Haemophilia in
European royalty
Haemophilia figured
prominently in the history of European royalty in the 19th and 20th
centuries. Britain's Queen Victoria, through two of her five
daughters (Princess Alice and Princess Beatrice), passed the mutation
to various royal houses across the continent, including the royal
families of Spain, Germany and Russia. Victoria's son Prince Leopold,
Duke of Albany suffered from the disease. For this reason,
haemophilia was once popularly called "the royal disease".
Tests of the remains of the Romanov imperial family show that the
specific form of haemophilia passed down by Queen Victoria was
probably the relatively rare Haemophilia B.
The sex-linked X
chromosome disorder manifests almost entirely in males, although the
gene for the disorder is located on the X chromosome and may be
inherited from the mother for male children or from either mother or
father for female children. Expression of the disorder is much more
common in males than in females. This is because, although the trait
is recessive, males only inherit one X chromosome, from their
mothers. Thus if the haemophilia gene is transmitted on it, there is
no possibility for the male to inherit a haemophilia-free gene from
his father to mask or dilute the symptoms. By contrast, a female who
inherits a gene for haemophilia on one of her X chromosomes will also
have inherited a second X chromosome from the other parent which is
likely to carry a haemophilia-free gene that would prevent full
expression of symptoms.
Females who inherit
the gene for Haemophilia A or B from both parents would be expected
to manifest full symptoms, similar to those seen in affected males,
but this is extremely rare. Despite frequent inter-marriage among
royalty, no case of such double inheritance is known among Queen
Victoria's descendants. This is largely because only one of the
individuals with Hemophaelia had any children.
Although an
individual's haemophilia can usually be traced in the ancestry, in
about 30% of cases there is no family history of the disorder and the
condition is speculated to be the result of spontaneous mutation in
an ancestor.
Victoria appears to
have been a spontaneous or de novo mutation and is usually considered
the source of the disease in modern cases of haemophilia among
royalty. Queen Victoria's father, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, was
not a haemophiliac, and the probability of her mother having had a
lover who suffered from haemophilia is minuscule given the low life
expectancy of 19th-century haemophiliacs. Her mother, Victoria,
Duchess of Kent, was not known to have a family history of the
disease, although it is possible that the mutation began at her
conception and was passed down only to Victoria and not to her two
other children. In the same way, had Queen Victoria herself only had
seven children, the mutation would probably be assumed today to have
occurred at the conception of Princess Alice, as she was the only
known carrier among Victoria and Albert's first seven children.
Queen Victoria's
eldest daughter, Victoria, Princess Royal, apparently escaped the
haemophilia gene as it did not appear in any of her matrilineal
descendants. Victoria's fifth child, Helena, may or may not have been
a carrier; two healthy sons survived to adulthood but two other sons
died in infancy and her two daughters did not have issue. Victoria's
sixth child, Louise, died without issue. Her sons Edward, Alfred, and
Arthur were not haemophiliacs. However, her daughters Alice and
Beatrice were confirmed carriers of the gene, and Victoria's son
Leopold was a sufferer of haemophilia, making his daughter Princess
Alice, Countess of Athlone a carrier as well.
Princess Alice
Alice (1843-1878),
Victoria's third child, and wife of the future Grand Duke Louis IV of
Hesse and by Rhine (1837-1892), passed it on to at least three of her
children: Irene, Friedrich, and Alix.
Princess Victoria of
Hesse and by Rhine (1863-1950), later Marchioness of Milford Haven,
wife of Prince Louis of Battenberg (1854-1921) and maternal
grandmother to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, apparently was not a
carrier.
Princess Elizabeth
of Hesse and by Rhine (1864-1918), later Grand Duchess Elizabeth
Feodorovna of Russia through her marriage to Grand Duke Sergei
Alexandrovich (1857-1905), may or may not have been a carrier.
Following her husband's assassination, she became a nun and was
childless when killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
Princess Irene of
Hesse and by Rhine (1866-1953), later Princess Heinrich of Prussia,
through her marriage to Prince Heinrich of Prussia (1862-1929),
passed it on to two of her three sons:
Prince Waldemar of
Prussia (1889-1945). Survived to age 56; had no issue.
Prince Heinrich of
Prussia (1900-1904). Died at age 4.
Prince Friedrich of
Hesse and by Rhine (1870-1873). Died before his third birthday of
bleeding on the brain resulting from a fall from a third-story window
(which would almost certainly have been fatal even if he had not had
haemophilia).
