snowflower
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sorry for this enormous message of mine I didn't realise it got so big I have posted very few times 

He does a fair amount of business in Russia and trades on the family connection, even though it has always been a matter of regret inside the British Royal Family that the Queen - and Prince Michael's - grandfather George V failed to help rescue Nicholas and his family when they were toppled by the Russian revolution.
But now the Queen's cousin, who was named after Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, the last Tsar's younger brother, has gone public on what he says were plans drawn up by the then King to rescue his Russian cousin and other members of the family.
There was much dilly-dallying by all involved but I think that most politicians could not even conceive that the entire family would be slaughtered. I mean, come on, the children were innocent no matter what Nicholas and Alexandra may have done while on the throne. This unexpected action, more than anything else, may have been the cause of the Romanovs' deaths because there might not have been the sense of urgency to rescue them.
More on Captain Stephen Alley:
British spies in plot to save tsar - Times Online
>> From The Sunday Times
October 15, 2006
British spies in plot to save tsar
John Crossland
A NEWLY discovered diary has uncovered a plot by the British secret services to rescue the last tsar and his family from the house in Ekaterinburg where he was imprisoned by the communists and later executed.
The diary of Captain Stephen Alley, second in command of the British intelligence mission in Petrograd — now St Petersburg — shows he positioned four undercover agents ready to extract what he called “the valuables” — the deposed Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian imperial family — from the House of Special Purpose where they were held.
The diary also includes a sketch map drawn by Alley of the house and its surroundings.
It used to be believed that Britain had abandoned the tsar, his wife Alexandra — a granddaughter of Queen Victoria — and their children. But in recent years evidence has emerged that both King George V and the government of David Lloyd George were willing to rescue the family. No evidence has previously come to light, however, of the advanced stage that preparations had reached.
Alley’s diary was found accidentally by his descendants in a trunk of his papers and will be featured in Queen Victoria’s Grandchildren, a documentary to be shown on Channel 4 in December.
The diary shows that, after they had been sprung from custody, the tsar and his family were to be taken by train to Murmansk and then shipped to safety by the Royal Navy.
On May 24, 1918, Alley, who was employed by MI1 (c), part of what became MI6, wrote to the War Office in London naming the six Russian- speaking officers he wanted to carry out the rescue. He asked London for a grant of £1,000 a month (about £25,000 today) due to “increased requirements for intelligence purposes”.
Andrew Cook, the historian who has examined the papers for the documentary, believes Alley’s telegrams to London may have been intercepted, leading the Bolsheviks to reinforce defences around the tsar’s prison. “At the first hint of a rescue the whole family would have been shot,” he said.
Alley’s apparent reluctance to activate the plot led to his sacking and recall to Britain. He worked for MI5 in the second world war and died in 1969 at the age of 93.
He always kept his work secret, even from Beatrice, his wife. Anthony Summers, author of The File on the Tsar, said: “She told me that when she asked her husband what he did, he would say, ‘Sometimes I will go away for a night and sometimes for a year, and I won’t be able to tell you where I am, but I’m working for the king.’ She thought he was going for dirty weekends.”<<
George was scared that revolutionary fever would spread to England, and how many thrones were lost following WWI?
The Plan may have been put into action!
My Great Grandfather Walter Downing (adopted British name) Was one of the party put together to rescue the Tsar and Family in 1918. He originated from Odesa in the Ukraine escaping the pogroms of 1905 settling in Great Britain.
It is a well told story within our family. According to him the party did make it to Yekaterinburg but a Day to late, according to him their party witnessed the un-buried bodies and Identified all the Romanov Family remains, hence he always poo pooed the stories of Anastasia Nikolaevna's survival.