Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)
On the morning of 13 March 1881, her father-in-law Alexander II of Russia, aged 62, was killed by a bomb on the way back to the Winter Palace from a military parade. In her diary, Maria later described how the wounded, still living Emperor was taken to the palace: "His legs were crushed terribly and ripped open to the knee; a bleeding mass, with half a boot on the right foot, and only the sole of the foot remaining on the left." Alexander II died a few hours later. Although the people were not enamoured of the new emperor, they adored Russia's new empress. As Maria's contemporaries said of her: "She is truly an empress." She was not altogether pleased with her new status. In her diary she wrote, "Our happiest and serenest times are now over. My peace and calm are gone, for now I will only ever be able to worry about Sasha." Despite being haunted by her father-in-law's gruesome death and her anxiety over the safety of her husband, at Alexander II's funeral, she was at least afforded the comfort of the presence of her brother-in-law and favourite sister, the Prince and Princess of Wales, the latter of whom, despite her husband's reluctance and Queen Victoria's objections, stayed on in Russia with Maria for several weeks after the funeral.
Nicholas II of Russia
Because of the fragility of the autocracy at this time, Nicholas and Alexandra chose not to divulge Alexei's condition to anyone outside the imperial household. In fact, there were many in the household who were unaware of the exact nature of the Tsarevich's illness. At first Alexandra turned to Russian doctors and medics to treat Alexei; however, their treatments generally failed, and Alexandra increasingly turned to mystics and holy men (or "starets" as they were called in Russian). One of these starets, an illiterate Siberian named Grigori Rasputin, appeared to have some success. Rasputin's influence over Empress Alexandra, and consequently the Tsar himself, had grown stronger ever since 1912, when the Tsarevich nearly died from an injury while the family was on vacation at the hunting lodges at Białowieża and Spała (Poland). The bleeding grew steadily worse until it was assumed that the Tsarevich would not survive, and the Last Sacrament was administered on 10 October 1912. In desperation Alexandra called upon Rasputin as a last resort, to which he replied, "God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The Little One will not die. Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much." The haemorrhage stopped the very next day and the boy began to recover. Alexandra took this as a sign that Rasputin was a "starets" and that God was with him; for the rest of her life she would fervently defend him and turn her wrath against anyone who dared to question him.