Speaker 1: You're listening to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Aaron Minky listener discretion advised. On July sixteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, the Imperial Russian family was woken up by
Speaker 1: guards in the middle of the night. The guards said
Speaker 1: that enemy combatants were approaching the house where they were
Speaker 1: being kept in a Katrinberg, and they needed to go
Speaker 1: down to the cellar for their own protection. For sixteen months,
Speaker 1: Szar Nicholas the second, his wife Alexandra, and their five
Speaker 1: children had been in government custody. First, they were prisoners
Speaker 1: in their palace at Sarko Cello outside Petrograd, the city
Speaker 1: formerly known as the now much to German sounding St. Petersburg. Next,
Speaker 1: the family was brought to Tobolsk in Siberia. Finally, in
Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen eighteen, the family came to a
Speaker 1: Katrinburg to live in a residence given the ominous name
Speaker 1: the House of Special Purpose Is. The family assumed eventually
Speaker 1: they would be brought somewhere else, somewhere farther away, more remote,
Speaker 1: even more decrepit and depressing than the place Nakatchinburg, with
Speaker 1: its windows all painted white so no one could see
Speaker 1: in or out, and so when they were woken up
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, nobody panicked or feared.
Speaker 1: They took their time getting dressed, lining the secret compartments
Speaker 1: of their clothes and pillow cases with the jewels they
Speaker 1: had managed to keep hidden in case they were leaving
Speaker 1: the House of Special Purposes for the last time. As
Speaker 1: it turns out they were. The seller was small and
Speaker 1: very dark. The youngest child, their only son, Alexei, had
Speaker 1: to be carried down the stairs by his father Nicholas.
Speaker 1: As they all stood in the gloom, the former Serena
Speaker 1: Alexandra asked the guards why there were no chairs, and
Speaker 1: so two were brought, one for her and one for
Speaker 1: the sickly young he Mulphila Air. When everyone was settled,
Speaker 1: the captain of the guards cleared his throat and read
Speaker 1: the written proclamation from the leaders of the new Russian government,
Speaker 1: declaring that the former's are Nicholas, was to be executed.
Speaker 1: Nicholas was in disbelief. Read that again he said, no, wait,
Speaker 1: give it here, give it to me. That's when the
Speaker 1: soldiers with guns came in from the next room. The
Speaker 1: story of the Romanov family, their lightning fast slipped from
Speaker 1: decadence to gruesome murder continues to invite a macab fascination
Speaker 1: more than a century later. For many, the entree into
Speaker 1: the story of the doomed Tsar and his children comes
Speaker 1: from the legend of Anastasia, the rumor that the Tsar's
Speaker 1: youngest daughter somehow managed to get away. Nothing is more
Speaker 1: captivating than hope, even when that hope is doomed. Maybe
Speaker 1: especially when that hope is doomed. It's a maccab. What
Speaker 1: if Anastasia's possible survival is to imagine a tiny sliver
Speaker 1: of the imperial glamor preserved through time, one daughter left
Speaker 1: to continue the family tree, to transform the massacre into
Speaker 1: an origin story, to give us a happy ending. Spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: Anastasia didn't get away, But if you look to history,
Speaker 1: there was another thread of hope, an alternate reality in
Speaker 1: which the Romanov family was saved at the eleventh hour.
Speaker 1: For a brief moment in time, it seemed that their
Speaker 1: savior would be King George the fifth of England. Before
Speaker 1: the Romanov execution, the provisional government in Russia asked King
Speaker 1: George whether the Imperial family might be granted asylum in
Speaker 1: the UK. The Czar was George's first cousin, and they
Speaker 1: looked so much alike. People often joked that they were twins,
Speaker 1: and their letters that called each other Georgie and Nikki.
