She was born on 6 June 1872 at the New Palace in Darmstadt as Princess Alix Viktoria Helene Luise Beatrix of Hesse and by Rhine, a Grand Duchy that was then part of the German Empire. She was the sixth child and fourth daughter among the seven children of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and his first wife Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Albert, the Prince Consort
By marriage she became Alexandra Feodorovna (6 June 1872 – 17 July 1918) was Empress of Russia as the spouse of Nicholas II—the last ruler of the Russian Empire—from their marriage on 26 November 1894 until he was forced to abdicate on 15 March 1917.
Originally Alix of Hesse and by Rhine at birth, she was given the Christian name and patronymic Alexandra Feodorovna upon being received into the Russian Orthodox Church and—having been put to death along with her immediate family while in Bolshevik captivity in 1918—was canonized in 2000 as Saint Alexandra the Passion Bearer.
A granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Alexandra was, like her grandmother, one of the most famous royal carriers of the haemophilia disease.
Her reputation for influencing her husband's resistance to the surrender of autocratic authority over the country and her known faith in the Russian mystic, Grigori Rasputin, severely damaged her popularity and that of the Romanov monarchy in its final years