Princess Alix of
Hesse and by Rhine (1872-1918), later Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of
Russia through her marriage to Tsar Nicholas II (1868-1918). Alix had
a marriage proposal from her first cousin, Prince Albert Victor
(1864-1892), eldest son of the then Prince of Wales (later King
Edward VII); had she accepted, haemophilia could have returned to the
direct line of succession in Britain.
Grand Duchess Maria
(1899-1918), Nicholas and Alexandra's third daughter, was thought by
some to have been a symptomatic carrier because she haemorrhaged
during a tonsillectomy. DNA testing of the Romanov family remains in
2009 showed that one of the four daughters, thought to be Maria by
American researchers and Anastasia by Russian researchers, was a
carrier.
Tsarevitch Alexei
(1904-1918) was murdered with his family by the Bolsheviks at the age
of 13. Alexei's haemophilia was one of the factors contributing to
the collapse of Imperial Russia during the Russian Revolution of
1917.
Princess Marie of
Hesse and by Rhine (1874-1878), Alice's seventh and last child, may
or may not have been a carrier. She died of diphtheria at the age of
four.
Prince Leopold
Leopold (1853-1884),
Victoria's eighth child, was the first member of the family to
manifest haemophilia; he died at age 30 from bleeding after a minor
fall, only two years after marrying Princess Helena of Waldeck and
Pyrmont. (1861-1922)
He passed the gene
on to his only daughter, as all of the daughters of a haemophiliac
father would inherit the gene:
Princess Alice of
Albany (1883-1981), later Countess of Athlone, who in turn passed it
on to her elder son:
Prince Rupert of
Teck (1907-1928), who died at age 20, bleeding to death after a car
accident.
Alice's younger son
Prince Maurice of Teck died in infancy, so it is not known if he was
a sufferer. Her daughter Lady May Abel Smith (1906-1994), Leopold's
granddaughter, has living descendants none of whom has been known to
have or to transmit haemophilia.
Leopold's posthumous
son, Charles Edward (1884-1954), was unaffected, as fathers cannot
pass the gene to a son.
Princess Beatrice
(1857-1944), Victoria's ninth and last child, and wife of Prince
Henry of Battenberg (1858-1896) passed it on to at least two, if not
three, of her four children:
Princess Victoria
Eugenie of Battenberg (1887-1969), later Queen Victoria Eugenia of
Spain through her marriage to King Alfonso XIII (1886-1940), who
passed it on to
Infante Alfonso of
Spain, Prince of Asturias (1907-1938). Died at age 31, bleeding to
death after a car accident.
Infante Gonzalo
(1914-1934). Died at age 19, bleeding to death after a car accident.
Victoria Eugenie's
two daughters, Infantas Beatriz (1909-2002) and Maria Cristina of
Spain (1911-1996), both have living descendants none of whom has been
known to have or to transmit haemophilia.
Prince Leopold of
Battenberg (1889-1922), later, Lord Leopold Mountbatten. Died at age
32 during a knee operation.
Prince Maurice of
Battenberg (1891-1914). Killed in action in World War I at the age of
23. Maurice's haemophilia is disputed by various sources: It seems
unlikely that a known haemophiliac would be allowed to serve in
combat.
Today
No living member of
the present or past reigning dynasties of Europe is known to have
symptoms of haemophilia or is believed to carry the gene for it. The
last descendant of Victoria known to suffer from the disease was
Infante Don Gonzalo, born in 1914, although dozens of descendants of
Queen Victoria's (including males descended only through females)
have been born since 1914. However, because the haemophilia gene
usually remains hidden in females who only inherit the gene from one
parent, and female descendants of Victoria have left many descendants
in royal and noble families, there remains a small chance that the
disease could appear again, especially among the female-line Spanish
descendants of Princess Beatrice.
Infanta Beatríz's
two sons were not affected by the disease. Beatriz's eldest daughter,
Sandra, has two children, a son and daughter. Her son is not
affected, and her daughter has two sons, who are apparently
unaffected. Beatríz's youngest daughter, Olimpia, had six children;
her two eldest daughters, Beatrice and Sibilla are both married with
children, none of whom, in the case of their sons, appear to be
haemophiliacs. If Sibilla's descendants were to express or transmit
the gene, however, another reigning dynasty of Europe would, in the
21st century, join the rest of the reigning families that inherited
the disease from Queen Victoria. Olimpia's youngest daughters are
still unmarried, but there is still a chance they could be carriers.