Speaker 1: But for a monarch, sometimes protecting your own crown means
Speaker 1: being forced to make tough choices, right or wrong. George
Speaker 1: the five had to make a decision. I'm Dani Schwartz
Speaker 1: and this is noble blood. The King and Queen of
Speaker 1: Denmark had two daughters, Dagmar and Alexandra. Dagmar married the
Speaker 1: futures Are of Russia, and Alexandra married the oldest son
Speaker 1: of Queen Victoria. Both Dagmar and Alexandra did their queenly
Speaker 1: duties and had airs the way they were supposed to
Speaker 1: in Russia Nicholas the Second in England the future King
Speaker 1: George five. They called each other Nicki and Georgie. The
Speaker 1: cousins Nicki and Georgie first became close on vacations at Fredensburg,
Speaker 1: brought by their mothers to meet their grandparents, the King
Speaker 1: and Queen of den Mark in eighteen eighty three. They
Speaker 1: spent the summer there as teenagers. Nikki Georgie, Georgie's younger
Speaker 1: sister Maud, who teased Nikki about his crush on the
Speaker 1: beautiful Alexandra of Hess his future wife. Maud made fun
Speaker 1: of Nikki for being shorter than Alexandra, who they all
Speaker 1: called Alecki. Georgie in England was cousins with Nikki on
Speaker 1: his mother's side and cousins with Nikki's bride to be, Alecki,
Speaker 1: on his father's side. Both Georgie and Alecki were grandchildren
Speaker 1: of Queen Victoria. While the match between futures are Nicholas
Speaker 1: the Second and the German Princess made sense, Queen Victoria
Speaker 1: wasn't too pleased about it. The state of Russia is
Speaker 1: so bad, so rotten, that at any moment something dreadful
Speaker 1: might happen, The Queen wrote to her eldest daughter, the
Speaker 1: wife of the heir to the throne is in a
Speaker 1: difficult and precarious position. And to Alecki's sister, Queen Victoria wrote,
Speaker 1: my blood runs cold when I think of her, so young,
Speaker 1: her dear life and her husband's constantly threatened, and we'll
Speaker 1: be unable to see her but so rarely. Oh how
Speaker 1: I wish it was not to be that I should
Speaker 1: lose my sweet Alecki. But Georgie was pleased with the match,
Speaker 1: happy that after ten years of pining, his cousin Nikki
Speaker 1: finally got the girl of his dreams to agree to
Speaker 1: marry him. Georgie went to Russia for the wedding of
Speaker 1: his two first cousins and wrote back to Queen Victoria
Speaker 1: with nothing but praise for his hosts. Nikki has been
Speaker 1: kindness itself to me. He is the same dear boy
Speaker 1: he has always been to me. The letter said, Russia
Speaker 1: was volatile, but at least Alecki was marrying a man
Speaker 1: who was young and handsome, and he was kind. If anything,
Speaker 1: he was too passive and malleable, too insecure, hesitant. Only
Speaker 1: in retrospect are the red flags lit in neon, But
Speaker 1: you know he was handsome. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: Nikki and Georgie were almost identical, the same blue eyes,
Speaker 1: same beard. They looked so much alike that when they
Speaker 1: were at events together, people in relatives would come up
Speaker 1: from behind with the wrong name. They were cousins who
Speaker 1: looked more like twins. But as it turns out, Queen
Speaker 1: Victoria was right about the volatility in Russia. After a
Speaker 1: protest in nine five was brutally put down by the
Speaker 1: Cossacks and the Imperial Guard. The Czar was given a nickname,
Speaker 1: Nicolas the Bloody. The aristocracy represented indulgence and luxury so
Speaker 1: completely removed from the daily life of the common people
Speaker 1: that it might as well have been life on the moon.
Speaker 1: Around the world, public sentiment had completely turned against the
Speaker 1: Czar in nineteen o nine, when Nicholas and his family
Speaker 1: came to visit the British royal family at their home
Speaker 1: on the Isle of Wight. Security concerns were so high
Speaker 1: that most of the as it took place at sea
Speaker 1: on the Tsar's boat just off the coast, and the
Speaker 1: outbreak of World War One gave people even more reason
Speaker 1: to hate the Tsar's wife, Alecki, the German Princess Alexandra
Speaker 1: of Hess. Anti German sentiment had led St. Petersburg to
Speaker 1: become Petrograd and in England compelled George the Fifth to
Speaker 1: change his family name from Sex, Coburg and Gotha to
Speaker 1: the neutrally British sounding Windsor. According to the people in Russia,
Speaker 1: Alexandra was almost certainly a German spy, and that's to
Speaker 1: say nothing of the way she cavorted about with the
Speaker 1: dubious character resputant. The two of them lovers, no doubt,
Speaker 1: we're probably manipulating the Czar to their nefarious German loving ways.
