[2] Michael was born at Anichkov Palace on Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg as the youngest son and penultimate child of Tsesarevich Alexander of Russia and his wife, Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark).

[3] After the assassination, the new Tsar Alexander III moved his family, including Michael, to the greater safety of Gatchina Palace, which was 29 miles southwest of Saint Petersburg and surrounded by a moat.

[4] Michael was raised in the company of his younger sister, Olga, who nicknamed him "Floppy" because he "flopped" into chairs; his elder siblings and parents called him "Misha".

[16] In November 1898, he attained legal adulthood and, just eight months later, became heir presumptive to Nicholas as the middle brother, George, was killed in a motorcycle accident.

It seems likely that Michael's mother was plotting to get him married to a more suitable bride[32] and the originator of the false report, Reuters correspondent Guy Beringer, read too much into the plans.

[42] In May 1912, Michael went to Copenhagen for the funeral of his uncle King Frederik VIII of Denmark, where he fell ill with a stomach ulcer that was to trouble him for years afterwards.

[56] After another trip to continental Europe, Michael took a one-year lease on Knebworth House, a staffed and furnished stately home 20 miles north of London.

[58] Upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Michael telegraphed the Emperor, requesting permission to return to Russia to serve in the army – providing his wife and son could come too.

"[64] Michael confessed in a letter to his wife that he felt "ashamed to face the people, i.e. the soldiers and officers, particularly when visiting field hospitals, where so much suffering is to be seen, for they might think that one is also responsible, for one is placed so high and yet has failed to prevent all that from happening and protect one's country from this disaster.

[72] Nicholas's bad decisions included instructing Michael to authorise a payment to a friend of Rasputin, an army engineer called Bratolyubov, who claimed to have invented a devastating flame-thrower.

The Guards Army suffered heavy losses under the incompetent leadership of Michael's uncle, Grand Duke Paul, who was removed from command.

[82] Before leaving for his sister Xenia's estate at Ai-Todor, 12 miles from Yalta, he wrote a candid letter to his brother warning him that the political situation was tense: I am deeply concerned and worried by what is happening around us.

[87] The Duma President Mikhail Rodzianko, Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna and British ambassador Buchanan joined calls for Alexandra to be removed from influence, but Nicholas still refused to take their advice.

"[91] Brusilov recorded in his memoirs, "[Michael] was an absolutely honourable and upright man, taking no sides and lending himself to no intrigues ... he shunned every kind of gossip, whether connected with the services or with family matters.

[94] After consulting Rodzianko at the Mariinsky Palace in Petrograd, Michael advised Nicholas to dismiss his ministers and set up a new government led by the leader of the majority party in the Duma, Georgy Lvov.

[96] On the night of 27–28 February 1917, Michael attempted to return to Gatchina from Petrograd, where he had been in conference with Rodzianko and Nikolai Golitsyn and from where he had telegraphed the Tsar, but revolutionary patrols and sporadic fire prevented his progress.

[98] Michael managed to reach the Winter Palace, where he ordered the guards to withdraw to the Admiralty, because it afforded greater safety and a better tactical position, and because it was a less politically charged location.

2 March] 1917, Emperor Nicholas II, under pressure from generals and Duma representatives, abdicated in favour of his son, Alexei, with Michael as Regent.

Not wishing to be parted from Our Beloved Son, We hand over Our Succession to Our Brother the Grand Duke Michael Aleksandrovich and Bless Him on his accession to the Throne.

[110] When Michael awoke that morning, he discovered not only that his brother had abdicated in his favour, as Nicholas had not informed him previously, but also that a delegation from the Duma would visit him at Putyatina's apartment in a few hours' time.

[112] Putyatina laid on a lunch, and in the afternoon two lawyers (Baron Nolde and Vladimir Nabokov) were called to the apartment to draft a manifesto for Michael to sign.

[115] He wrote: Inspired, in common with the whole people, by the belief that the welfare of our country must be set above everything else, I have taken the firm decision to assume the supreme power only if and when our great people, having elected by universal suffrage a Constituent Assembly to determine the form of government and lay down the fundamental law of the new Russian State, invest me with such power.Calling upon them the blessing of God, I therefore request all the citizens of the Russian Empire to submit to the Provisional Government, established and invested with full authority by the Duma, until such time as the Constituent Assembly, elected within the shortest possible time by universal, direct, equal and secret suffrage, shall manifest the will of the people by deciding upon the new form of government.

[120] By July, Prince Lvov had resigned as Prime Minister to be replaced by Alexander Kerensky, who ordered ex-Emperor Nicholas removed from Petrograd to Tobolsk in the Urals because it was "some remote place, some quiet corner, where they would attract less attention".

Kerensky remained present during the meeting and the brothers exchanged awkward pleasantries "fidgeting all the while, and sometimes one would take hold of the other's hand or the buttons of his uniform".

[123] Michael's stomach problems worsened and, with the intervention of British ambassador Buchanan and foreign minister Mikhail Tereshchenko, they were moved back to Gatchina in the first week of September.

[125] The British, however, were not prepared to accept any Russian Grand Duke for fear it would provoke a negative public reaction in Britain, where there was little sympathy for the Romanovs.

On 7 March 1918, Michael and his secretary Johnson were re-arrested on the orders of Moisei Uritsky, the Head of the Petrograd secret police, and imprisoned at the Bolshevik headquarters in the Smolny Institute.

[133] On 11 March 1918, Uritsky sent Michael and Johnson to Perm, a thousand miles to the east, on the order of the Council of the People's Commissars, which included both Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

Myasnikov assembled a team of four men who, like him, were all former prisoners of the Tsarist regime: Vasily Ivanchenko, Ivan Kolpashchikov, Andrei Markov and Nikolai Zhuzhgov.

Shortly before his own arrest, Colonel Peter Znamerovsky, a former Imperial army officer also exiled to Perm, managed to send Natalia a brief telegram saying that Michael had disappeared.