Charlotte of Prussia (Alexandra Feodorovna)

Friederike Luise Charlotte Wilhelmine, better known as Charlotte, was born a princess of Prussia on 13 July 1798. She was the eldest surviving daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia and his wife, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Her childhood was marked by the Napoleonic wars and the death of her mother when she was just 12.

On February 1814, Grand Duke Nicholas Pavlovich, the future Tsar of Russia, and his brother. Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich visited Berlin. Arrangements were made by the two families for Nicholas to marry Charlotte and strengthen the alliance between Prussia and Russia. On a second visit, Nicholas fell in love with Charlotte; the feeling was mutual. She wrote: I like him and am sure of being happy with him. By the end of this visit, they were engaged.

On 9 June 1817, Princess Charlotte travelled to Russia. When she arrived in Saint Petersburg, she converted to Russian Orthodoxy, and took the Russian name of Alexandra Feodorovna. On her 19th birthday, Nicholas and Alexandra married at the Winter Palace. She later wrote about her wedding: With complete confidence and trust, I gave my life into the hands of my Nicholas, and he never once betrayed it. For eight years, during the reign of Tsar Alexander I, the couple lived quietly.

Alexandra became Empress consort upon her husband's accession as Nicholas I, in 1825, during a turbulent period marked by the bloody repression of the Decembrist revolt. By 1832, Nicholas and Alexandra had 7 children whom they raised with care: Alexander (the future Alexander II), Maria Nikolaevna, Olga Nikolaevna, Alexandra Nikolaevna, Konstantin Nikolaevich, Nicholas Nikolaevich and Mikhail Nikolaevich. After more than twenty five years of fidelity, Nicholas ended up taking a mistress, one of Alexandra's ladies in waiting, Barbara Nelidova.

Alexandra Feodorovna survived her husband by five years. The Dowager Empress's health became more and more fragile with the years. Unable to spend the harsh winters in Russia, she had to travel south often.

After returning from a trip abroad in July 1860 she did not cease to be ill. In the autumn of 1860, her doctors told her that she would not live through the winter if she did not travel once more to the south. She decided she would stay in Saint Petersburg so that she might die in Russian soil. The night before her death, she was heard saying, Niki, I am coming to you. She died in her sleep at the age of sixty-two on 1 November 1860 at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo.

Alexandra Feodorovna
A. Malyukov
(1836)

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