
The Lives and Deaths of the Princesses of Hesse
The curious destinies of Queen Victoria's granddaughters
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Narrated by:
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Jilly Bond
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By:
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Frances Welch
About this listen
Named one of The Telegraph's 'Best Biographies of the Year 2024'
Queen Victoria had forty-two grandchildren but the four Princesses of Hesse were held in her particular favour. After the sudden death of her daughter Alice, Queen Victoria took an obsessive interest in the marriage prospects of the four girls their mother had left behind, hoping this might secure for them a happy future. And each of the young women did indeed marry into a European dynasty: the Romanovs and the Hohenzollerns of Germany. However no one could have foreseen how the maelstrom of the twentieth century would bring tragedy and heartache to each one of them in turn.
Drawing on hundreds of previously unseen letters from the sisters as well as from their grandmother Queen Victoria, The Princesses of Hesse takes us on a sweeping journey across the tumultuous landscape of the turn of the century - from the dramas of the Russian Court to the Russian Revolution, and through both World Wars in which the sisters often found themselves on opposing sides.
Both intimate and epic in scope, Frances Welch's biography sheds new light on the four sisters' lives, illuminating a remarkable period of history in the process.
'full of passions, royal peculiarities and misspelt letters...compellingly told' Christopher Howse, The Daily Telegraph
'Welch does a wonderful job of marshalling the different strands of this story, drawing on the sisters' chatty, gossipy correspondence, some of which has never been published. It grips you until the very last page' The Mail on Sunday
'Frances Welch's elegant and intimate group biography returns us to the start of the 20th century, when Queen Victoria's favourite grand-daughters were scattered between Germany, England and Russia' Frances Wilson, The Daily Telegraph
'eye-opening' and 'harrowing' The Daily Mail
'Welch brings the four princesses vividly to life' and 'will delight those who enjoy reading about the lives of royals' The Times
'brings them vividly to life...a tonic...a gripping read' Hugo Vickers, The Oldie
'Frances Welch has a gift for bringing royal figures to life, making us care about them and showing us how their stories interweave...this is both a deeply affecting story of four sisters and an informative bit of history' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Spectator
'splendid', 'a fascinating family portrait', 'Welch creates a tenderly intimate portrait of the last, doomed Tsarina and her three German-born sisters' Miranda Seymour, Literary Review©2024 Frances Welch (P)2024 Octopus Publishing Group
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By: Graham Hancock
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They were granddaughters of Queen Victoria and two of the most beautiful princesses in Europe. Princesses Alix and Ella were destined to wed well and wisely. But while their grandmother wants to join them to the English and German royal families, the sisters fall in love with Russia—and the Romanovs.
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Captivating and delightful
- By Anonymous on 03-16-24
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The Life and Death of Ella Grand Duchess of Russia
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Excellent book, great narration
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The Last Days of the Romanovs
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Helen Rappaport, an expert in the field of Russian history, brings you the riveting day-by-day account of the last 14 days of the Russian Imperial family, in this first of two books about the Romanovs. The brutal murder of the Russian Imperial family on the night of July 16 to 17, 1918, has long been a defining moment in world history. The Last Days of the Romanovs reveals in exceptional detail how the conspiracy to kill them unfolded.
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GREAT
- By courtney on 08-31-17
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The Last Tsar
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When Tsar Nicholas II fell from power in 1917, Imperial Russia faced a series of overlapping crises, from war to social unrest. Though Nicholas’s life is often described as tragic, it was not fate that doomed the Romanovs—it was poor leadership and a blinkered faith in autocracy. Based on a trove of new archival discoveries, The Last Tsar narrates how Nicholas’s resistance to reform doomed the monarchy.
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Confusion
- By Michael L. Cook on 01-24-25
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A Most English Princess
- A Novel of Queen Victoria's Daughter
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To the world, she was Princess Victoria, daughter of a queen, wife of an emperor, and mother of Kaiser Wilhelm. Her family just called her Vicky...smart, pretty, and self-assured, she changed the course of the world. January 1858: Princess Victoria glides down the aisle of St. James Chapel to the waiting arms of her beloved, Fritz, Prince Frederick, heir to the powerful kingdom of Prussia.
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A most delightful audiobook
- By Trudy D on 10-28-20
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Once a Grand Duchess
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This biography of Xenia, sister of Nicholas II gives a new angle on the Romanov story and provides new information on relationships within the family after the Revolution.
