History of The Kingdom of Greece. Part VI: King Alexander

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Allied Entente, Eleftherios Venizelos, King Alexander of the Hellenes, King Constantine I of the Hellenes, King George I of the Hellenes, Sophie of Prussia, World War I

Alexander (August 1, 1893 – October 25, 1920) was King of the Hellenes from June 11, 1917 until his death three years later, at the age of 27, from the effects of a monkey bite.

Alexander was born at Tatoi Palace on August 1, 1893 the second son of Crown Prince Constantine of Greece of the House of Glücksburg and his wife Princess Sophia of Prussia.

King Constantine I of the Hellenes

Alexander was related to royalty throughout Europe. His father was the eldest son and heir apparent of King George I of Greece by his wife Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia; his mother was the daughter of Emperor Friedrich III of Germany and his wife Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom. His father King Constantine I was a grandson of King Christian IX of Denmark and a cousin of both King George V of the United Kingdom and Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. Sophia was the sister of German Emperor Wilhelm II and he was also a cousin of King George V through her grandmother, Queen Victoria.

Though he was very close to his younger sister, Princess Helen, Alexander was less warm towards his elder brother Crown Prince George, with whom he had little in common. While his elder brother was a serious and thoughtful child, Alexander was mischievous and extroverted; he smoked cigarettes made from blotting paper, set fire to the games room in the palace.

Princess Sophie of Prussia

Military career

As his father’s second son, Alexander was third in line to the throne, after his father and elder brother, George. His education was expensive and carefully planned, but while George spent part of his military training in Germany, Alexander was educated in Greece. He joined the prestigious Hellenic Military Academy, where several of his uncles had previously studied and where he made himself known more for his mechanical skills than for his intellectual capacity. He was passionate about cars and motors, and was one of the first Greeks to acquire an automobile.

He distinguished himself in combat during the Balkan Wars of 1912–13. As a young officer, he was stationed, along with his elder brother, in the field staff of his father; and he accompanied the latter at the head of the Army of Thessaly during the capture of Thessaloniki in 1912. King George I was assassinated in Thessaloniki soon afterwards on 18 March 1913, and Alexander’s father ascended the throne as Constantine I.

Courtship of Aspasia Manos

In 1915, at a party held in Athens by court marshal Theodore Ypsilantis, Alexander became re-acquainted with one of his childhood friends, Aspasia Manos. She had just returned from education in France and Switzerland, and was reckoned as very beautiful by her acquaintances. She was the daughter of Constantine’s Master of the Horse, Colonel Petros Manos, and his wife Maria Argyropoulos.

Aspasia Manos

The 21-year-old Alexander was smitten, and was so determined to seduce her that he followed her to the island of Spetses where she holidayed that year. Initially, Aspasia was resistant to his charm; although considered very handsome by his contemporaries, Alexander had a reputation as a ladies’ man from numerous past liaisons.

Despite this, he finally won her over, and the couple were engaged in secret. However, for King Constantine I, Queen Sophia and much of European society of the time, it was inconceivable for a royal prince to marry someone of a different social rank.

During World War I, King Constantine I followed a formal policy of neutrality, yet he was openly benevolent towards Germany, which was fighting alongside Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire against the Triple Entente of Russia, France and Britain.

Constantine was the brother-in-law of Emperor Wilhelm II, and had also become something of a Germanophile following his military training in Prussia. His pro-German attitude provoked a split between the monarch and the prime minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, who wanted to support the Entente in the hope of expanding Greek territory to incorporate the Greek minorities in the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans. Protected by the countries of the Entente, particularly France, in 1916 Venizelos formed a parallel government to that of the king.

Parts of Greece were occupied by the Allied Entente forces, but Constantine I refused to modify his policy and faced increasingly open opposition from the Entente and the Venizelists.

King Alexander of the Hellenes

In July 1916, an arson attack ravaged Tatoi Palace and the royal family barely escaped the flames; Alexander was not injured but his mother narrowly saved Princess Katherine by carrying her through the woods for more than two kilometers. Among the palace personnel and firefighters who arrived to deal with the blaze, sixteen people were killed.

Finally on June 10, 1917, Charles Jonnart, the Entente’s High Commissioner in Greece, ordered King Constantine to give up his power. On the threat of Entente forces landing in Piraeus, the king conceded and agreed to go into self-exile, though without officially abdicating his crown.

The Allies, while determined to be rid of King Constantine, did not wish to create a Greek republic, and sought to replace the king with another member of the royal family. Crown Prince George, who was the natural heir, was ruled out by the Allies because they thought him too pro-German, like his father.

Instead, they considered installing Constantine’s brother (and Alexander’s uncle), Prince George, but he had tired of public life during his difficult tenure as High Commissioner of Crete between 1901 and 1905; above all, he sought to remain loyal to his brother, and categorically refused to take the throne. As a result, Constantine’s second son, Prince Alexander, was chosen to become the new monarch.

