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Tag Archives: Cecilie of Greece and Denmark

Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine/Victoria Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven. Conclusion

01 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Noble, Featured Royal, Royal Death, Royal Genealogy, Royal Titles, This Day in Royal History

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Cecilie of Greece and Denmark, Duke of Edinburgh, Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine, Georg Donatus of Hesse and by Rhine, Kensington Palace, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, Viceroy of India, Victoria Mountbatten, Victoria of Hesse and By Rhine, World War ii

In 1930, her eldest daughter, Alice, suffered a nervous breakdown and was diagnosed as schizophrenic. In the following decade Victoria was largely responsible for her grandson Prince Philip’s education and upbringing during his parents’ separation and his mother’s institutionalisation. Prince Philip recalled, “I liked my grandmother very much and she was always helpful. She was very good with children … she took the practical approach to them. She treated them in the right way—the right combination of the rational and the emotional.”

In 1937, Victoria’s brother, Ernst Ludwig, died and soon afterwards her widowed sister-in-law, nephew, granddaughter and two of her great-grandchildren all died in an air crash at Ostend. Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark, had married Victoria’s nephew (Ernst Ludwig’s son), Georg Donatus of Hesse and by Rhine. They and their two young sons, Ludwig and Alexander, were all killed. Cecilie’s youngest child, Johanna, who was not on the plane, was adopted by her uncle Prince Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine but the little girl only survived her parents and older brothers by eighteen months, dying of meningitis in 1939.

Further tragedy soon followed when Victoria’s son, George, died of bone cancer the following year. Her granddaughter, Lady Pamela Hicks, remembered her grandmother’s tears. In World War II Victoria was bombed out of Kensington Palace, and spent some time at Windsor Castle with King George VI. Her surviving son (Louis Mountbatten) and her two grandsons (David Mountbatten and Prince Philip) served in the Royal Navy, while her German relations fought with the opposing forces.

Victoria was present at the christening of her great grandson, the current Prince of Wales.

She spent most of her time reading and worrying about her children; her daughter, Alice, remained in occupied Greece and was unable to communicate with her mother for four years at the height of the war. After the Allied victory, her son, Louis, was made Viscount Mountbatten of Burma. He was offered the post of Viceroy of India, but she was deeply opposed to his accepting, knowing that the position would be dangerous and difficult; he accepted anyway.

She fell ill with bronchitis (she had smoked since the age of sixteen) at Lord Mountbatten’s home at Broadlands, Hampshire, in the summer of 1950. Saying “it is better to die at home”, Victoria moved back to Kensington Palace, where she died on September 24, aged 87. She was buried four days later in the grounds of St. Mildred’s Church, Whippingham on the Isle of Wight.

Legacy

With the help of her lady-in-waiting, Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, Victoria wrote an unpublished memoir, held in the Mountbatten archive at the University of Southampton, which remains an interesting source for royal historians. A selection of Queen Victoria’s letters to Victoria have been published with a commentary by Richard Hough and an introduction by Victoria’s granddaughter, Patricia Mountbatten.

Lord Mountbatten remembered her fondly: “My mother was very quick on the uptake, very talkative, very aggressive and argumentative. With her marvellous brain she sharpened people’s wits.” Her granddaughter thought her “formidable, but never intimidating … a supremely honest woman, full of commonsense and modesty.”

Victoria wrote her own typically forthright epitaph at the end of her life in letters to and conversation with her son: “What will live in history is the good work done by the individual & that has nothing to do with rank or title … I never thought I would be known only as your mother. You’re so well known now and no one knows about me, and I don’t want them to.”

This date in History: June 22, 1911. Birth of Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark.

22 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Royal, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession, This Day in Royal History

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Cecilie of Greece and Denmark, Grand Duchy of Hesse and By Rhine, Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, Grand Duke Ernst-Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine, Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine, Philip Mountbatten, Prince Andrew of Greece., Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark (June 22, 1911 –November 16, 1937) was the third child and daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg and thus a sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. She was born at the summer estate of the Greek Royal Family at Tatoi, fifteen kilometres north of Athens.

IMG_6315
Cecilie of Greece and Denmark

Her mother was the daughter of Prince Louis of Battenberg (a grandson of Grand Duke Ludwig II of Hesse-Darmstadt) and Princess Victoria of Hesse and By Rhine, daughter of Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and by Rhine (another grandson of Grand Duke Ludwig II of Hesse-Darmstadt) and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (second daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha).

Although her given name was Cecilie, she was known to her family as Cécile. Cecilie was baptised at Tatoi on July 2, 1911. Her godparents were King George V of the United Kingdom, Grand Duke Ernst-Ludwig of Hesse and By Rhine, Prince Nicholas of Greece and Duchess Vera of Württemberg. Through her father Cecilie was a grandchild of King George I of Greece and his wife Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna of Russia (a granddaughter of Czar Nicholas I of Russia).

IMG_6314
The family of Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark. (Cecilie is fifth from the left and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, is the little boy at the end).

Cecilie had three sisters: Margarita (wife of Prince Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg), Theodora (wife of Berthold, Margrave of Baden) and Sophie (wife firstly of Prince Christoph of Hesse and secondly of Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hanover). Her brother Philip, later Duke of Edinburgh, is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

On February 2, 1931 at Darmstadt, Cecilie married Prince Georg-Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, her maternal first cousin once removed. Georg Donatus, was the son of Ernest-Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and By Rhine (son of Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse-Denmark and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom) and his second wife Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich.

They had four children:

Ludwig 1931-1937
Alexander 1933-1937
Johanna 1936-1939
Stillborn son 1937-1937

On May 1, 1937 Cecilie and her husband both joined the Nazi Party.

Death
IMG_6313
Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark

In October 1937, Cecilie’s father-in-law Grand Duke Ernst-Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine died, making Georg-Donats titular Grand Duke of Hesse and By Rhine. A few weeks after the funeral, her brother-in-law Prince Ludwig was due to be married to the Hon. Margaret Campbell-Geddes in London.

On November 16, 1937, Georg Donatus, Cecilie, their two young sons, Ludwig and Alexander, and Georg’s mother Grand Duchess Eleonore left Darmstadt for London, where they planned to attend the wedding. The aircraft in which they were travelling crashed in flames after hitting a factory chimney near Ostend, Belgium, killing all on board. Cecilia was eight months pregnant with her fourth child at the time of the crash, and the remains of the baby were found in the wreckage; a Belgian official enquiry concluded that Cecilie had given birth mid-flight and the landing attempt was made in bad weather because of this.

Cecilie was buried with her husband and three of her children in Darmstadt at the Rosenhöhe, the traditional burial place of the Hesse family. Cecilie’s daughter Johanna was adopted by her paternal uncle, Prince Ludwig and his wife Margaret (who married the day after the crash). However, Johanna died two years later from meningitis and is buried with her parents and siblings. Cecilie was the first of Prince Andrew and Princess Alice’s children to die.

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