Another daughter, Laura, died as a child, as did her only son, Paul,
the latter of whom was apparently not a haemophiliac.[citation
needed]
Infanta Maria
Cristina had four daughters, all potential carriers. Her eldest
daughter, Vittoria Eugenie, had a daughter and three sons, the latter
all apparently unaffected. The Infanta's second daughter, Giovanna,
had only one child, an unaffected son. Her two youngest daughters,
Donna Maria Teresa and Donna Anna Sandra, also have only daughters.
Of these, only one, Maria Teresa's second daughter, Isabel, is
married, but she also has only a daughter. There is a chance the
disease may remain in this branch of Princess Beatrice's descendants.
Chronological order
Queen Victoria died
in 1901 so she lived to see her youngest son and a grandson die from
the disease. A great-grandson was diagnosed with the disease as well.
The gene can be passed down the female line without a haemophiliac
son being born, but as the family line continues and no haemophiliac
sons are born, it becomes less likely that a certain ancestor had the
gene and passed it on through the female line.
Men who died of
Haemophilia in Order of Death
# Name Death Relation
to Queen Victoria
1 Prince Friedrich
of Hesse and by Rhine 29-May-1873 grandson
2 The Prince
Leopold, Duke of Albany 28-Mar-1884 son
3 Prince Heinrich
Friedrich of Prussia 26-Feb-1904 great grandson
4 Lord Leopold
Mountbatten 23-Apr-1922 grandson
5 Prince Rupert of
Teck 15-Apr-1928 great grandson
6 Infante Gonzalo of
Spain 13-Aug-1934 great grandson
7 Alfonso, Prince of
Asturias 6-Sep-1938 great grandson
8 Prince Waldemar of
Prussia 2-May-1945 great grandson
Type of haemophilia
discovered
 |
The last known photo
of Alexei and sister Olga aboard the steamship Rus that took them to
Yekaterinburg in May 1918.
|
Alexei Nikolaevich
(12 August 1904 [O.S. 30 July] – 17 July 1918) of the House of
Romanov, was the Tsarevich[note 1] and heir apparent to the throne of
the Russian Empire. He was the youngest child and only son of Emperor
Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. He was born with
hemophilia; his mother's reliance on the faith healer Grigori
Rasputin to treat the disease helped bring about the end of the
Romanov dynasty. After the February Revolution of 1917, he and his
family were sent into internal exile in Tobolsk, Siberia. He was
murdered alongside his parents, four sisters, and three retainers
during the Russian Civil War by order of the Bolshevik government,
though rumors that he had survived persisted until the 2007 discovery
of his and one of his sisters' remains. The family was formally
interred on 17 July 1998—the eightieth anniversary of the
murder—and were canonized as passion bearers by the Russian
Orthodox Church in 2000.
Alexei was born on
12 August [O.S. 30 July] 1904 in Peterhof Palace, St. Petersburg
Governorate, Russian Empire. He was the youngest of five children and
the only son born to Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra
Feodorovna. His older sisters were the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana,
Maria and Anastasia. He was doted on by his parents and sisters and
known as "Baby" in the family. He was later also
affectionately referred to as Alyosha .
Alexei was
christened on 3 September 1904 in the chapel in Peterhof Palace. His
principal godparents were his paternal grandmother and his
great-uncle, Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich. His other godparents
included his oldest sister, Olga; his great-grandfather King
Christian IX of Denmark; King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, the
Prince of Wales and William II, German Emperor. As Russia was at war
with Japan, all the soldiers and officers of the Russian Army and
Navy were named honorary godfathers.
The christening
marked the first time some of the younger members of the Imperial
Family, including some of the younger sons of Grand Duke Konstantin
Konstantinovich, as well as the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana, and
their cousin Princess Irina Alexandrovna, were present at an official
ceremony. For the occasion, the boys wore miniature military
uniforms, and the girls wore a smaller version of the court dress and
little kokoshniks. The sermon was delivered by John of Kronstadt, and
the baby was carried to the font by the elderly Mistress of the
Robes, Princess Maria Mikhailovna Galitzine. As a precaution, she had
rubber soles put to her shoes to avoid falling and dropping him.
