WEBVTT - Ever Dearest Cousin Nicky 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.880 You're listening to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:10.480 Radio and Aaron Minky listener discretion advised. On July sixteenth, 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:14.520 nineteen eighteen, the Imperial Russian family was woken up by 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.680 guards in the middle of the night. The guards said 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.720 that enemy combatants were approaching the house where they were 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.480 being kept in a Katrinberg, and they needed to go 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:29.000 down to the cellar for their own protection. For sixteen months, 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.920 Szar Nicholas the second, his wife Alexandra, and their five 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:37.839 children had been in government custody. First, they were prisoners 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.600 in their palace at Sarko Cello outside Petrograd, the city 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:46.720 formerly known as the now much to German sounding St. Petersburg. Next, 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.680 the family was brought to Tobolsk in Siberia. Finally, in 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.920 the spring of nineteen eighteen, the family came to a 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.600 Katrinburg to live in a residence given the ominous name 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:03.680 the House of Special Purpose Is. The family assumed eventually 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.240 they would be brought somewhere else, somewhere farther away, more remote, 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:11.480 even more decrepit and depressing than the place Nakatchinburg, with 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.560 its windows all painted white so no one could see 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:18.360 in or out, and so when they were woken up 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.480 in the middle of the night, nobody panicked or feared. 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.920 They took their time getting dressed, lining the secret compartments 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.880 of their clothes and pillow cases with the jewels they 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.679 had managed to keep hidden in case they were leaving 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.320 the House of Special Purposes for the last time. As 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:40.360 it turns out they were. The seller was small and 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.479 very dark. The youngest child, their only son, Alexei, had 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.160 to be carried down the stairs by his father Nicholas. 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.440 As they all stood in the gloom, the former Serena 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:55.040 Alexandra asked the guards why there were no chairs, and 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.080 so two were brought, one for her and one for 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:02.920 the sickly young he Mulphila Air. When everyone was settled, 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:06.400 the captain of the guards cleared his throat and read 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:10.280 the written proclamation from the leaders of the new Russian government, 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.560 declaring that the former's are Nicholas, was to be executed. 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.720 Nicholas was in disbelief. Read that again he said, no, wait, 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.200 give it here, give it to me. That's when the 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:28.120 soldiers with guns came in from the next room. The 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.280 story of the Romanov family, their lightning fast slipped from 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:37.080 decadence to gruesome murder continues to invite a macab fascination 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:41.480 more than a century later. For many, the entree into 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.400 the story of the doomed Tsar and his children comes 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.960 from the legend of Anastasia, the rumor that the Tsar's 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.919 youngest daughter somehow managed to get away. Nothing is more 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.760 captivating than hope, even when that hope is doomed. Maybe 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:59.000 especially when that hope is doomed. It's a maccab. What 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:04.120 if Anastasia's possible survival is to imagine a tiny sliver 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:09.520 of the imperial glamor preserved through time, one daughter left 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.320 to continue the family tree, to transform the massacre into 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:18.200 an origin story, to give us a happy ending. Spoiler alert, 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:23.720 Anastasia didn't get away, But if you look to history, 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:27.800 there was another thread of hope, an alternate reality in 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.959 which the Romanov family was saved at the eleventh hour. 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.560 For a brief moment in time, it seemed that their 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:40.480 savior would be King George the fifth of England. Before 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:45.119 the Romanov execution, the provisional government in Russia asked King 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.920 George whether the Imperial family might be granted asylum in 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:53.480 the UK. The Czar was George's first cousin, and they 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.560 looked so much alike. People often joked that they were twins, 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:00.520 and their letters that called each other Georgie and Nikki. 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.880 But for a monarch, sometimes protecting your own crown means 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:11.320 being forced to make tough choices, right or wrong. George 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.600 the five had to make a decision. I'm Dani Schwartz 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:26.080 and this is noble blood. The King and Queen of 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:31.279 Denmark had two daughters, Dagmar and Alexandra. Dagmar married the 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.240 futures Are of Russia, and Alexandra married the oldest son 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.840 of Queen Victoria. Both Dagmar and Alexandra did their queenly 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.280 duties and had airs the way they were supposed to 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:47.320 in Russia Nicholas the Second in England the future King 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:51.839 George five. They called each other Nicki and Georgie. The 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:56.360 cousins Nicki and Georgie first became close on vacations at Fredensburg, 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.320 brought by their mothers to meet their grandparents, the King 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.480 and Queen of den Mark in eighteen eighty three. They 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.839 spent the summer there as teenagers. Nikki Georgie, Georgie's younger 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.000 sister Maud, who teased Nikki about his crush on the 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:14.880 