Alix of Hesse
While the Russians fretted over which direction their revolution ought to take, Waldemar was spending a holiday with the British royal family.
Among the guests was Wilhelm—a man who always warranted close watching.
Whatever hostility Wilhelm usually showed Edward, he behaved with perfect gentlemanly courtesy toward his female cousins.
Waldemar watched Wilhelm dance with Princess Louise, Edward’s eldest daughter, and allowed himself a cold little smile.
All that polished manners up front, and behind closed doors the man had snarled that he would never permit the match. The memory left nothing but contempt in Waldemar’s mouth.
“What are you staring at so hard, Brother?”
“Nothing.”
Sophie followed his gaze, then her eyes curved into a knowing smile.
“Brother, are you jealous because Louise is dancing with Willy?”
“What? Don’t talk nonsense.”
The sheer absurdity of it made Waldemar cough mid-protest.
Even if it hadn’t been Willy, he would never have considered Edward’s daughter as a wife. Jealousy? Really?
His vehement denial only made Sophie laugh harder.
“If you’re too embarrassed, shall I go tell Sister for you?”
“Don’t you dare.”
Waldemar pinched the tip of her nose.
“Ow!”
While the two of them squabbled, Victoria, Princess Royal approached and offered her son a glass.
“Baldi, do you truly have an interest in Louise?”
“Mother, absolutely not. I have no interest in Louise whatsoever.”
Waldemar repeated the denial several times for good measure.
Watching the little farce between mother and son, George—the British heir apparent—paused mid-sip of his tea, looking thoroughly uncomfortable.
Sensing the situation had gone sideways, Waldemar quickly turned to him.
“Sorry, George. That was rude to Princess Louise.”
“Mmm.”
George’s only reply was a sour frown; his mood had clearly soured.
Still, the awkward little episode did nothing to damage relations with the British court.
The following evening Edward VII tossed Waldemar a half-joking remark: “So which part of my daughter fails to please you so terribly?”
Had he truly been offended, he never would have raised the subject at all.
“It was simply that I felt… unequal to her, Your Highness.”
Waldemar lavished praise he did not feel upon Louise’s beauty and insisted she deserved a far better match.
When a man is saying such flattering things, even the English cannot stay angry for long.
“If Louise doesn’t suit you, does that mean you’ve taken a fancy to someone else?”
I already said I don’t care for Louise—how does that logic even work?
Waldemar’s confusion did not last.
“Your mother told us you intend to marry an Englishwoman,” Alexandra, the Princess of Wales, said with a smile.
Is that how they interpreted it?
Does a connection to the British royal family have to run exclusively through Edward’s daughters? Queen Victoria has granddaughters by her other daughters as well.
Waldemar firmly rejected any match with Edward’s immediate family.
“Louise, Victoria, Maud—they all feel like sisters to me. I can hardly marry my own sister.”
“???”
The British royals found the answer distinctly odd.
In the upper strata of European society, cousin marriages were commonplace. Was that really a reason?
Yet when the young man himself protested so vigorously, there was little they could do but drop the matter.
“Now I’m even more curious. If not Uncle Edward’s daughters, then which British royal are you planning to marry? Uncle Alfred doesn’t have a daughter yet.”
Alexandra asked, genuinely puzzled.
Waldemar had never once considered a daughter of Alfred either.
“I don’t have to marry one of my uncles’ daughters, do I?”
Only then did the British royals grasp his meaning.
He intended to reach one generation further out.
It was not a bad choice in itself.
The difficulty was that the few available candidates already had suitors, or soon would.
Princess Mary of Teck was still a child, and the two marriageable princesses of Hesse—Victoria and Elisabeth—were both about to wed.
They thought it over for a moment, then burst out laughing.
“Baldi, if you mean to go that route, you’d better dash off to Hesse every chance you get and win Alix’s heart. Otherwise you’ll be waiting a very long time for your bride to grow up.”
Princess Alix of Hesse is better known to history as Alexandra Feodorovna, empress consort of Nicholas II.
“Ah.”
Waldemar ran through the family tree in his mind and realized that, apart from Alix, almost no one of suitable rank and blood remained.
Even climbing further up the pedigree turned up precious few options.
Damn. They’re right.
