Princess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia - Later Years

Later Years

On 17 May 1920, Xenia had been granted Letters of Administration as eldest sister and heir to her brother Nicholas's estate in England worth five hundred British pounds sterling. Her husband Sandro was living at this time in Paris. By 1925, Xenia's financial situation had become desperate. King George V, who was her first cousin, allowed her to settle in Frogmore Cottage, a grace and favour house, in Windsor Great Park for which she was grateful to her cousin. Later she had to deal with the fraudulent claims of Anna Anderson to be her niece, the murdered Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. Her sister Olga had pointed out if there had been any Romanov monies left, the Dowager Empress would not be receiving a pension from the British King. In July 1928, ten years after the death of Nicholas and Alexandra, his family were now legally presumed dead. Xenia and her family had hoped to take possession of the Langinkoski estate in Kotka, Finland, but this however came to nothing.

Xenia visited her mother, the Dowager Empress, in Denmark as often as she could. Her mother was living in the Hvidøre Villa that she and her sister Alexandra had bought on the Danish coast north of Copenhagen. In 1928, Xenia's mother fell seriously ill and died on 13 October. After the death of her mother, the sale of the Hvidore estate and the jewels of the Dowager Empress brought in some income. No sooner had the Dowager Empress died, Xenia received a letter from Gleb Botkin, son of her late brother's doctor, claiming that she was trying to steal from her niece, Anastasia. Her husband declared in a letter to her his disdain for the "vileness" of Botkin.

On 26 February 1933, Xenia's husband Sandro died. Xenia and her sons were present at his funeral on 1 March, in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in the south of France. By March 1937, Xenia had moved from Frogmore House in Windsor Great Park to Wilderness House in the grounds of Hampton Court Palace, where she continued to live until she died on 20 April 1960. Despite reduced circumstances during her lifetime, Xenia left a small estate to her remaining relatives.