With Rasputin out of the picture, Yusupov hoped to restore the reputation of the tsar, as well as help Nicholas rely more on his extended family, the nobility, and the Duma.

Tsar Nicholas II was the cousin of King George V, who was the Queen’s grandfather. George V’s mother was Alexandra Princess of Wales, the sister of Nicholas’ mother, Dagmar of Denmark. Tsar Nicholar ...

On one celebrated occasion the Black Monk had persuaded the Tsar to order that he, Rasputin, should inspect the Crank Duke Nicholas’ lines, and the “Debauchee” wired that he was coming.

He is saving us with His prayers and His wise advice.") Amazingly, even after Rasputin was murdered in late 1916, the Tsar and his wife simply transferred their mystical allegiances to Rasputin's ...

The Empress Alexandra, wife of Tsar Nicholas II, believed Rasputin had mystical healing powers that could help her haemophiliac son Alexei, the heir to the throne.

Rasputin claimed he could heal the disease and provided treatment to the young Alexi, who showed signs of recovery. As a result, Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra, placed their trust in him.

You see in their story with him, Rasputin in embryonic form. Alexandra knew that Nicholas was weak. She knew he lacked a will of his own, a spine.

At age 19, on the occasion of her wedding in 1901, Tsar Nicholas granted his youngest sister a 200-room starter home — a $453-million St. Petersburg, parapeted, neo-Palladian with a 47-window ...

NONFICTION Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs By Douglas Smith Farrar, Straus and Giroux 787 pages, $35.00 This book gets rid of the many myths about Rasputin.