beautiful Alexandra of Hess his future wife. Maud made fun 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:17.520 of Nikki for being shorter than Alexandra, who they all 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.880 called Alecki. Georgie in England was cousins with Nikki on 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.200 his mother's side and cousins with Nikki's bride to be, Alecki, 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:29.360 on his father's side. Both Georgie and Alecki were grandchildren 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.799 of Queen Victoria. While the match between futures are Nicholas 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.640 the Second and the German Princess made sense, Queen Victoria 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.919 wasn't too pleased about it. The state of Russia is 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.520 so bad, so rotten, that at any moment something dreadful 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.120 might happen, The Queen wrote to her eldest daughter, the 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:50.320 wife of the heir to the throne is in a 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:55.599 difficult and precarious position. And to Alecki's sister, Queen Victoria wrote, 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.680 my blood runs cold when I think of her, so young, 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:02.719 her dear life and her husband's constantly threatened, and we'll 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.760 be unable to see her but so rarely. Oh how 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:07.520 I wish it was not to be that I should 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.640 lose my sweet Alecki. But Georgie was pleased with the match, 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.719 happy that after ten years of pining, his cousin Nikki 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.240 finally got the girl of his dreams to agree to 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.479 marry him. Georgie went to Russia for the wedding of 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.640 his two first cousins and wrote back to Queen Victoria 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.240 with nothing but praise for his hosts. Nikki has been 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.280 kindness itself to me. He is the same dear boy 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:34.000 he has always been to me. The letter said, Russia 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.640 was volatile, but at least Alecki was marrying a man 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:40.839 who was young and handsome, and he was kind. If anything, 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:46.119 he was too passive and malleable, too insecure, hesitant. Only 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:50.440 in retrospect are the red flags lit in neon, But 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.039 you know he was handsome. As a matter of fact, 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:58.120 Nikki and Georgie were almost identical, the same blue eyes, 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.400 same beard. They looked so much alike that when they 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.520 were at events together, people in relatives would come up 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.800 from behind with the wrong name. They were cousins who 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:15.520 looked more like twins. But as it turns out, Queen 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:21.880 Victoria was right about the volatility in Russia. After a 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.360 protest in nine five was brutally put down by the 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:29.200 Cossacks and the Imperial Guard. The Czar was given a nickname, 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:36.480 Nicolas the Bloody. The aristocracy represented indulgence and luxury so 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.880 completely removed from the daily life of the common people 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.239 that it might as well have been life on the moon. 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:47.520 Around the world, public sentiment had completely turned against the 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:52.200 Czar in nineteen o nine, when Nicholas and his family 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.200 came to visit the British royal family at their home 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.760 on the Isle of Wight. Security concerns were so high 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:01.240 that most of the as it took place at sea 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.960 on the Tsar's boat just off the coast, and the 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.360 outbreak of World War One gave people even more reason 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:12.120 to hate the Tsar's wife, Alecki, the German Princess Alexandra 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:17.120 of Hess. Anti German sentiment had led St. Petersburg to 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:21.000 become Petrograd and in England compelled George the Fifth to 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.560 change his family name from Sex, Coburg and Gotha to 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:29.800 the neutrally British sounding Windsor. According to the people in Russia, 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.800 Alexandra was almost certainly a German spy, and that's to 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.240 say nothing of the way she cavorted about with the 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:40.520 dubious character resputant. The two of them lovers, no doubt, 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:45.240 we're probably manipulating the Czar to their nefarious German loving ways. 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.760 On March thirteenth, nine seventeen, George the Five wrote in 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.920 his diary, bad news from Russia. Practically a revolution has 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:58.120 broken out in Petrograd and some of the guard regiments 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:02.160 have mutinied and killed their officer. Rising is against the government, 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:06.760 not the Czar. Two days later, the Tsar was forced 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:10.680 to abdicate. George was in despair for his cousin and friend, 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:14.880 but revolutions can be like dominoes, and threats to one 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:19.199 monarchy are threats to all monarchies. His own crown began 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:32.120 feeling a little loose. When George heard that the Tsar 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.960 had been forced to abdicate his throne, he wrote his 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:39.880 cousin a telegram. Events of last week had deeply distressed me. 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.280 My thoughts are constantly with you, and I shall always 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.320 remain your true and devoted friend, as you know I 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.160 have been in the past. The provisional government in Russia 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.840 never delivered it. After all, the telegram had been addressed 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.920 to the Tsar, and no person of that title existed anymore. 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:03.080 The Imperial family presented a massive problem for the provisional government. 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.160 On one hand, they wanted them out of the country 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:10.360 completely gone where they couldn't ignite mutiny or inspire loyalty. 