Speaker 1: On March thirteenth, nine seventeen, George the Five wrote in
Speaker 1: his diary, bad news from Russia. Practically a revolution has
Speaker 1: broken out in Petrograd and some of the guard regiments
Speaker 1: have mutinied and killed their officer. Rising is against the government,
Speaker 1: not the Czar. Two days later, the Tsar was forced
Speaker 1: to abdicate. George was in despair for his cousin and friend,
Speaker 1: but revolutions can be like dominoes, and threats to one
Speaker 1: monarchy are threats to all monarchies. His own crown began
Speaker 1: feeling a little loose. When George heard that the Tsar
Speaker 1: had been forced to abdicate his throne, he wrote his
Speaker 1: cousin a telegram. Events of last week had deeply distressed me.
Speaker 1: My thoughts are constantly with you, and I shall always
Speaker 1: remain your true and devoted friend, as you know I
Speaker 1: have been in the past. The provisional government in Russia
Speaker 1: never delivered it. After all, the telegram had been addressed
Speaker 1: to the Tsar, and no person of that title existed anymore.
Speaker 1: The Imperial family presented a massive problem for the provisional government.
Speaker 1: On one hand, they wanted them out of the country
Speaker 1: completely gone where they couldn't ignite mutiny or inspire loyalty.
Speaker 1: But the more extremist revolutionaries didn't want the formers are
Speaker 1: out of custody. They wanted his confinement to put him
Speaker 1: on trial. They didn't want him to get away literally
Speaker 1: or metaphorically. It was about this time when the Provisional
Speaker 1: government's foreign minister, a man named Pavo Miliakov, approached the
Speaker 1: British ambassador and requested that the Imperial family might be
Speaker 1: allowed to come to England. The British ambassador Buchanan equivocated,
Speaker 1: how about Denmark or Sweden, either of those places possible?
Speaker 1: What if we just, you know, keep brainstorming. Miliakov, sensing
Speaker 1: the tightening danger of the extremists, reiterated that he would
Speaker 1: very much like to get the Emperor out of Russia
Speaker 1: as soon as possible. Buchanan acquiesced. He asked the British
Speaker 1: government for the authority to extend the Czar and his
Speaker 1: family asylum in England at least for the duration of
Speaker 1: the war. In London, a Cabinet meant to discuss it.
Speaker 1: They didn't want to turn down a direct request from
Speaker 1: the provisional government. They would need to stay in Russia's
Speaker 1: good graces for trade and for continued support in World
Speaker 1: War One, but there was no way around the fact
Speaker 1: that bringing Bloody Nicholas and his German empress to England
Speaker 1: would look bad. The family was massively unpopular with the
Speaker 1: British public. News of the Russian Tsar being overthrown was
Speaker 1: met in England with cheers, with celebrations in the street
Speaker 1: for the common people who rose up to take down
Speaker 1: an autocrat, and hatred for Alexandra, the German born former
Speaker 1: z Arena was even more virulent in England. The popular
Speaker 1: opinion was that there was no doubt she was double
Speaker 1: crossing Russia in the war with German spycraft. King George
Speaker 1: the Fifth had been the victim of a massive public
Speaker 1: outcry after he received members of the supposedly pro German
Speaker 1: Greek royal family. Hosting the Tsar and his wife would
Speaker 1: be nothing short of a pr nightmare. Plus, there were
Speaker 1: logistics to consider. Where would the Tsar's family even stay.
Speaker 1: The Prime Minister Lloyd George suggested one of the King's palaces.
Speaker 1: The King's private secretary Stamford and rejected that proposal outright.
