Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse and his first wife, Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.


 The first cousin marriage between Ducky and Ernie was conjured up by Queen Victoria and it was this failure of a marriage that convinced the old queen that she should not meddle into her family’s romances ever again.


After QV’s death they divorced and after their poor daughter Elisabeth died suddenly of typhoid fever Ducky went off and married her first cousin on her mother’s side, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich which ended up getting them banned from Russia for a number of years (first cousin marriages are illegal in the Russian Orthodox Church; this is precisely why Nicholas II forbid the marriage of his brother Michael to Ducky’s sister Beatrice “Baby Bee”).


Ernie went to marry his childhood friend Princess Eleanore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich and it was a month after his death that a plane crash occurred killing Prince Philip’s sister Cecille and her family, ending the Hesse-Darmstadt lineage

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