Lady Pamela Hicks, who at 93, after the death of Elizabeth II, became the oldest of Queen Victoria's descendants, told her daughter India on her podcast how Prince Philip's mother, Princess Alice (1885-1969), asked Lloyd George to…

Alice, of course, modestly hinted that if the question of rescuing the unfortunate girls had anything to do with their future maintenance, lodging and provision, she would take all of it upon herself. Naturally, the matter lay quite elsewhere. And she was, of course, told that it was impossible.

Princess Alice was connected with the Russian imperial family both through her husband and through her parents. Alice's husband, Andrew of Greece, was the son of Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna, a granddaughter of Nicholas I. As for Alice of Battenberg's mother, Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, she was a sister of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, the wife of Nicholas II, while her father was a nephew of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, the wife of Alexander II. The Tsar's daughters were thus first cousins of Alice.

To Lady Pamela, Princess Alice, the elder sister of her father Louis Mountbatten, is a full aunt. That is to say, Pamela herself is a second cousin once removed of the children of the last Russian Tsar.

But George V had no intention of rescuing the Russian Tsar, his first cousin. Nor Alexandra Feodorovna, his first cousin. And not even for the children was any pity to be found. So much for kinship and so much for friendship. The end.