He found himself seriously considering whether he ought to set his sights on Princess Alix of Hesse after all.
Born in 1872, Alix was four years younger than Waldemar—still a girl who had never so much as approached the edges of society.
Is that little scrap of a girl really the answer?
He weighed the question carefully.
Age he set aside for the moment; time would take care of that.
He called up everything posterity had recorded about Alix.
As an empress she had been judged incompetent, even disastrous. Yet on a personal level she was remembered as kind and gentle—traits she shared with her future husband, Nicholas II.
Nicholas II.
The mere thought of the cousin who would one day become his fated rival lit a spark of competitive fire.
When I remember how Nicholas II blew up the German and Russian monarchies just to keep Serbia alive, I really do feel like stealing his girl.
If Alix never became a Romanov empress, the bond between the British and Russian courts would automatically grow thinner. The thinner that bond, the freer the British would feel to act during the Russo-Japanese War. That was Waldemar’s calculation.
So the decision is made.
After dinner with the relatives he quietly drew his mother aside.
“Mother, about the conversation I had with Aunt Alexandra earlier…”
He asked her to arrange opportunities for him to grow close to Alix as a childhood companion.
Among European royalty, childhood friendships that ripened into marriage were far from rare.
This was a strategy to eliminate his rival Nicholas II while the boy was still in the cradle.
“You’re not joking? You mean that little Alix of Hesse?”
“Yes.”
Victoria, Princess Royal looked distinctly unenthusiastic. At present Alix was an eleven-year-old girl.
She had no idea what her son found so captivating about the child, yet she decided not to oppose him.
Alix was, after all, the beloved niece born to her own sister Alice. If a daughter-in-law had to be chosen, Alix would not be the worst possible choice.
Still, she sought confirmation once more.
“You’re approaching her with a serious relationship in mind, yes?”
“Yes. I’m not joking.”
Having committed himself, Waldemar had no intention of retreating.
Of course, even if he abandoned Alix there were still other British brides he might eventually claim. In the most ruthless scenario he could simply wait until the next generation of princesses left their cradles and entered society.
Princess Alice of Battenberg, Princess Victoria Eugenie, Princess Margaret of Connaught—all of them, later celebrated as the great beauties of early-twentieth-century royal Europe, would reach marriageable age around the turn of the century.
But remaining a bachelor while unborn or still bottle-fed infants grew up was sheer lunacy. Victoria would never tolerate such prolonged celibacy, and Wilhelm would certainly start pressing for a political marriage long before then.
Far better to mark a target while options still existed.
And that left Waldemar with only one real choice.
Two weeks after the British holiday ended, Victoria, Princess Royal dropped a quiet word in her son’s ear.
“I’ve arranged a chance for you to see Alix when we stop in Hesse at the end of the year. How does that sound?”
“Perfect.”
Waldemar welcomed his mother’s swift action.
“What does Alix like, though?”
“Ask your aunt; she’ll tell you.”
Soon enough a thick packet of information on Alix’s tastes arrived from the British court.
“She’s more modest than I expected.”
Alix was no extravagant woman. Introverted by nature, she disliked parties. For the same reason she had little passion for jewels or elaborate gowns.
So what does she actually enjoy?
After digging through the voluminous notes his aunt had supplied, Waldemar found the answer.
Reading, music, sewing, embroidery?
Far too quiet.
He still could not understand how such a person had ever become an empress.
Still, he had his answer, and winning her notice would be simple enough.
He began collecting and reading every book a young lady might love.
Sophie watched him with an expression of pure disbelief.
“Victoria sprinkles perfume on her letters, and Brother Baldi is reading poetry. Is this what happens when people fall in love?”
Explaining that it was not love would have required abandoning the very stance he had taken.
“Maybe.”
“But Brother, what on earth do you see in that little Alix? She isn’t even prettier than Louise, if you ask me.”
That much he could not concede. Judged a few years hence, no girl of the British royal family would surpass Alix.
“You’ll understand when the time comes.”
As Waldemar returned to his volume of verse, Sophie’s face tightened with discomfort.
The feeling of losing the monopoly she had long enjoyed over her brother was far from pleasant.
Alix.
Without quite realizing it, Sophie began to nurse a quiet hostility toward her Hessian cousin.