page_title: Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse)
section_title: Coronation
hierarchical_section_title: Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse) / Empress of Russia / Coronation
context_page_description: Alexandra Feodorovna was Empress of Russia as the spouse of Nicholas II—the last ruler of the Russian Empire—from their marriage on 26 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917. Originally Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine at birth, she was given the name and patronymic Alexandra Feodorovna when she converted and was received into the Russian Orthodox Church. She and her immediate family were all killed while in Bolshevik captivity in 1918, during the Russian Revolution. She was later canonized in 2000 in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Alexandra the Passion Bearer.
  A favourite granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Alexandra was, like her grandmother, one of the most famous royal carriers of the haemophilia disease. Alix had lost her elder brother Prince Friedrich of Hesse and by Rhine and her uncle Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, to hemophilia, and bore a hemophiliac heir, Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsesarevich of Russia.
context_section_description: Alexandra Feodorovna became Empress of Russia on her wedding day, but it was not until 14 May 1896 that the coronation of Nicholas and Alexandra took place at the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin in Moscow. The following day, the coronation celebrations were halted when the deaths of over one thousand people became known. The victims had been trampled to death at the Khodynka Field in Moscow when rumours spread that there would not be enough of the food being distributed in honour of the coronation for the thousands who had gathered there. The relatively small numbers of police in attendance could not maintain order, and thousands were crushed in the ensuing stampede. In light of these events the tsar declared he could not go to the ball being given that night by the French Ambassador, the Marquis de Montebello. Nonetheless his uncles urged him to attend so as not to offend the French. Nicholas relented, and he and Alexandra attended the ball. Sergei Witte commented, "We expected the party would be called off. Instead it took place as if nothing had happened and the ball was opened by Their Majesties dancing a quadrille." Alexandra was affected by the loss of life; "The Empress appeared in great distress, her eyes reddened by tears," the British Ambassador informed Queen Victoria. Although Alexandra and Nicholas had visited the wounded the day after and offered to pay for the coffins of the dead, many Russians took the disaster at Khodynka Meadow as an omen that the reign would be unhappy. Others used the circumstances of the tragedy and the behaviour of the royal establishment to underscore the heartlessness of the autocracy and the contemptible shallowness of the young tsar and his "German woman".
  That autumn Nicholas, Alexandra, and the infant Grand Duchess Olga—who was approaching one—traveled to Scotland to spend time with Queen Victoria at Balmoral Castle. While Nicholas was in somewhat of a bad mood due to days spent with "Uncle Bertie" (the Prince of Wales) shooting in bad weather while Nicholas suffered from a toothache, Alexandra relished the time with her grandmother. It was in fact, the last time that grandmother and granddaughter would see each other, and when Queen Victoria died in January 1901, pregnancy with her fourth daughter, Grand Duchess Anastasia, prevented Alexandra from attending the funeral in London.
caption: Lesser arms of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna