Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Edinburgh GCStJ CI VA RRC (25 November 1876 – 2 March 1936) was the third child and second daughter of Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. She was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as well as of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine.
Born a British princess, Victoria spent her early life in England and lived in Malta for three years, where her father was serving in the Royal Navy. In 1889 the family moved to Coburg, where Victoria's father became the reigning duke in 1893. In her teens Victoria fell in love with her maternal first cousin Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia, but the disapprobation of marriage between first cousins of his faith, Orthodox Christianity, discouraged their romance. Instead, bowing to family pressure, Victoria married in 1894 a paternal first cousin, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, following the wishes of their shared grandmother, Queen Victoria. Their marriage was a failure. Victoria scandalized the royal families of Europe when she divorced her husband in 1901. The couple's only child, Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, died of typhoid fever in 1903.