Countess Sophie Buxhoeveden recalled:
The baby lay on a
pillow of cloth of gold, slung to the Princess's shoulders by a broad
gold band. He was covered with the heavy cloth-of-gold mantle, lined
with ermine, worn by the heir to the crown. The mantle was supported
on one side by Prince Alexander Sergeiovich Dolgorouky, the Grand
Marshal of the Court, and on the other by Count [Paul] Benckendorff,
as decreed by custom and wise precaution. The baby wept loudly, as
might any ordinary baby, when old Father Yanishev dipped him in the
font. His four small sisters, in short Court dresses, gazed open-eyed
at the ceremony, Olga Nicholaevna, then nine years old, being in the
important position of one of the godmothers. According to Russian
custom, the Emperor and Empress were not present at the baptism, but
directly after the ceremony the Emperor went to the church. Both he
and the Empress always confessed to feeling very nervous on these
occasions, for fear that the Princess might slip, or that Father
Yanishev, who was very old, might drop the baby in the font.
Hemophilia
The former palace of
Russian emperors in the Polish Białowieża Forest, where Alexei had
a particularly grave crisis, early October 1912.
Alexei inherited
hemophilia from his mother Alexandra, a condition that could be
traced back to her maternal grandmother Queen Victoria. In 2009
genetic analysis determined specifically that he suffered from
hemophilia B. He had to be careful not to injure himself because he
lacked factor IX, one of the proteins necessary for blood-clotting.
According to his French tutor, Pierre Gilliard, the nature of his
illness was kept a state secret. His hemophilia was so severe that
trivial injuries such as a bruise, a nosebleed or a cut were
potentially life-threatening. Two navy sailors were assigned to him
to monitor and supervise him to prevent injuries, which were still
unavoidable. They also carried him around when he was unable to walk.
As well as being a source of constant torment to his parents, the
recurring episodes of illness and long recoveries interfered greatly
with Alexei's education.
In September 1912
the Romanovs were visiting their hunting retreat in the Białowieża
Forest; on 5 September the careless Tsesarevich jumped into a rowboat
and hit one of the oarlocks. A large bruise appeared within minutes.
Within a week the hematoma reduced in size.[8] In mid September the
family moved to Spała (then in Russian Poland). On 2 October, after
a drive in the woods, the "juddering of the carriage had caused
still healing hematoma in his upper thigh to rupture and start
bleeding again. Alexei had to be carried out in an almost
unconscious state. His temperature rose and his heartbeat dropped,
caused by a swelling in the left groin; Alexandra barely left his
bedside. A constant record was kept of the boy's temperature. On 10
October, a medical bulletin appeared in the newspapers, and Alexei
received the last sacrament. His condition improved at once,
according the Tsar. According to Nelipa Robert K. Massie was correct
to recommend that psychological factors do play a part. The positive
trend continued throughout the next day.(It is not exactly clear on
which day, either 9,[13] 10 or 11 October the Tsarina turned to her
lady-in-waiting and best friend, Anna Vyrubova, to secure the help of
the peasant healer, who at that time was out of favor; data are
missing.) According to his daughter Rasputin received the telegram on
12 October[note 2] and the next day he responded, with a short
telegram, including the prophecy: "The little one will not die.
Do not allow the doctors [c.q. Eugene Botkin and Vladimir Derevenko]
to bother him too much." On 19 October his condition was
considerably better and the hematoma disappeared, but Alexei had to
undergo orthopedic therapy to straighten his left leg.
According to
Gilliard,
The Tsar had
resisted the influence of Rasputin for a long time. At the beginning
he had tolerated him because he dare not weaken the Tsarina's faith
in him – a faith which kept her alive. He did not like to send him
away for, if Alexei Nicolaievich had died, in the eyes of the mother
he would have been the murderer of his own son.
There are various
explanations for Rasputin's ability, such as that Rasputin hypnotized
Alexei, administered herbs to him, or that his advice to the Tsarina
not to let the doctors bother Alexei too much aided the boy's
healing. Others speculated that, with the information he got from his
confidante at the court, lady-in-waiting Anna Vyrubova, Rasputin
timed his interventions for when Alexei was on the road to recovery
anyway, and claimed all the credit. Court physician Botkin believed
that Rasputin was a charlatan and his apparent healing powers arose
from his use of hypnosis, but Rasputin was not interested in this
practice before 1913 and his teacher Gerasim Papandato was expelled
from St. Petersburg. Felix Yusupov, one of Rasputin's enemies,
suggested that he secretly drugged Alexei with Tibetan herbs which he
got from quack doctor Peter Badmayev, but these drugs were politely
rejected by the court.For Maria Rasputin, it was magnetism.[26] For
Greg King, these explanations fail to take into account those times
when Rasputin healed the boy, despite being 2600 km (1650 miles)
away. For Fuhrmann, these ideas on hypnosis and drugs flourished
because the Imperial Family lived such isolated lives. (They lived
almost as much apart from Russian society as if they were settlers in
Canada. For Moynahan, "There is no evidence that Rasputin ever
summoned up spirits, or felt the need to; he won his admirers through
force of personality, not by tricks."[29] For Shelley, the
secret of his power lay in the sense of calm, gentle strength, and
shining warmth of conviction. Radzinsky believed he truly possessed a
supernatural healing ability or that his prayers to God saved the
boy.
