German and Russian Royalty. She was the third child and second daughter of Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, and was was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England and Emperor Alexander II of Russia. She spent her early life in England and lived in Malta for three years, where her father was serving in the British Royal Navy. In 1889 the family moved to Coburg, Germany, where her father became the reigning duke in 1893. As a teenager, she met and fell in love with her maternal first cousin Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia, but the disapprobation of marriage between first cousins of his faith, Russian Orthodox Christianity, discouraged their romance. Bowing to family pressure, she married her paternal first cousin, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine in 1894, following the wishes of their shared grandmother, Queen Victoria. Their marriage was a failure and their two children died young. Victoria scandalized the royal families of Europe when she divorced her husband in 1901. The couple's only child, Princess Elisabeth, died of typhoid fever in 1903. She then married Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich in 1905, without the formal approval of Britain's King Edward VII, required by the Royal Marriages Act 1772, and in defiance of Tsar Nicholas II. In retaliation, the Tsar stripped Kirill of his offices and honors, also initially banishing the couple from Russia. They had two daughters, Maria and Kira, and settled in Paris, France, before being allowed to visit Russia in 1909. In 1910 they returned to Russia, where Nicholas finally recognized her as the Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna. After the fall of the Russian monarchy in 1917, they escaped to Finland (then part of the Russian Empire) where she gave birth to her only son Vladimir. In exile they lived for some years among her relatives in Germany, and later on an estate they bought in Saint-Briac-sur-Mer, France. She died after suffering a stroke while visiting her daughter Maria at the age of 59. Originally interred at the ducal family mausoleum in Glockenberg Cemetery, in March 1995 her remains were transferred to the Grand Ducal Mausoleum of the Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg, Russia.