatiana, though he was less than enchanted with the idea of Tsarina Alexandra—whom he remarked “wore such a sad expression on her face”—as his future mother-in-law.
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One of the more poignant moments of the trip came when Alexandra went to the Hampshire town of Farnborough to visit Eugénie, the octogenarian former empress of the French, who had been living in exile since her husband, Napoleon III, was deposed in 1870. The tremendous courage Eugénie had displayed facing down the hostile mobs in France as she fled to England had earned her the respect of people throughout Europe. Alexandra’s interest had long been captivated by deposed royalty, but it struck many as ironic that, though she could perceive Eugénie’s mistakes in the buildup to the collapse of the French monarchy, she remained oblivious to her own role in Russia’s deteriorating situation.

The visit by the Russian imperial family and the rest of 1909 may have gone smoothly, but 1910 became King Edward VII’s denouement
.
Even at 12:01 a.m.
on January 1, 1910, things did not augur well for the British royal family. They spent the holidays at Sandringham as they always did. Just before the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, the king and queen had all their family and staff assemble outside so that the monarchs could be the first people to open the door of their home in the new year—a ceremony they called the “first footing.” Without noticing, David ran around back and ran through the garden door, flinging it open in triumph. Usually the epitome of jocularity, King Edward remarked gravely that David’s prank boded ill for the rest of the year. The king was not wrong. Within a few weeks, he was faced with a series of governmental crises ranging from the growing invidious relationship with Germany to an explosive struggle with Herbert Asquith, the Liberal prime minister. Among other things, Asquith demanded sweeping reforms of the House of Lords in the hopes of bolstering his minority government, something that never would have been considered during Queen Victoria’s lifetime. In the end, Edward and Asquith reached a compromise, but the hard-fought negotiations took a heavy toll on the sixty-eight-year-old king.

Physically worn down and emotionally exhausted, the king took a curative holiday at Biarritz, on the Bay of Biscay in southwestern of France. The queen took the opportunity to visit her brother and his family in Greece. In April, King Edward suffered a violent attack of bronchitis, forcing him to cut short his trip and return to Buckingham Palace early in the evening on April 27. Witnesses commented that he looked worse than when he left for Biarritz. After holding a few audiences and attending the opera, Edward moved to Sandringham. A few days later, he returned to Buckingham Palace, unalleviated by the Norfolk air. Within four days, his condition had deteriorated so badly that Queen Alexandra returned from Corfu. When she arrived at Victoria Station, George, May, David, and Bertie met her. This was a sign of just how serious the king’s illness was, since he had never missed greeting the queen himself. At the beginning of May, Edward collapsed in his apartment, having suffered a series of heart attacks. This prompted a concerned May to write, “We felt very much worried about Papa.”
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On Friday, May 6, Edward realized his end was near. He “had himself fully and formally dressed in a frock coat and propped up in a chair, where as king and head of the family he could receive relations and friends for a final good-bye.”
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Efforts by the doctors to stabilize the king with oxygen and hypodermic injections of strychnine, tyramine, and ether were unsuccessful. Princess May kept a constant vigil along with her husband and his family. She was in the next room when King Edward VII died at Buckingham Palace later that night, at 11:45 p.m. In a move that showcased Queen Alexandra’s magnanimous nature, she gave orders that Edward’s longtime mistress, Alice Keppel, should be sent for immediately to grieve alongside the queen. “What a loss to the Nation & to us all,” May wrote tearfully.
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Her timid and mild-mannered husband was heartbroken over the loss. Edward once told a staff member that he and his son were more like brothers. George confided the following in his diary that night:

At 11:45 beloved Papa passed peacefully away, & I have lost my best friend & the best of fathers. I never had a [cross] word with him in his life. I am heartbroken & overwhelmed with grief, but God will help me in my great responsibilities & darling May will be my comfort as she always has been. May God give me strength & guidance in the heavy task which has fallen on me. I sent telegrams to the Lord Mayor & the Prime Minister. Left Motherdear & Toria & drove back to M[arlborough] H[ouse] with darling May. I am quite stunned by this awful blow. Bed at 1.0.
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The general public was first made aware of the king’s death early Saturday morning when they saw the Royal Standard above Buckingham Palace flying at half-mast. At Marlborough House that morning, May and George summoned their children downstairs to break the news to them. “My father’s face was grey with fatigue, and he cried as he told us that Grandpapa was dead,” David later recalled.
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At 9:00 a.m. on Monday, May 9, May’s husband was proclaimed King George V on the balcony of the Friary Court at Saint James’s Palace. From Russia, Tsarina Alexandra’s heart went out to her cousin George. She sent the new king a letter of condolence.

Only a few words to tell you how very much we think of you in your great grief. Besides your heart being full of sorrow after the great loss you have entertained, now come the new & heavy responsibilities crowding upon you. From all my heart I pray that God may give you strength & wisdom to govern your country.… I think so much of you, as Nicky & I began our married life under similar trying circumstances.

Thank God we saw yr. dear Pap still last summer—one cannot realise that he is gone.
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Nicholas II wrote his cousin George a heartfelt message, but now that they were both rulers, he could not help but comment on the development of stronger Anglo-Russian ties.

Just a few lines to tell you how deeply I feel for you the terrible loss you and England have sustained. I know alas! by experience what it costs me. There you are with your heart bleeding and aching, but at the same time duty imposes itself and people & affairs come up and tear you away from your sorrow. It is difficult to realize that your beloved Father has been taken away. The awful rapidity with which it all happened! How I would have liked to have come now & be near you!

I beg you dearest Georgie to continue your old friendship and to show my country the same interest as your dear Father did from the day he came to the throne. No one did so much in trying to bring our two countries closer together than Him. The first steps have brought good results. Let us strive and work in the same direction. From our talks in days past & from your letters I remember your opinion was the same. I assure you that the sad death of your Father has provoked throughout the whole of Russia a feeling of sincere grief & of warmest sympathy toward your people. God bless you my dear old Georgie! My thoughts are always near you.

With much love to you & dearest May,

ever your devoted friend,

Nicky.
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With her husband’s accession, May was now Queen Consort of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Empress of India.
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She was the first English-born queen consort since Henry VIII married Catherine Parr in 1543. There was a conscientious discussion about the name of the new queen. All her life, May was formally known as Victoria Mary, but her husband asked her to choose a single name for herself. Victoria was immediately ruled out as a possibility for obvious reasons. The only option was to go with simple Mary. “I hope you approve of my new name Mary,” she wrote to Aunt Augusta. “George dislikes double names & I could not be Victoria, but it strikes me as curious to be rechristened at the age of 43.”
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