Larissa Tudor - Speculation About The Rescue of A Grand Duchess

Speculation About The Rescue of A Grand Duchess

In his 1993 book The Romanov Conspiracies: The Romanovs and the House of Windsor, Occleshaw speculates that Tatiana was flown out of Siberia by British agents in mid-July 1918 and, with assistance from the Japanese, transferred into the hands of Prince Arthur of Connaught, who was traveling from Japan to Canada aboard the Japanese battle cruiser Kirishima in July 1918. With the prince's party, the rescued grand duchess allegedly traveled across Canada before she sailed to the United Kingdom on the Canadian Pacific Ocean Service Ltd. vessel Corsican, which arrived in the United Kingdom in August 1918.

Occleshaw speculated that a rescue mission by air might have been considered by the British at the behest of King George V. An entry in the journal of Col. Richard Meinertzhagen asserts that the rescue took place on July 1, 1918, a date that might have been inaccurate. Meinertzhagen wrote that the rescue was not a complete success because not all the family was rescued. "One child was literally thrown into the plane at Ekaterinburg, much bruised and brought to England where she still is." Critics say that Meinertzhagen's diaries were fantasy. Meinertzhagen's wife, Amorel, traveled from Canada to the United Kingdom aboard the Canadian ship Corsican in August 1918, while the war was still taking place. In the adjoining cabin was a 22-year-old masseuse named Marguerite Lindsay, for whom Occleshaw could find no birth or permanent address records. Occleshaw identified Marguerite Lindsay as a possible cover name for a rescued grand duchess. However, the Ellis Island Web site has two separate listings for travel to New York by passengers named Marguerite Lindsay in 1915 and again in 1923. The Marguerite Lindsay who traveled in 1915 gave her age as 18 and her place of residence as Montreal, Canada; the Marguerite Lindsay who traveled in 1923 gave her age as 27 and her residence as New York City. The Bolsheviks were also reportedly alarmed by an airplane flying over the Ipatiev House in mid-July 1918, Sir Charles Eliot, the British High Commander for Siberia, later reported. When interrogated by White Russian Army investigators in January 1919, a Red Guard named George Nikolaevich Biron, the Chief Military Communications Officer of the Bolshevik Third Army at Perm, claimed Tatiana had "run away or disappeared with a Red Army officer, a commander of the guard," before the murder of the Tsar.

A photograph that appeared September 4, 1918 in the Harrogate Herald depicts a group of exiled royalty and aristocrats including Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna, who was living at Harrogate. Occleshaw speculates that a young woman in the photo whose face is half-hidden behind Lady Radcliffe, the wife of Sir Joseph Radcliffe, Baronet, might be the escaped grand duchess. In his opinion, the photograph bears "an uncanny resemblance to the Grand Duchess Tatiana." The woman was the only person in the group who was not identified in the newspaper photo caption. Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna founded four hospitals in the area. A sanitarium for treatment of tuberculosis was located near Harrogate at Knaresborough. Spinal caries often developed following an injury, such as that caused by being thrown from a horse or thrown into an airplane, as Meinertzhagen wrote that the rescued grand duchess had been. Occleshaw also speculated that the conditions under which the Romanovs were held would have been "ideal" for a member of the imperial family to contract tuberculosis. Guards at the Ipatiev House, where the imperial family was held captive at Ekaterinburg, later commented on the sickly appearance of Grand Duchess Tatiana and her elder sister Olga. Tatiana had grown extremely thin and "looked as if she was not far from the morgue," recalled one guard.

Since Larissa had mentioned to neighbors that her happiest time in England had been spent in Yorkshire, Occleshaw speculated that the escaped grand duchess might have spent time in a medical facility near Harrogate under the patronage of Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna. Owen Tudor's uncle was Sir Frederick Tudor, a British admiral who was the Commander of the China Station in 1918. Frederick Tudor was responsible for arranging the escape of refugees from Siberia to Japan and then on to Canada. Occleshaw speculated that Owen Tudor might have met Larissa during a visit to his uncle. Occleshaw also noted that the patronymic on Larissa's gravestone was Feodorovna, which was also the patronymic adopted by Grand Duchess Tatiana's mother, Tsarina Alexandra, and that the surname Haouk bears close resemblance to the surname of Countess Julia von Hauke, an ancestress of the Mountbatten family and closely associated with Tatiana's Hessian relatives.