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 CrossSullivan, p. 288
 : Dame of the Order of Louise, 1st Division
    Ernestine duchies: Dame of the Saxe-Ernestine House OrderHof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Hessen (1900), Genealogy p. 2
 :
 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 MagnanimousSullivan, p. 224
 : Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Romania
 :
 Dame Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of Saint Catherine, November 1894"Historical review of the Order of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine or the Order of Liberation". The Court Calendar for 1911. St. Petersburg: Suppliers of the Court of His Imperial Majesty. Vol. R. Golike and A. Wilborg, 1910. p. 589
 Decoration of the Military Order of Saint GeorgeFedorchenko, Valery. Imperial house. Outstanding dignitaries. Encyclopedia of Biographies. OLMA Media Group, 2003. 1, pp. 203–204. 1307 p. , 9785786700481.
 : 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.

 References 

Category:1876 births
Category:1936 deaths
Category:British princesses
Category:German princes and princesses
Category:House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Category:House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Category:Royal consorts