A cousin of Queen Elizabeth was chosen as a potential wife for Prince Charles, many years ago, because of her title and "virginal" appearance.

Princess Olga Andreevna Romanov, who is Queen Elizabeth's third cousin and the grandniece of Russia's Tsar Nicholas II, shared this anecdote for the documentary The Queen and Her Cousins with Alexander Armstrong as host. The program will air on ITV on April 15 to mark the 95th birthday of the monarch this month.

According to Romanov, she was 17 years old when she was shortlisted among four other foreign princesses to potentially marry Charles. She said that the five of them were featured in Harper's Bazaar. The magazine enumerated her qualifications as "title, foreign, breeding and very young."

Romanov met Charles when she was a teenager and described him as nice and very sweet. However, she didn't see him as the man to marry because, as Charles is the heir to the British throne, she cannot imagine living a life under constant scrutiny. The queen's cousin currently lives in Kent with her daughter and has been running part of their grand mansion as holiday rental place.

The Queen and Her Cousins will also feature Lord Ivar Mountbatten, the first openly gay royal who married to his long-time partner James Coyle in 2019. Mountbatten was previously married to Penelope Thompson and they have three daughters. Thompson was Mountbatten's maid of honor at his wedding to Coyle.

Like the Queen, Mountbatten is also a great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria and is a direct descendant of Russia's Catherine the Great. He is also Prince Philip's cousin. He said his biggest dilemma about coming out was not his family name but the generation he was born into.

Meanwhile, another documentary, titled My Years with the Queen, revealed that Philip's other cousin, Lady Pamela Hicks was once told off by Queen Mary, the queen's grandmother, to stop referring to Queen Elizabeth by her nickname. When Her Majesty was younger, everyone called her "Lilibet" but Queen Mary reminded Hicks one time that she should get used to referring to her cousin-in-law as "Ma'am," especially since she was given the role as the queen's Lady-in-Waiting.

Hicks has remained close to Queen Elizabeth all these years and she's also beloved by the rest of the royal family. Her daughter, India, is the goddaughter of Charles. She stood as a bridesmaid when he married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.