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.000 But the more extremist revolutionaries didn't want the formers are 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.679 out of custody. They wanted his confinement to put him 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.280 on trial. They didn't want him to get away literally 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.559 or metaphorically. It was about this time when the Provisional 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:30.320 government's foreign minister, a man named Pavo Miliakov, approached the 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:34.200 British ambassador and requested that the Imperial family might be 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:39.520 allowed to come to England. The British ambassador Buchanan equivocated, 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.520 how about Denmark or Sweden, either of those places possible? 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:49.200 What if we just, you know, keep brainstorming. Miliakov, sensing 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.960 the tightening danger of the extremists, reiterated that he would 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.240 very much like to get the Emperor out of Russia 0:10:55.440 --> 0:11:00.000 as soon as possible. Buchanan acquiesced. He asked the British 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:02.760 government for the authority to extend the Czar and his 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:06.000 family asylum in England at least for the duration of 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:10.079 the war. In London, a Cabinet meant to discuss it. 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.080 They didn't want to turn down a direct request from 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.120 the provisional government. They would need to stay in Russia's 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.360 good graces for trade and for continued support in World 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:22.200 War One, but there was no way around the fact 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.480 that bringing Bloody Nicholas and his German empress to England 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:29.480 would look bad. The family was massively unpopular with the 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:34.280 British public. News of the Russian Tsar being overthrown was 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.200 met in England with cheers, with celebrations in the street 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:40.960 for the common people who rose up to take down 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:45.600 an autocrat, and hatred for Alexandra, the German born former 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:49.640 z Arena was even more virulent in England. The popular 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.079 opinion was that there was no doubt she was double 0:11:52.120 --> 0:12:01.439 crossing Russia in the war with German spycraft. King George 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.240 the Fifth had been the victim of a massive public 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.840 outcry after he received members of the supposedly pro German 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.720 Greek royal family. Hosting the Tsar and his wife would 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:16.199 be nothing short of a pr nightmare. Plus, there were 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:20.000 logistics to consider. Where would the Tsar's family even stay. 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.400 The Prime Minister Lloyd George suggested one of the King's palaces. 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:29.440 The King's private secretary Stamford and rejected that proposal outright. 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.720 He was there at that meeting representing the King, and 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:36.040 he was fully aware how damaging the association between the 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.680 Tsar and King George could be. All of the palaces 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:44.239 were occupied. Stamford And asserted, well, except for Balmoral in Scotland. 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:46.760 But that's a summer palace and it would be totally 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:49.480 unsuitable for the Tsar and his family to stay at 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.760 at this time of year. Yes, of course, we can 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:56.200 all see now, totally unsuitable for the Imperial family to 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.440 stay in a summer palace when they would soon be 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:04.319 imprisoned in Siberia. Suitable palace available or not, it seemed 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.520 impossible for the British government to turn down a direct 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:12.640 request from the Russian provisional government, and so reluctantly Britain 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.040 agreed that in theory, the Czar and his family could 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:20.000 stay in the country just temporarily, just until the end 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:23.560 of the war. But fortunately for the British government, as 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.880 they fiddled with their cuff links and received urgent imaginary 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.040 phone calls, now it was the Russian government who delayed 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:35.719 the extremist Bolshevik faction was consolidating its power, even as 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.640 Miliakov wanted to get the Imperial family out of the 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:43.800 country that was becoming more and more challenging. Any actual 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:48.720 attempt to extradite the Czar would infuriate the extremists. In 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.520 the meantime, King George the Fifth reconsidered his own position. 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.640 Britain was weary from the war and its many sacrifices, 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.640 and socialism was becoming more and more appealing to the 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:03.600 popular elation. Anti royal sentiment was on the rise, and 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:07.199 even George changing his family name to Windsor didn't quite 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.240 convince the country of his patriotism or of his necessity. 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.200 A guy living in a palace wearing a golden crown 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.040 is never a popular image when a nation is barely 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:26.080 struggling to make it through an endless war. YEA bringing 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.000 Nicholas and his family over to England would indelibly associate 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:34.720 King George the Fifth with the hated Russian autocracy. After all, 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.760 everyone knew that King George was close with his beloved cousin, 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:42.520 regardless of what the political situation actually was. The truth 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.160 is it would look like a move of family loyalty 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:50.360 and not diplomacy, and so on. The King's behalf Stamfordham 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.600 wrote to bal for the British Foreign Secretary, the King 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.560 desires me to ask you whether the ambassador should not 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.000 be communicated with to make some other plans for the 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:06.080 future residents of their imperial majesties. King George was already 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.760 receiving letters of outrage from working men and Labor Party 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.720 members of Parliament in the House of Commons, all with 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:15.400 the assumption that he was the one making the decision 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:18.200 about whether or not to invite the Czar into the country. 