Speaker 1: He was there at that meeting representing the King, and
Speaker 1: he was fully aware how damaging the association between the
Speaker 1: Tsar and King George could be. All of the palaces
Speaker 1: were occupied. Stamford And asserted, well, except for Balmoral in Scotland.
Speaker 1: But that's a summer palace and it would be totally
Speaker 1: unsuitable for the Tsar and his family to stay at
Speaker 1: at this time of year. Yes, of course, we can
Speaker 1: all see now, totally unsuitable for the Imperial family to
Speaker 1: stay in a summer palace when they would soon be
Speaker 1: imprisoned in Siberia. Suitable palace available or not, it seemed
Speaker 1: impossible for the British government to turn down a direct
Speaker 1: request from the Russian provisional government, and so reluctantly Britain
Speaker 1: agreed that in theory, the Czar and his family could
Speaker 1: stay in the country just temporarily, just until the end
Speaker 1: of the war. But fortunately for the British government, as
Speaker 1: they fiddled with their cuff links and received urgent imaginary
Speaker 1: phone calls, now it was the Russian government who delayed
Speaker 1: the extremist Bolshevik faction was consolidating its power, even as
Speaker 1: Miliakov wanted to get the Imperial family out of the
Speaker 1: country that was becoming more and more challenging. Any actual
Speaker 1: attempt to extradite the Czar would infuriate the extremists. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, King George the Fifth reconsidered his own position.
Speaker 1: Britain was weary from the war and its many sacrifices,
Speaker 1: and socialism was becoming more and more appealing to the
Speaker 1: popular elation. Anti royal sentiment was on the rise, and
Speaker 1: even George changing his family name to Windsor didn't quite
Speaker 1: convince the country of his patriotism or of his necessity.
Speaker 1: A guy living in a palace wearing a golden crown
Speaker 1: is never a popular image when a nation is barely
Speaker 1: struggling to make it through an endless war. YEA bringing
Speaker 1: Nicholas and his family over to England would indelibly associate
Speaker 1: King George the Fifth with the hated Russian autocracy. After all,
Speaker 1: everyone knew that King George was close with his beloved cousin,
Speaker 1: regardless of what the political situation actually was. The truth
Speaker 1: is it would look like a move of family loyalty
Speaker 1: and not diplomacy, and so on. The King's behalf Stamfordham
Speaker 1: wrote to bal for the British Foreign Secretary, the King
Speaker 1: desires me to ask you whether the ambassador should not
Speaker 1: be communicated with to make some other plans for the
Speaker 1: future residents of their imperial majesties. King George was already
Speaker 1: receiving letters of outrage from working men and Labor Party
Speaker 1: members of Parliament in the House of Commons, all with
Speaker 1: the assumption that he was the one making the decision
Speaker 1: about whether or not to invite the Czar into the country.
Speaker 1: Britain was a constitutional monarchy, of course, and George had
Speaker 1: no direct powers to do anything, really, but it was
Speaker 1: his head on the line. An article in the weekly
Speaker 1: journal Justice protesting asylum of the Czar suggested that the
Speaker 1: invitation had already come from the British King and Queen,
Speaker 1: but it was probably the words from an editorial in
Speaker 1: the Evening Globe that stuck in the King's mind. We
Speaker 1: most sincerely hope that if there really is any idea
Speaker 1: of inviting the XR and his consort to make their
Speaker 1: home in England, it will be abandoned. We speak plainly
Speaker 1: because we must, and because the danger is great and imminent,
Speaker 1: the British throne itself would be perild if this thing
Speaker 1: were done. And so, in a fit of panic and determination,
Speaker 1: the King had Stamford Him right yet another note to
Speaker 1: the Foreign Secretary just six hours after the first, making
Speaker 1: things very very clear. The King Stamford Him wrote, must
Speaker 1: beg you to represent to the Prime Minister that from
Speaker 1: all he hears and reads in the press, the residents
Speaker 1: in this country of the ex Emperor and Empress would
Speaker 1: be strongly resented by the public, and would undoubtedly compromise
Speaker 1: the position of the King and Queen, from whom it
Speaker 1: would generally be assumed the invitation had emanated. Stamford um
Speaker 1: included the article from Justice in the note. The King
Speaker 1: loved his cousin, but the idea of Britain welcoming Nicholas
Speaker 1: the bloody let alone, mounting and elaborate rescue to save
Speaker 1: him once the Russian government custody closed in had shifted
Speaker 1: from merely awkward to insurmountable. It's ironic in a sense.
