 In exile they lived for some years among his wife's relatives in Germany, and from the late 1920s on an estate they bought in Saint-Briac.With the murder of his cousins Tsar Nicholas II and Grand Duke Michael, Kirill assumed the headship of the Imperial Family of Russia and, as next in line to the throne as the Guardian of the Throne in 1924.Kirill proclaimed himself emperor in exile in 1926.