Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

**Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna of Russia** (; 25 November 1876 – 2 March 1936) was the third child and second daughter of Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. She was a granddaughter of both Queen Victoria and Emperor Alexander II.

Born a British princess, Victoria spent her childhood in England and lived in Malta for three years, where her father served in the Royal Navy. When Victoria became a teenager, she fell in love with her maternal first cousin Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia, but his Orthodox Christian faith discouraged marriage between first cousins.

Due to family pressure, Victoria married her paternal first cousin Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, in 1894. The marriage failed and she caused a scandal among the royal families of Europe when she divorced her husband in 1901. They had one child together named Princess Elisabeth, who died of typhoid fever in 1903.

Victoria married Kirill in 1905, without the formal approval of King Edward VII and in defiance of Tsar Nicholas II. They had two daughters together named Maria and Kira, and relocated in Paris before being allowed to visit Russia in 1909. In 1910, they moved to Russia, where Nicholas formally recognized Victoria as _Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna_.

After the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, they escaped to Finland where Victoria where would give birth to her only son Vladimir in August 1917. In exile they lived with her relatives in Germany, and from the late 1920s on an estate they bought in Saint-Briac in Brittany. Victoria died in 1936 after suffering a stroke while visiting her daughter Maria in Amorbach.

## Honours

- :
    - **CI**: Companion of the Imperial Order of the Crown of India, _11 December 1893_
    - **VA**: Dame of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, 1st Class
    - **GCStJ**: Dame Grand Cross of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem
    - **RRC**: Member of the Royal Red Cross
- : Dame of the Order of Louise, 1st Division
- Ernestine duchies: Dame of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order
- :
    - Dame of the Grand Ducal Hessian Order of the Golden Lion, in Brilliants, _19 April 1894_
    - Dame Grand Cross of the Grand Ducal Hessian Order of Ludwig, in Brilliants, _25 November 1898_
    - Medal of the Merit Order of Philip the Magnanimous
- : Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Romania
- :
    - Dame Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of Saint Catherine, _November 1894_
    - Decoration of the Military Order of Saint George
- : Dame of the Royal Order of Noble Ladies of Queen Maria Luisa, _31 October 1913_

### British arms

As a male-line grandchild of the British monarch, Victoria Melita bore the royal arms, with an inescutcheon for Saxony, the whole differenced by a label of five points argent, the outer pair bearing hearts gules, the inner pair anchors azure, and the central point a cross gules. In 1917, the inescutcheon was dropped by royal warrant. Her arms from that point on are duplicated in the arms of Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy.

## Infobox (royalty)

- **consort**: yes
- **name**: Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
- **title**: Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna of Russia
- **succession**: Grand Duchess consort of Hesse and by Rhine
- **reign**: 19 April 1894 – 21 December 1901
- **image**: Victoria Melita of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.jpg
- **caption**: Photograph by Hugo Thiele,
- **house**: House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
- **father**: Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
- **mother**: Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia
- **birth name**: Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh
- **birth place**: San Anton Palace, Attard, British Malta
- **death place**: Amorbach,  Nazi Germany
- **burial place**: 10 March 1936
, Coburg
7 March 1995
Grand Ducal Mausoleum, Peter and Paul Fortress, Saint Petersburg
- **religion**: Russian Orthodox (1907–1936)
prev. Protestant (1876–1907)
- **succession2**: House of Romanov, Consort to the Head of the House of Romanov
- **reign2**: 31 August 1924 – 2 March 1936