Speaker 1: The only reason a king is a king at all
Speaker 1: is because if who his family is. But in a
Speaker 1: constitutional monarchy, a king's power is at the mercy of
Speaker 1: the people. Nicholas the Second was radioactive, and George needed
Speaker 1: to protect himself. He wasn't Georgie. He was King George
Speaker 1: the Five, and he put England and himself first. When
Speaker 1: the Bolshevik soldiers entered the cellar on that night in
Speaker 1: July in nine eighteen, each had been assigned a member
Speaker 1: of the family to shoot. There were eleven of them
Speaker 1: that needed to be killed altogether, three loyal servants that
Speaker 1: had stayed with the imperial family, their doctor Nicholas, Alexandra,
Speaker 1: their young son Alexei, and their four daughters, Olga, Tatiana,
Speaker 1: Maria and Anastasia. Some of the soldiers had refused to
Speaker 1: shoot the girls and had been replaced, but even so,
Speaker 1: when the Captain of the guard gave the orders to fire,
Speaker 1: the majority of soldiers turned their gun to Nicholas. They
Speaker 1: were loyal Bolsheviks, and they all wanted to be the
Speaker 1: one who had killed the Tsar himself, not a man
Speaker 1: who had shot a teenage girl. The result, though, was chaos.
Speaker 1: The hated Tsar died quickly, but the girls were left alive,
Speaker 1: screaming and hiding in corners of the cellar. Splattered with blood.
Speaker 1: While the soldiers attempted to finish their gruesome execution, their
Speaker 1: Russian made guns, jamming soldiers kept missing their targets in
Speaker 1: the dark. Their boots were drenched in blood and brain matter.
Speaker 1: To ultimately kill the four princesses, the soldiers had to
Speaker 1: repeatedly stab them with their bayonets. At first, the Russian
Speaker 1: government only acknowledged that the czar had been killed. The girls,
Speaker 1: they said, had been put on a train to somewhere
Speaker 1: for their own safety, and they had lost touch with them.
Speaker 1: The plan was to make evidence of the massacre literally disappear.
Speaker 1: Two days after the shooting, their bodies were clumsily doused
Speaker 1: and sulfuric acid, set on fire and tossed into a
Speaker 1: pair of shallow graves. People had imagined the likelihood that
Speaker 1: the czar was going to be killed, it was possible
Speaker 1: that the Czarina was going to be killed as well,
Speaker 1: but no one had imagined that their five children would
Speaker 1: also be executed, and no one could have envisioned it
Speaker 1: happening in the most chaotic, disturbing and gruesome way imaginable.
Speaker 1: When word of Nicholas's death crossed Europe, King George attended
Speaker 1: a memorial service in England. I attended a service at
Speaker 1: the Russian Church in memory of dear Nikki, who I
Speaker 1: fear was shot last month by the Bolsheviks. George wrote
Speaker 1: in his diary, we can get no details. It was
Speaker 1: a foul murder. I was devoted to Nikki, who was
Speaker 1: the kindest of men and a thorough gentleman, loved his
Speaker 1: country and his people. Ever protective of the King's reputation Asian,
Speaker 1: stamford Um had floated the possibility that the King might
Speaker 1: want to sit the memorial service out so that the
Speaker 1: public wouldn't see George as too sympathetic to the fallen Zar.
