Nicholas was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, and, like the eldest sons of all his four sons, was named after him. At the time of his birth, he was seventh in the order of succession to the Russian throne, behind his uncle, four cousins, and father. Most royal children were brought up by nannies and servants so by the time Nikolai had grown up he lived a very independent life having become a gifted military officer and an incorrigible womanizer. In 1873, he had an affair with a notorious American woman Henrietta "Harriet" Ely Blackford. In a scandal related to this affair, he stole three valuable diamonds from the revetment of one of the most valuable family icons. The police swiftly tracked down both the diamonds and the perpetrator. When confronted by the officials and the family, he obstinately denied the facts and showed no repentance. From April, 1874, he was placed under home arrest, and the possibility of public denunciation and even a trial was discussed. However, his uncle
Emperor Alexander II decided not to present a member of the dynasty as a criminal to the public. Such a disclosure would almost certainly force
Grand Duke Konstantin, Nicholas' father, to resign from his public offices, so a less scandalous course of action was followed. On December 11, 1874, the young Grand Duke was formally declared by a decree of the Emperor to be insane and incapacitated, the only Romanov dynast ever to be so, and his property was put under guardianship. By that day, Nicholas had been already
de facto banished from
Saint Petersburg. For a short period he was exiled to
Orenburg and ultimately further to the newly conquered city of
Tashkent in Central Asia where Nicholas lived until his death. He was still styled Grand Duke but stripped of all the royal patronages and duties and discharged from the army, in which grand dukes were normally enlisted. Blackford, who was forced by the police to leave Russia immediately, later wrote about the affair in her book "''Roman d'une Americaine en Russie''" under the pseudonym Fanny Lear. ==Later life==