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It’s a hard listen
- By Lisa M. Schirmeister on 07-26-24
By: John Van der Kiste, and others
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The Romanov Brides
- A Novel of the Last Tsarina and Her Sisters
- By: Clare McHugh
- Narrated by: Yelena Shmulenson
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-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were granddaughters of Queen Victoria and two of the most beautiful princesses in Europe. Princesses Alix and Ella were destined to wed well and wisely. But while their grandmother wants to join them to the English and German royal families, the sisters fall in love with Russia—and the Romanovs.
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Captivating and delightful
- By Anonymous on 03-16-24
By: Clare McHugh
-
The Life and Death of Ella Grand Duchess of Russia
- A Romanov Tragedy
- By: Christopher Warwick
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
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-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Described as the 'most beautiful princess in Europe', and a woman 'capable of arousing profane passion', this is the story of a woman whose life combined privilege and tragedy, love and riches, conviction and courage, humanity and inhumanity.
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-
Excellent book, great narration
- By SuziQ on 05-26-23
-
The Last Days of the Romanovs
- Tragedy at Ekaterinburg
- By: Helen Rappaport
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Helen Rappaport, an expert in the field of Russian history, brings you the riveting day-by-day account of the last 14 days of the Russian Imperial family, in this first of two books about the Romanovs. The brutal murder of the Russian Imperial family on the night of July 16 to 17, 1918, has long been a defining moment in world history. The Last Days of the Romanovs reveals in exceptional detail how the conspiracy to kill them unfolded.
-
-
GREAT
- By courtney on 08-31-17
By: Helen Rappaport
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The Last Tsar
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- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Tsar Nicholas II fell from power in 1917, Imperial Russia faced a series of overlapping crises, from war to social unrest. Though Nicholas’s life is often described as tragic, it was not fate that doomed the Romanovs—it was poor leadership and a blinkered faith in autocracy. Based on a trove of new archival discoveries, The Last Tsar narrates how Nicholas’s resistance to reform doomed the monarchy.
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Confusion
- By Michael L. Cook on 01-24-25
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A Most English Princess
- A Novel of Queen Victoria's Daughter
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Overall
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Performance
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To the world, she was Princess Victoria, daughter of a queen, wife of an emperor, and mother of Kaiser Wilhelm. Her family just called her Vicky...smart, pretty, and self-assured, she changed the course of the world. January 1858: Princess Victoria glides down the aisle of St. James Chapel to the waiting arms of her beloved, Fritz, Prince Frederick, heir to the powerful kingdom of Prussia.
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-
A most delightful audiobook
- By Trudy D on 10-28-20
By: Clare McHugh
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Once a Grand Duchess
- Xenia, Sister of Nicolas II
- By: John Van der Kiste, Coryne Hall
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
This biography of Xenia, sister of Nicholas II gives a new angle on the Romanov story and provides new information on relationships within the family after the Revolution.
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It’s a hard listen
- By Lisa M. Schirmeister on 07-26-24
By: John Van der Kiste, and others
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Thorns, Lust, and Glory
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Anne Boleyn has mesmerized the general public for centuries. Her tragic execution at the Tower of London on the 19th of May, 1536—orchestrated by her own husband—never ceases to intrigue. While many stories of Anne’s downfall have been told, few have truly traced the origins of her grim fate. In Thorns, Lust, and Glory, Estelle Paranque takes us back to where it all started: to France, where Anne learned the lessons that would set her on the path to becoming one of England's most infamous queens.
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The Truth is Revealed
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Queen Victoria's Children
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Queen Victoria and Albert, the Prince Consort, had nine children, who, despite their very different characters, remained a close-knit family. Inevitably, as they married into European royal families, their loyalties were divided and their lives dominated by political controversy. This is not only the story of their lives in terms of world impact but also of personal achievements in their own right, individual contributions to public life in Britain and overseas, and as the children of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort.
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Was the narrator just too bored?
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The Lost Queen
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A long-overlooked figure in history, Catherine has a crucial place in the history of the British Empire: she may have failed to produce an heir to the throne, but her marriage to Charles in 1662 marked a key turning point in Britain's imperial ascendancy, for part of her dowry was Bombay, Britain's first territory of the Indian subcontinent. Catherine also was highly influential in the worlds of fashion, Baroque art and music, and food and culture. She popularized tea drinking, bringing England's national drink into fashion for the first time.
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Notorious Royal Marriages
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Since time immemorial, royal marriages have had little to do with love—and almost everything to do with diplomacy and dynasty. Clashing personalities have joined in unholy matrimony to form such infamous couples as Russia’s Peter II and Catherine the Great, and France’s Henri II and Catherine de Medici—all with the purpose of begetting a male heir. But with tensions high and silverware flying, kings like England’s Henry II have fled to the beds of their nubile mistresses, while queens such as Eleanor of Aquitaine have plotted their revenge.