Gilliard, the French
historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse and Diarmuid Jeffreys, a
journalist, speculated Rasputin's healing practice included halting
the administration of aspirin, a pain-relieving analgesic available
since 1899. Aspirin is an antiaggregant and has blood-thinning
properties; it prevents clotting, and promotes bleeding which could
have caused the hemarthrosis. The "wonder drug" would have
worsened Alexei's joints' swelling and pain.
Alexei and his
sisters were taught to view Rasputin as "Our Friend" and to
exchange confidences with him. Alexei was well aware that he might
not live to adulthood. When he was ten, his older sister Olga found
him lying on his back looking at the clouds and asked him what he was
doing. "I like to think and wonder," Alexei replied. Olga
asked him what he liked to think about. "Oh, so many things,"
the boy responded. "I enjoy the sun and the beauty of summer as
long as I can. Who knows whether one of these days I shall not be
prevented from doing it?"
Childhood
Alexei in uniform of
the Jaeger regiment of the Imperial family
According to his
French tutor, Pierre Gilliard, Alexei was a simple, affectionate
child, but his environment was spoiling him by the "servile
flattery" of the servants and "silly adulations" of
the people around him. Once, a deputation of peasants came to bring
presents to Alexei. His personal attendant the sailor Derevenko,
required they kneel before Alexei. Gilliard remarked that the
Tsarevich was "embarrassed and blushed violently", and when
asked if he liked seeing people on their knees before him, he said,
"Oh no, but Derevenko says it must be so!" When Gilliard
encouraged Alexei to "stop Derevenko insisting on it", he
replied that he "dare not". When Gilliard took the matter
up with Derevenko, he said that Alexei was "delighted to be
freed from this irksome formality".
"Alexei was the
center of this united family, the focus of all its hopes and
affections," wrote Gilliard. "His sisters worshipped him.
He was his parents' pride and joy. When he was well, the palace was
transformed. Everyone and everything in it seemed bathed in
sunshine." He bore a striking resemblance to his mother, and was
tall for his age, with "a long, finely chiseled face, delicate
features, auburn hair with a coppery glint, and large grey-blue eyes
like his mother," Though intelligent and affectionate, his
education was frequently interrupted by bouts of haemophilia and he
was spoiled because his parents couldn't bear to discipline him. His
parents appointed two sailors from the Imperial Navy: Petty Officer
Andrei Derevenko and his assistant Seaman Clementy Nagorny, to serve
as nannies and to follow him about so he would not hurt himself. He
was prohibited from riding a bicycle or playing too roughly, but was
naturally active.
As a small child, he
occasionally played pranks on guests. One example occurred at a
formal dinner party, where Alexei removed the shoe of a female guest
from under the table, and showed it to his father. Nicholas sternly
told the boy to return the "trophy", which Alexei did after
placing a large ripe strawberry into the toe of the shoe.
Gilliard eventually
convinced Alexei's parents that granting the boy greater autonomy
would help him develop better self-control. A growing Alexei took
advantage of his unaccustomed freedom, and began to outgrow some of
his earlier foibles. Courtiers reported that his illness made him
sensitive to the hurts of others. During World War I, he lived with
his father at army headquarters in Mogilev for long stretches of time
and observed military life.[45] Alexei became one of the first Boy
Scouts in Russia.
In December 1916,
Major-General Sir John Hanbury-Williams, head of the British military
at Stavka, received word of the death of his son in action with the
British Expeditionary Force in France. Tsar Nicholas sent
twelve-year-old Alexei to sit with the grieving father. "Papa
told me to come sit with you as he thought you might feel lonely
tonight," Alexei told the general.[50] Alexei, like all the
Romanov men, grew up wearing sailor uniforms and playing at war from
the time he was a toddler. His father began to prepare him for his
future role as Tsar by inviting Alexei to sit in on long meetings
with government ministers.