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.880 Britain was a constitutional monarchy, of course, and George had 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.240 no direct powers to do anything, really, but it was 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.760 his head on the line. An article in the weekly 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:33.240 journal Justice protesting asylum of the Czar suggested that the 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.120 invitation had already come from the British King and Queen, 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.720 but it was probably the words from an editorial in 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:43.680 the Evening Globe that stuck in the King's mind. We 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.160 most sincerely hope that if there really is any idea 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.080 of inviting the XR and his consort to make their 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:54.000 home in England, it will be abandoned. We speak plainly 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.640 because we must, and because the danger is great and imminent, 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.280 the British throne itself would be perild if this thing 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:05.440 were done. And so, in a fit of panic and determination, 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:08.240 the King had Stamford Him right yet another note to 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.840 the Foreign Secretary just six hours after the first, making 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:17.000 things very very clear. The King Stamford Him wrote, must 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:19.920 beg you to represent to the Prime Minister that from 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.400 all he hears and reads in the press, the residents 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.440 in this country of the ex Emperor and Empress would 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:30.880 be strongly resented by the public, and would undoubtedly compromise 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:33.520 the position of the King and Queen, from whom it 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:38.200 would generally be assumed the invitation had emanated. Stamford um 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.880 included the article from Justice in the note. The King 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.280 loved his cousin, but the idea of Britain welcoming Nicholas 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.560 the bloody let alone, mounting and elaborate rescue to save 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:52.280 him once the Russian government custody closed in had shifted 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:57.000 from merely awkward to insurmountable. It's ironic in a sense. 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.320 The only reason a king is a king at all 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.160 is because if who his family is. But in a 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.760 constitutional monarchy, a king's power is at the mercy of 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:10.440 the people. Nicholas the Second was radioactive, and George needed 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.800 to protect himself. He wasn't Georgie. He was King George 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:23.760 the Five, and he put England and himself first. When 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.879 the Bolshevik soldiers entered the cellar on that night in 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:30.560 July in nine eighteen, each had been assigned a member 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:33.960 of the family to shoot. There were eleven of them 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.159 that needed to be killed altogether, three loyal servants that 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:42.200 had stayed with the imperial family, their doctor Nicholas, Alexandra, 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.360 their young son Alexei, and their four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:51.960 Maria and Anastasia. Some of the soldiers had refused to 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.160 shoot the girls and had been replaced, but even so, 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:58.119 when the Captain of the guard gave the orders to fire, 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.960 the majority of soldiers turned their gun to Nicholas. They 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.199 were loyal Bolsheviks, and they all wanted to be the 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:07.680 one who had killed the Tsar himself, not a man 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:13.040 who had shot a teenage girl. The result, though, was chaos. 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.200 The hated Tsar died quickly, but the girls were left alive, 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:21.800 screaming and hiding in corners of the cellar. Splattered with blood. 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:26.040 While the soldiers attempted to finish their gruesome execution, their 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:30.439 Russian made guns, jamming soldiers kept missing their targets in 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.439 the dark. Their boots were drenched in blood and brain matter. 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.919 To ultimately kill the four princesses, the soldiers had to 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:44.720 repeatedly stab them with their bayonets. At first, the Russian 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.560 government only acknowledged that the czar had been killed. The girls, 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.360 they said, had been put on a train to somewhere 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.400 for their own safety, and they had lost touch with them. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.960 The plan was to make evidence of the massacre literally disappear. 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.600 Two days after the shooting, their bodies were clumsily doused 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.080 and sulfuric acid, set on fire and tossed into a 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:11.600 pair of shallow graves. People had imagined the likelihood that 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.400 the czar was going to be killed, it was possible 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:16.520 that the Czarina was going to be killed as well, 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:19.880 but no one had imagined that their five children would 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.080 also be executed, and no one could have envisioned it 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:27.879 happening in the most chaotic, disturbing and gruesome way imaginable. 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.760 When word of Nicholas's death crossed Europe, King George attended 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.919 a memorial service in England. I attended a service at 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.040 the Russian Church in memory of dear Nikki, who I 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.359 fear was shot last month by the Bolsheviks. George wrote 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.960 in his diary, we can get no details. It was 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.639 a foul murder. I was devoted to Nikki, who was 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.119 the kindest of men and a thorough gentleman, loved his 0:19:54.200 --> 0:20:00.280 country and his people. Ever protective of the King's reputation Asian, 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.480 stamford Um had floated the possibility that the King might 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:06.320 want to sit the memorial service out so that the 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.800 public wouldn't see George as too sympathetic to the fallen Zar. 