In their youth they had briefly flirted with each other. Victoria was a young 20-year-old fledgling Queen while the 21-year-old heir to the Russian throne, Grand Duke Alexander, was still a good decade-and-a-half away from being the Emperor and Autocrat of all Russia.

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In 1839 these two young romantics had danced away until 2am at a Windsor Castle Ball. “I really am quite in love with the Grand Duke; he is a dear, delightful young man”, a smitten Queen Victoria wrote in her journal before dreamingly recounting how they danced the Mazurka at midnight: 

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“The Grand Duke is so very strong, that in running round, you must follow quickly and after that you are whisked round like in a Valse, which is very pleasant… I never enjoyed myself more. We were all so merry; I got to bed by a ¼ to 3 but could not sleep till 5.”

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It seems the strapping Grand Duke was likewise besotted and when news reached his spoilsport father, Tsar Nicholas I, Alexander was immediately summonsed home. But not before leaving the young Queen Victoria his little dog, Kazbek, as a farewell gift.

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The two would not meet again for another 35 years, until May 1874, when Queen Victoria again hosted Alexander at Windsor Castle.

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He was now Tsar Alexander II of Russia, married, and the father of ten children (including two “illegitimate”). Queen Victoria was now a widowed mother of nine.

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Since the couple last met, relations between Britain and Russia had taken a nosedive when the two Empires pitted their troops against each other in the Crimean War (1853-1856). That bloody episode was about to make for awkward and uncomfortable conversation at the dinner table on this night, as Queen Victoria would soon find out.

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Improvements in Anglo-Russian relations were afoot. While fate didn’t make a couple out of Victoria and Alexander, it did make a couple out of their respective son and daughter.

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Four months before this dinner, Queen Victoria’s second son, the Duke of Edinburgh Prince Alfred, travelled to Saint Petersburg to marry Alexander II’s only surviving daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna. The newlyweds subsequently set up home at Clarence House in London, but the Grand Duchess was missing her imperial family.

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To help his homesick daughter, Alexander II arrived in Britain on 13th May, the day before this dinner. It was officially billed a ‘family visit’, as much as a visiting Emperor can ever carry-off such a low-key sojourn, especially when a State Banquet at Windsor Castle is officially prepared.

 

Accompanied by his son Grand Duke Alexis, the Tsar arrived at Dover aboard the paddle-steamed imperial yacht, the Derzhava, that counted amongst its permanent crew 65 musicians and 15 choristers.

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As the yacht docked and awaited the arrival of a gangway, The Times reported how the “Emperor leant over the rail and spoke to the Grand Duchess. His eyes were full of tears, and his tender affection, not in the least concealed and shown in a manner truly noble and dignified with all its eager earnestness, was touching”.

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At Windsor Castle the following night, for which this is the menu, Queen Victoria “began to dress for dinner a little after 7” according to her journal. “I wore diamonds on my dress and my coronet of diamonds with my veil”. 

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In the Throne Room, recounted Queen Victoria, “we found the Emperor in his fine red uniform of the Chevaliers Gardes, which his father had also worn. Then we went into the Reception Room, and straight through to dinner in St. George’s Hall, the Emperor leading me in. Marie [Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna] again sat next to her father”.

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This dinner was grandly depicted in publications at the time including two full-page illustrations in The Graphic capturing the magnificently decked tables; and the Queen’s bagpipers regaling the Russian Emperor as he paused midway through an entrée. The Band of the Coldstream Guards, who “played very well” according to the Queen, entertained with an appropriate mix of “Merry Wives of Windsor”, the “March of the Russian Guards”, and Ginka’s overture from “La vie pour le Czar”.

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And what a banquet: quintessentially Victorian, of course. Servings of turtle and sherry soup, partridge croquettes in orange sauce, turbot in lobster sauce, and boned quails stuffed with foie-gras were served with clockwork precision and sideboards grandly displayed entire haunches of roast venison, beef and mutton.

 

For dessert, alongside caramel glazed choux-pastries, were the distinctly  Germanic’ Gugelhupf: ringed raisin cakes closely resembling Bundt cakes, that were smothered in apricot sauce; and were likely introduced to the royal household by Queen Victoria’s late German-born husband, Prince Albert.

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But for all the glittering grandness of the Saint George’s Hall - a sea of bright immaculate uniforms, the finest ballgowns, diamonds and sapphires, gold cutlery, and polished swords all mixed with magnificently plated foods and music -  it seems the Tsar's mood flicked between nostalgic and grizzly; and at times tearfully melancholy.

 

The Queen and Emperor conversed in French and started out recounting their joyful encounter 35 years earlier.

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“The Emperor talked a good deal of old times, recalling the circumstances of his former visit, remembering the rooms and the people, of whom so many are gone, or sadly changed”, Queen Victoria recalled, “but how after ten years “tout a malheureusement changé” [unfortunately everything changed] and the [Crimean] war took place."

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And when discussion turned from war to his beloved daughter that now called London home, Queen Victoria recounted in her journal how the Tsar “spoke with tears in his eyes, so as to be almost unable to speak, of Marie, saying: 

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“Je vous remercie encore une fois pour toutes vos bontés pour ma fille; je vous la recommande: j’espère qu’elle s’en rendra toujours digne.” [I thank you once again for all your kindness for my daughter; I recommend her to you: I hope she will always make herself worthy of it]. And I put my hand out across the Emperor and took Marie’s, she herself being nearly upset”.