The Tsar's Colonel
Mordinov remembered Alexei:
“ He had what we
Russians usually call "a golden heart." He easily felt an
attachment to people, he liked them and tried to do his best to help
them, especially when it seemed to him that someone was unjustly
hurt. His love, like that of his parents, was based mainly on pity.
Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich was an awfully lazy, but very capable
boy (I think, he was lazy precisely because he was capable), he
easily grasped everything, he was thoughtful and keen beyond his
years ... Despite his good nature and compassion, he undoubtedly
promised to possess a firm and independent character in the future. ”
Stavka[
During World War I,
Alexei joined his father at Stavka, when his father became the
Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. Alexei seemed to like
military life very much and became very playful and energetic. In one
of his father's notes to his mother, he said "…Have come in
from the garden with wet sleeves and boots as Alexei sprayed us at
the fountain. It is his favorite game…peals of laughter ring out. I
keep an eye, in order to see that things do not go too far."
Alexei even ate the soldiers' black bread and even refused when he
was offered a meal that he would eat in his palace, saying "It's
not what soldiers eat". In December 1915 Rasputin was invited to
see Alexei when the 11-year-old boy was accidentally thrown against
the window of a train, and his nose began to bleed.
In 1916, he was
given the title of Lance Corporal, which he was very proud of.
Alexei's favorites were the foreigners of Belgium, Britain, France,
Japan, Italy, and Serbia, and in favor, adopted him as their mascot.
Hanbury-Williams, whom Alexei liked, wrote " As time went on and
his shyness wore off he treated us like old friends and… had always
some bit fun with us. With me it was to make sure that each button on
my coat was properly fastened, a habit which naturally made me take
great care to have one or two unbuttoned, in which case he used to at
once to stop and tell me that I was 'untidy again,' give a sigh at my
lack of attention to these details and stop and carefully button me
up again.”
Imprisonment of the
Imperial family
Nicholas and Alexei
cut wood in captivity at Tobolsk during the winter of 1917
The imperial family
was arrested following the February Revolution of 1917, which
resulted in the abdication of Nicholas II. When he was in captivity
at Tobolsk, Alexei complained in his diary about how bored he was and
begged God to have mercy upon him. He was permitted to play
occasionally with Kolya, the son of one of his doctors, and with a
kitchen boy named Leonid Sednev. As he became older, Alexei seemed to
tempt fate and injure himself on purpose. While in Siberia, he rode a
sled down the stairs of the prison house and injured himself in the
groin. The hemorrhage was very bad, and he was so ill that he could
not be moved immediately when the Bolsheviks moved his parents and
older sister Maria to Yekaterinburg in April 1918. Alexei and his
three other sisters joined the rest of the family weeks later. He was
confined to a wheelchair for the remaining weeks of his life.
Death
The Tsarevich was
less than a month shy of his fourteenth birthday when he was murdered
on 17 July 1918 in the cellar room of the Ipatiev House in
Yekaterinburg. The assassination was carried out by forces of the
Bolshevik secret police under Yakov Yurovsky. According to one
account of the murder, the family was told to get up and get dressed
in the middle of the night because they were going to be moved.
Nicholas II carried Alexei to the cellar room. His mother asked for
chairs to be brought so that she and Alexei could sit down. When the
family and their servants were settled, Yurovsky announced that they
were to be executed. The firing squad first killed Nicholas, the
Tsarina, and the two male servants. Alexei remained sitting in the
chair, "terrified," before the assassins turned on him and
shot at him repeatedly. The boy remained alive and the killers tried
to stab him multiple times with bayonets. "Nothing seemed to
work," wrote Yurovsky later. "Though injured, he continued
to live." Unbeknownst to the killing squad, the Tsarevich's
torso was protected by a shirt wrapped in precious gems that he wore
beneath his tunic. Finally Yurovsky fired two shots into the boy's
head, and he fell silent.[53] Rumors of Alexei's survival began to
circulate when the bodies of his family and the royal servants were
located. Alexei's was missing, along with that of one of his sisters
(generally thought to be Maria or Anastasia). As a result of this,
there have been people who have pretended to be the Tsarevich; these
people are Alexei Poutziato, Joseph Veres, Heino Tammet, Michael
Goleniewski and Vassili Filatov. However, scientists considered it
extremely unlikely that he escaped death, due to his lifelong
hemophilia. The missing bodies were said to have been cremated,
though scientists believe it would have been impossible to completely
cremate the bodies given the short amount of time and the materials
the killing squad had to work with. Numerous searches of the forest
surrounding Yekaterinburg up until 2007 failed to turn up the
cremation site or the remains of Alexei and his sister.