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.520 It seems to me, stamford Um wrote, we could decline 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:15.879 to join in on the service on the grounds that 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.840 the government has no official news of the emperor's death. 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:22.560 If you're looking for a villain in this story, Stamford 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:25.440 m might be as close as any. Just three days 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.280 after he advised the king not to attend the memorial, 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:31.640 stamford Um wrote a letter in response to an announcement 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.920 of the Czar's death in the Paper. The letter said, 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.400 was there ever a crueler murder? And has this country 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.239 ever before displayed such callous indifference to a tragedy of 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.560 this magnitude. What does it all mean? I am so 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.920 thankful that the King and Queen attended the memorial service. 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:56.439 Did King George have flood on his hands? The anti 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.920 climactic truth is, even if he had been completely support 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.800 of Britain granting asylum to the Imperial family, it might 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:06.320 not have made a difference at all. By the time 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:08.600 it became clear that the Czar and his family were 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:12.760 in danger, it was probably already too late. Miliakov and 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:15.639 the provisional government might not have been strong enough to 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:19.280 defy the extremists that wanted blood, and even from a 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:22.879 logistical perspective, a British ship would have needed to cut 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.080 through the still frozen ports of Russia and then through 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:30.600 a stronghold of Bolshevik extremists, and the imperial children had 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:33.760 measles that spring. The Tsar and Sarina may very well 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.840 have chosen to delay their traveling until their children were better. 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:41.120 After all, no one could have possibly imagined how limited 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.520 the window for escape would be, or imagine the horrifying, 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:48.600 bloody future that was to come. As it is, George's 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:51.760 diaries filled with woe and sorrow for his cousin Nikki, 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.919 and genuine horror that his children were murdered, but not guilt. 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.840 Maybe George understood the futility of feeling remorse for some 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.240 thing you never would have been able to do differently. 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.879 But it's also possible that maybe George did feel guilt. 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:11.040 Maybe he was kept awake, pacing the floors of his palace, 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.760 hearing screams in the dark. Maybe he looked in the 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:19.040 mirror and saw his twin cousin Nikki, staring back at him. 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:22.200 But maybe he knew that as a king sometimes guilt, 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.840 like family love, is one of the many things that 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:29.160 you're forced to push down and push away in order 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:38.960 to do your duty. In the end, George the fifth 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:42.919 didn't completely abandon his Russian family, stick around after a 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:55.280 brief sponsor break to find out what happened next. Even 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:59.119 after Nicholas the Second abdicated the throne, his mother, the 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:02.480 Dowager and Breath and his sister, the Grand Duchess Zenia 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:06.600 Alexandrovna still lived in the relative security of a family 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:10.000 house in Crimea. When they heard that the former's are 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:13.880 and his family had been murdered, they refused to believe it, 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:17.680 it was probably just Bolshevik propaganda. In the spring of 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:21.240 nineteen nineteen, King George the Fifth sent the British warship 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:25.520 h M. S. Marlborough to evacuate the remaining Romanovs. As 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:30.719 the Red Army continued to creep closer to Crimea. The Marlborough, 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:34.240 Tuxania and the Dowager Empress across the Black Sea to 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:37.680 Malta and then finally to safety in England. With the 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:41.639 Dowager Empress, who had been renamed Maria Federovna but was 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:46.040 born the Danish Princess dagmar reunited with her sister Alexandra, 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:51.240 King George the Fifth mother, and eventually even the doomed 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:55.520 Arena Alexandra's family made it to England. Remember Alki's sister. 0:23:56.040 --> 0:23:58.359 She was the one to whom Queen Victoria had written 0:23:58.400 --> 0:24:01.760 with an eerie clairvoyant about how our blood rained cold 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:05.400 and thought of Alecki going to Russia. Well. Alecki's sister 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:08.760 had a grandchild, a baby boy born as a Prince 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:11.720 of Greece and Denmark. He would go on to marry 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:16.000 King George the Fifth granddaughter and become Prince Philip Consort 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:25.800 to Queen Elizabeth the Second. Noble Blood is a co 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:29.160 production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. The show 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:32.120 is written and hosted by Dani Schwartz and produced by 0:24:32.119 --> 0:24:37.080 Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:40.199 Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and 0:24:40.280 --> 0:24:42.359 you can learn more about the show over at Noble 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:45.800 blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, 0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:49.680 visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:24:49.720 --> 0:24:51.159 you listen to your favorite shows.