Meghan and Harry: Princess Olga Romanoff on couple

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The Queen’s extended family is spread across Europe after Queen Victoria encouraged her children to enter into diplomatic marriages with other European dynasties. Alexander Armstrong will be presenting a new documentary tonight which explores the differing lives of the Queen’s cousins, including Lord Ivar Mountbatten, the first openly gay member of the Royal Family, and Princess Olga Romanoff, the grand-niece of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Princess Olga was once pipped to tie the knot with her third cousin Prince Charles — she later claimed her appeal lay in her “title, foreign, breeding” — but she admitted that the heir apparent “wasn’t really my type”.

Princess Olga’s grandmother — Nicholas’ sister — was miraculously rescued from the Bolsheviks by a boat sent in by King George V.

Nicholas II, his wife, and their five children were brutally murdered, and not saved by his British cousin out of fear the UK’s monarchy could be jeopardised by such an act.

Princess Olga grew up in the UK after her father was exiled from Russia during the revolution, but she went back to the country to visit her relatives’ burial sites in 2018.

She was accompanied by Prince Michael of Kent, a first cousin twice removed of Tsar Nicholas II, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the late ruler.

The Tsar and Tsarina are buried in St Petersburg with three of their five children, while their remaining two children — also assassinated by the Bolsheviks — are still thought to still be held in a state vault.

Princess Olga and Prince Michael were marking the 100th anniversary of the Romanovs’ assassination when they visited Russia and made a remarkable plea.

Parts of the Russian Orthodox Church were refusing to recognise the two separate bodies of the Romanov children, even though DNA testing proved these remains were the missing son and daughter of the Romanovs.

They had been buried in two unmarked graves and were only discovered in 2007.

Princess Olga told The Telegraph: “What we really would like is to be able to bury them with their parents so the whole family can rest in peace.

“Then we can all move on.

“It would be nice to have a place where one can go and say a prayer for them all. That will be it then, really.”

Although she was aware it had become a “slightly political” dispute, she was hopeful that the row could be resolved.

The church insisted that the remains had to be tested further before they could be truly identified, partly because the Romanovs had been canonised as Orthodox saints and so it was important to secure the correct remains.

But it’s also been reported that the church was attempting to court Vladimir Putin’s government at the time, who may have been considering rehabilitating the Romanov monarchy.

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The investigation into the remaining two bodies, believed to be 13-year-old Tsarevich Alexei and his older sister, either 17-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia or 19-year-old Grand Duchess Maria, was supposed to be postponed until at least 2020.

As of 2018, the bones of the final two children were still being held by the Orthodox Church — even though the Russian state authorities ruled the remains as authentic back in 2015.

Prince Philip provided DNA to identify the Romanovs in their mass grave back in 1994, as he was the great-nephew of Tsarina Alexandra, and so could provide matrilineal DNA.

Philip’s DNA was used again to identify the new remains back in 2007.

Princess Olga spoke of her admiration for Philip before his death, and his no-nonsense attitude.

She said: “I just think he’s wonderful because A, he’s very good-looking, B, he doesn’t take b******t. He says it how it is even if he gets into trouble.”

Princess Olga also spoke to ITV’s Lorraine about the Queen’s motto of “never complain and never explain” this week when discussing other rebellious members of the Royal Family — such as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

She told the TV presenter: “I was told to sit down and shut up and never wash your dirty linen in public, whatever it happens to be.

“So I think the Queen does it right.”

‘The Queen and Her Cousins with Alexander Armstrong’ will air tonight at 9pm on ITV.

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