GRAND DUCAL ROMANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 317, 7 January 1909, Page 4

GRAND DUCAL ROMANCE.

The Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovitcli has been reinstated in the Russian Army wilh his former rank of captain and the dignity of aide-de-camp to the Tsar. The announcement is a sequel lo a romantic story. The Grand Duke Cyril, who stands near in succession to the Russian throne, was in October 1110.3 dismissed from all his appointments and excluded from Russia on account of his clandestine marriage with his cousin, the divorced wife of the Grand Duke of Hesse. This lady, Princess Victoria -jUeliliti of Saxc-Coburg-Gotha, is a neice of King Edward, and was born at Malta in 1870. 'When only 18 she was married to the Grand Duke of Hesse, who divorced her by decree in T.lOl without assigning any reason. After her divorce the princess lived with her mother at Coluivg. where the Grand Duke Cyril was a constant visitor. The Princcs-i. who is the same age as her cousin, was niaiTHtd t" the Grand Duke Cyril at an hotel isi the Bavarian capital early in October ]!!0.">, the ceremony being |*rforined by a Greek priest from Coburg, the bride's mother the Grand Duchess Marie of Saxe-Coluirg, and the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia being also present. The Grand Duke Cyril was one of the eighty survivors of ihe Russian Battleship Petropavlovsk, which struck a Japanese mine when lb,. Russian Meet was decoyed otitjof Port Arthur in 1004. Admiral MuknrolT and 700 officers and men were drowned. Duke Cvril was on the bridge of llie hapless vessel at the moment when she struck the mine and saved himself by jumping into the sea and clinging to a piece of wreckage, for some twenty minutes, with a torpedo boat picked him up. For big "braverv" on this occasion llie Tsar presented him with a gold sword with the .inscription, "For valour." The Tsar is the Grand Puke's c sin and the Grand Duke Vlndmir is his father.