Elizabeth, Grand Duchess of Russia

The marriage of Queen Victoria's enchanting granddaughter Elizabeth to Grand Duke Serge of Russia in 1884 placed her at the dazzling center of the opulent court in St. Petersburg, until the brutal assassination of her husband in 1905. Five years later, the Grand Duchess had not only abandoned the Russian court but had wedded herself to the Russian Orthodox Church and founded a convent dedicated to Christian charity. Her profound faith wrought minor miracles for Moscow's hungry and poor, but it could save neither her sister Alexandra from the mesmeric hold of the sinister Rasputin nor herself from the bloody tide of Revolution and the Bolsheviks, who in 1918 imprisoned and with remorseless cruelty executed her.