Sydney Gibbes was appointed tutor to the children of Tsar Nicholas II in 1908 and over the next six years lived as one of the family in the royal palace. A demanding, fastidious man, he found the Romanovs bizarrely devout and insular. Yet he came to hold them all in deep affection. In this biography, Frances Welch draws on unpublished material, including Gibbes' letters and diaries, to throw light on the tragic Romanov story, telling it from the English teacher's point of view. The catastrophe, when it came, permanently affected Gibbes. He was a vital eye-witness to events - one of the first to gain entry into "The House of Special Purpose" after the assassination - and spent the rest of his life trying to vindicate the Tsar's memory.