2007 remains found
and 2008 identification of remains
On 23 August 2007, a
Russian archaeologist announced the discovery of two burned, partial
skeletons at a bonfire site near Yekaterinburg that appeared to match
the site described in Yurovsky's memoirs. The archaeologists said the
bones are from a boy who was roughly between the ages of ten and
thirteen years at the time of his death and of a young woman who was
roughly between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three years old.
Anastasia was seventeen years, one month old at the time of the
assassination, while Maria was nineteen years, one month old. Alexei
was two weeks shy of his fourteenth birthday. Alexei's elder sisters
Olga and Tatiana were twenty-two and twenty-one years old at the time
of the assassination. Along with the remains of the two bodies,
archaeologists found "shards of a container of sulfuric acid,
nails, metal strips from a wooden box, and bullets of various
caliber." The bones were found using metal detectors and metal
rods as probes. Also, striped material was found that appeared to
have been from a blue-and-white striped cloth; Alexei commonly wore a
blue-and-white striped undershirt.
On 30 April 2008
Russian forensic scientists announced that DNA testing proves that
the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters.
DNA information,
made public in July 2008, that has been obtained from Ekaterinburg
and repeatedly tested independently by laboratories such as the
University of Massachusetts Medical School reveals that the final two
missing Romanov remains are indeed authentic and that the entire
Romanov family housed in the Ipatiev House, Ekaterinburg were
executed in the early hours of 17 July 1918.[57] In March 2009,
results of the DNA testing were published, confirming that the two
bodies discovered in 2007 were those of Tsarevich Alexei and one of
his sisters.
Sainthood
Main article:
Romanov sainthood
In 2000, Alexei and
his family were canonized as passion bearers by the Russian Orthodox
Church. The family had previously been canonized in 1981 by the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad as holy martyrs. The bodies of Tsar
Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and three of their daughters were
finally interred at St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg on
17 July 1998—eighty years after they were murdered.
The reburial of
Alexei's remains, so as to be with those of his family, was planned
for 2015 but has been delayed due to the insistence of the Russian
Orthodox Church on more DNA-testing.
Historical
significance
Alexei was the heir
to the Romanov Throne. Paul I had passed laws forbidding women to
succeed to the throne (unless there were no legitimate male dynasts
left, in which case, the throne would pass to the closest female
relative of the last Tsar). This was done in revenge for what he
perceived to be the illegal behavior of his mother, Catherine II
("the Great") in deposing his father Peter III.
Nicholas II was
forced to abdicate on 15 March [O.S. 2 March] 1917. He did this in
favour of his twelve-year-old son Alexei who ascended the throne
under a regency. Nicholas later decided to alter his original
abdication. Whether that act had any legal validity is open to
speculation. Nicholas consulted with doctors and others present and
realised that he would have to be separated from Alexei. Not wanting
Alexei to be parted from the family, Nicholas altered the abdication
document in favour of his younger brother Grand Duke Michael
Alexandrovich of Russia. After receiving advice about whether his
personal security could be guaranteed, Michael declined to accept the
throne without the people's approval through an election held by the
proposed Constituent Assembly; no such referendum was ever held.
Nicholas II, Alexei,
Tatiana and Nikita
Alexei's haemophilia
was integral to the rise of Grigori Rasputin. One of the many things
Rasputin did that unintentionally facilitated the fall of the
Romanovs was to tell the Tsar that the war would be won once he (Tsar
Nicholas II) took command of the Russian Army. Following this advice
was a serious mistake as the Tsar had no military experience. The
Tsarina, Empress Alexandra, a deeply religious woman, came to rely
upon Rasputin and believe in his ability to help Alexei where
conventional doctors had failed. This theme is explored in Robert K.
Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra. It is possible that if Alexei had
not suffered so terribly, Rasputin could never have gained such
influence over Russian politics during World War I, which is
generally seen to have at least hastened the collapse of Romanov
rule.
Caring for Alexei
seriously diverted the attention of his father, Nicholas II, and the
rest of the Romanovs from the business of war and government.
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