One hundred years ago today, Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1860-1922), died in Cannes at the age of 61. She was the daughter of Nicholas I's youngest son Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich (1832-1909) and his wife Cecilie (Sophie) of Baden (1839-1891). A vivacious and colourful personality, the Grand Duchess had never been happy in Mecklenburg (despite the obvious beauty of Schwerin Castle) or in her marriage to Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III (1851-1897), spent as much time as she could in southern France, and caused a scandal when she gave birth to a child several years after his death. (Her Wikipedia article used to be unusually long and thorough for a relatively obscure royal, but it has apparently been shortened due to copyright infringement.) She and her husband had three children, all of whom married well: Alexandrine (1879-1952) became Queen of Denmark as the wife of King Christian X (grandparents of the present Queen); Friedrich Franz IV (1882-1945), the last Grand Duke, married Princess Alexandra of Hanover; Cecilie (1886-1954) became Crown Princess of Germany as the wife of Crown Prince Wilhelm, and would have become Empress eventually if the German monarchy had survived. Kaiser Wilhelm II was initially hostile to his son's union with Cecilie as he had a low opinion of her mother, but eventually came to accept the match, which proved popular with the public though privately unhappy. Here Anastasia is pictured with her three legitimate children. While unlike her more famous cousin of the same name she did survive the Revolution, being already out of Russia, her brothers were not so lucky: three of them, Grand Dukes Nicholas (1859-1919), George (1863-1919), and Serge (1869-1918) were murdered by the Bolsheviks. May they all rest in peace.
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