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Wtf with the accents
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The Thistle and the Rose
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Margaret Tudor, the elder sister of her more famous brother Henry VIII, is the single most important Tudor figure of this era that historians have consistently overlooked. Married at thirteen to the charismatic James IV of Scotland, a man more than twice her age, she would learn the skills of statecraft that would enable her to survive his early death, and to construct a powerful position in her adopted country of Scotland as she dealt with domestic issues as well as navigating international relations with England and France.
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Margaret Tudor / Queen of Scots
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The riveting history of a beautiful queen, a shocking murder, a papal trial - and a reign as triumphant as any in the Middle Ages. On March 15, 1348, 22-year-old Joanna I, queen of Naples, stood trial for the murder of her husband before the pope and his court in Avignon. Determined to defend herself, Joanna won her acquittal against overwhelming odds. Victorious, she returned to Naples and ruled over one of Europe's most prestigious courts for the next three decades - until she herself was killed.
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Terrible mispronunciation of words
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Royal Witches
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Until the mass hysteria of the seventeenth century, accusations of witchcraft in England were rare. However, four royal women, related in family and in court ties - Joan of Navarre, Eleanor Cobham, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, and Elizabeth Woodville - were accused of practicing witchcraft in order to kill or influence the king. In Royal Witches, Gemma Hollman explores the lives and the cases of these so-called witches, placing them in the historical context of 15th-century England, a setting rife with political upheaval and war.
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Hard to listen to
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The Rebel Empresses
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When they married Emperors Franz Joseph and Napoleon III, respectively, Elisabeth of Austria and Eugénie of France became two of the most famous women on the planet. Not only were they both young and beautiful—becoming cultural and fashion icons of their time—but they played a pivotal role in ruling their realms during a tempestuous era characterized by unprecedented political and technological change. Fearless, adventurous, and independent, Elisabeth and Eugénie represented a new kind of empress—one who rebelled against tradition and anticipated and embraced modern values.
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Excellent book!
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Steel Lobsters
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The 17th-century battlefield ushered in a new era, with formed musketeers and pistol-wielding cavalry gradually taking over from the knights and men-at-arms that had dominated the European battlefield. Based on a detailed study of the primary sources, Steel Lobsters tells the story of this transition through the history of the last fully armoured knights in England.
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Cole consistently delivers
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Queen Victoria's Matchmaking
- The Royal Marriages That Shaped Europe
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- Unabridged
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A captivating exploration of the role in which Queen Victoria exerted the most international power and influence: as a matchmaking grandmother. Queen Victoria's Matchmaking travels through the glittering, decadent palaces of Europe from London to Saint Petersburg, weaving in scandals, political machinations, and family tensions. It is at once an intimate portrait of a royal family and an examination of the conflict caused by the marriages the Queen arranged. At the heart of it all is Victoria herself: doting grandmother one moment, determined Queen Empress the next.
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Beautifully written and narrated
- By LitLadyK on 01-08-19
By: Deborah Cadbury
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The Lost Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Gill Paul
- Narrated by: Helen Duff
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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1918: Pretty, vivacious Grand Duchess Maria Romanov, the 19-year-old daughter of the fallen Tsar Nicholas II, lives with her family in suffocating isolation, a far cry from their once-glittering royal household. Her days are a combination of endless boredom and paralyzing fear; her only respite are clandestine flirtations with a few of the guards imprisoning the family - never realizing her innocent actions could mean the difference between life and death.
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Slow....Very Slow....
- By D. Fields on 04-10-20
By: Gill Paul
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The Lost Chapel of Westminster
- How a Royal Chapel Became the House of Commons
- By: John Cooper
- Narrated by: Jeremy Clyde
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Begun in 1292, the royal chapel of St Stephen was the crowning glory of the old palace of Westminster – a place of worship for kings and a showcase of the finest architecture, ritual and music the Plantagenets could muster. But in 1548, as the Protestant Reformation reached its height, St Stephen's was given a new purpose as the House of Commons. Burned out in the great palace fire of 1834, the Commons chamber was then recreated on a remarkably similar medieval design, perpetuating a way of doing politics that is recognisable to this day.
By: John Cooper
What listeners say about The Lives and Deaths of the Princesses of Hesse
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- Franchella
- 03-07-25
Fascinating
A fabulous insight into four sisters and their roles in the major events of the early c20th.
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