Grand Duchess Viktoria Feodorovna of Russia, born Princess Victoria Melita (25 November 1876 – 2 March 1936), was a member of the British Royal Family, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria...
[1891: Meeting of Victoria Melita and Cyril Vladimirovich Romanov at a Russian funeral, whereupon the following happened:]
[Victoria Melita and Cyril Vladimirovich] were deeply attracted to one another, [yet] Victoria's mother was reluctant to allow her to marry him.
[As a consequence, Victoria Melita was not permitted to pursue a relationship with Cyril but was more or less forced to marry Enest-Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt instead, because that was the wish of her powerful grandmother's, Queen Victoria of GB.]
You quote Wikipedia; and this is indeed the information given there. But I never found out how this alleged 1891 meeting of Victoria Melita and her cousin Cyril, where they allegedly fell madly in love with each other, even BEFORE Victoria Melita ever set eyes on Ernest Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, and the whole story of her mother's warning Victoria Melita off Cyril and pressing Ernst-Ludwig’s suit instead has been attested.
How do we know about this alleged meeting between Melita and Cyril?
Hugo Vickers, the author of Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece (a biography of the present Prince Consort Philip's, the Duke of Edinburgh' mother) in this book of 2000 also touches upon the story of Victoria Melita, Ernest-Louis of Hesse and Cyril Vladimirovich but assumes a completely different dating.
Vickers does not know or mention that alleged, fateful 1891 Russian-funeral-meeting of Melita and Cyril at all.
According to him, the first event in the story took place in 1891, and consisted in a meeting of Victoria Melita's and Ernest-Louis' at a party at Balmoral in Scotland. There these two struck up a friendship, which was obvious enough to be observed by Queen Victoria of GB, the grandmother of both, who had hosted this party.
In 1892, when Ernest-Ludwig succeeded his deceased father as Grand-Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, Queen Victoria proceeded to bargain and make a match between Melita and Ernest reality.
Melita and Ernest did get married in 1894 (this is undisputed).
But according to Vickers, Melita did meet Cyril [whom she married in 1905] only later, namely in 1896.
This alters the story reported in Wikipedia considerably.
I.e., if Wikipedia were right and there had been an early (1891) meeting between Melita and Cyril, with an irrepressible love springing up between the two, which Melita had to suppress to marry Ernest-Louis, the story becomes far more romantic, making Melita a martyr of her first passion etc, than if she met him only two years into her marriage with Ernest.
Which dating is correct? And how do we know it to be correct?
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