Speaker 1: It seems to me, stamford Um wrote, we could decline
Speaker 1: to join in on the service on the grounds that
Speaker 1: the government has no official news of the emperor's death.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for a villain in this story, Stamford
Speaker 1: m might be as close as any. Just three days
Speaker 1: after he advised the king not to attend the memorial,
Speaker 1: stamford Um wrote a letter in response to an announcement
Speaker 1: of the Czar's death in the Paper. The letter said,
Speaker 1: was there ever a crueler murder? And has this country
Speaker 1: ever before displayed such callous indifference to a tragedy of
Speaker 1: this magnitude. What does it all mean? I am so
Speaker 1: thankful that the King and Queen attended the memorial service.
Speaker 1: Did King George have flood on his hands? The anti
Speaker 1: climactic truth is, even if he had been completely support
Speaker 1: of Britain granting asylum to the Imperial family, it might
Speaker 1: not have made a difference at all. By the time
Speaker 1: it became clear that the Czar and his family were
Speaker 1: in danger, it was probably already too late. Miliakov and
Speaker 1: the provisional government might not have been strong enough to
Speaker 1: defy the extremists that wanted blood, and even from a
Speaker 1: logistical perspective, a British ship would have needed to cut
Speaker 1: through the still frozen ports of Russia and then through
Speaker 1: a stronghold of Bolshevik extremists, and the imperial children had
Speaker 1: measles that spring. The Tsar and Sarina may very well
Speaker 1: have chosen to delay their traveling until their children were better.
Speaker 1: After all, no one could have possibly imagined how limited
Speaker 1: the window for escape would be, or imagine the horrifying,
Speaker 1: bloody future that was to come. As it is, George's
Speaker 1: diaries filled with woe and sorrow for his cousin Nikki,
Speaker 1: and genuine horror that his children were murdered, but not guilt.
Speaker 1: Maybe George understood the futility of feeling remorse for some
Speaker 1: thing you never would have been able to do differently.
Speaker 1: But it's also possible that maybe George did feel guilt.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was kept awake, pacing the floors of his palace,
Speaker 1: hearing screams in the dark. Maybe he looked in the
Speaker 1: mirror and saw his twin cousin Nikki, staring back at him.
Speaker 1: But maybe he knew that as a king sometimes guilt,
Speaker 1: like family love, is one of the many things that
Speaker 1: you're forced to push down and push away in order
Speaker 1: to do your duty. In the end, George the fifth
Speaker 1: didn't completely abandon his Russian family, stick around after a
Speaker 1: brief sponsor break to find out what happened next. Even
Speaker 1: after Nicholas the Second abdicated the throne, his mother, the
Speaker 1: Dowager and Breath and his sister, the Grand Duchess Zenia
Speaker 1: Alexandrovna still lived in the relative security of a family
Speaker 1: house in Crimea. When they heard that the former's are
Speaker 1: and his family had been murdered, they refused to believe it,
Speaker 1: it was probably just Bolshevik propaganda. In the spring of
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, King George the Fifth sent the British warship
Speaker 1: h M. S. Marlborough to evacuate the remaining Romanovs. As
Speaker 1: the Red Army continued to creep closer to Crimea. The Marlborough,
Speaker 1: Tuxania and the Dowager Empress across the Black Sea to
Speaker 1: Malta and then finally to safety in England. With the
Speaker 1: Dowager Empress, who had been renamed Maria Federovna but was
Speaker 1: born the Danish Princess dagmar reunited with her sister Alexandra,
Speaker 1: King George the Fifth mother, and eventually even the doomed
Speaker 1: Arena Alexandra's family made it to England. Remember Alki's sister.
Speaker 1: She was the one to whom Queen Victoria had written
Speaker 1: with an eerie clairvoyant about how our blood rained cold
Speaker 1: and thought of Alecki going to Russia. Well. Alecki's sister
Speaker 1: had a grandchild, a baby boy born as a Prince
Speaker 1: of Greece and Denmark. He would go on to marry
Speaker 1: King George the Fifth granddaughter and become Prince Philip Consort
Speaker 1: to Queen Elizabeth the Second. Noble Blood is a co
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. The show
Speaker 1: is written and hosted by Dani Schwartz and produced by
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble
Speaker 1: Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and
Speaker 1: you can learn more about the show over at Noble
Speaker 1: blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.