Accession

The dismissal of King Constantine was not unanimously supported by the Entente powers; while France and Britain did nothing to stop Jonnart’s actions, the Russian provisional government officially protested to Paris.

Petrograd demanded that Alexander should not receive the title of king but only that of regent so as to preserve the rights of the deposed sovereign and the Crown Prince. Russia’s protests were brushed aside, and Alexander ascended the Greek throne.

Alexander swore the oath of loyalty to the Greek constitution on the afternoon of June 11, 1917 in the ballroom of the Royal Palace. Apart from the Archbishop of Athens, Theocletus I, who administered the oath, only King Constantine I, Crown Prince George and the king’s prime minister, Alexandros Zaimis, attended.

There were no festivities. The 23-year-old Alexander had a broken voice and tears in his eyes as he made the solemn declaration. He knew that the Entente and the Venizelists would hold real power and that neither his father nor his brother had renounced their claims to the throne. Constantine had informed his son that he should consider himself a regent, rather than a true monarch.

In the evening, after the ceremony, the royal family decided to leave their palace in Athens for Tatoi, but city residents opposed the exile of their sovereign and crowds formed outside the palace to prevent Constantine and his family from leaving.

On June 12, the former king and his family escaped undetected from their residence by feigning departure from one gate while exiting through another. At Tatoi, Constantine again impressed upon Alexander that he held the crown in trust only. It was the last time that Alexander would be in direct contact with his family. The next day, Constantine, Sophia and all of their children except Alexander arrived at the small port of Oropos and set off into exile.

Puppet King

With his parents and siblings in exile, Alexander found himself isolated. The royals remained unpopular with the Venizelists, and Entente representatives advised the king’s aunts and uncles, particularly Prince Nicholas, to leave. Eventually, they all followed Constantine into exile.

Royal household staff were gradually replaced by enemies of the former king, and Alexander’s allies were either imprisoned or distanced from him. Portraits of the royal family were removed from public buildings, and Alexander’s new ministers openly called him the “son of a traitor”.

The Life of Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark: later Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia

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Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, King George I of the Hellenes, Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark, Rand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, Winter Palace

Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark: August 30, 1870 – September 24, 1891), later known as Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia and was a member of the Greek royal family and of the Russian imperial family. She was the daughter of King George I of the Hellenes and Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia. She died of childbirth complications.

Early life

Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark was born on August 30, 1870 at Mon Repos, the summer residence of the Greek royal family on the island of Corfu. She was the third child and eldest daughter of King George I of Hellenes and his wife, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia.

Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark

Alexandra’s father was not a native Greek, but he had been born a Danish prince named Christian Wilhelm of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a son of Christian IX, King of Denmark, and he had been elected to the Greek throne at the age of seventeen. Five of his sons (Constantine, George, Nicholas, Andrew and Christopher), and two daughters (Alexandra and Maria), attained adulthood.

Alexandra’s mother, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, (whom I just featured on this blog) was the daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich of Russia and his wife Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg (whom I also just featured on this blog).

The Greek royal family was not wealthy by royal standards and they lived with simplicity. King George was a taciturn man, but contrary to the general approach of the time, he believed in happy rambunctious children. The long corridors of the royal palace in Athens were used by Alexandra and her siblings for all types of play and sometimes a “bike ride” would be led by the King himself. Raised by British nannies, English was the children’s first language, but they spoke Greek between themselves. They also learned German and French.

Alexandra, nickname “Aline” within her family, or Greek Alix, to distinguish her from her aunt and godmother, Alexandra of Denmark, at the time The Princess of Wales and husband of the future King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, had a sunny disposition and was much loved by her family. “She had one of those sweet and lovable natures that endeared her to everybody who came in touch with her,” recalled her brother, Nicholas. “She looked young and beautiful, and ever since she was a child, life looked as it had nothing but joy and happiness in store for her.”

Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia

Alexandra’s playmates were her brother Nicholas and her sister Maria, who followed her in age. Alexandra spent many holidays in Denmark visiting her paternal grandparents King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark. In Denmark, Alexandra and her siblings met their Russian and British cousins in large family gatherings.

Marriage and children

When she was eighteen years old, she was married to Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, her maternal first cousin once removed and the youngest child and sixth son of Emperor Alexander II and his first wife, Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine.

Grand Duke Paul’s father, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, and Princess Alexandra’s grandfather, Grand Duke Constantine were brothers.

They had become close when Grand Duke Paul spent winters in Greece due to his frequent respiratory illnesses. The Greek royal family also frequently spent holidays with the Romanov family on visits to Russia or Denmark. Their engagement was announced on November 10, 1888. The wedding took place on June 17, 1889 in St. Petersburg, at the chapel of the Winter Palace.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia and Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia,

They had two children:

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (1890–1958)
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (1891–1942)

Death

Seven months into her second pregnancy, Alexandra took a walk with her friends on the bank of the Moskva River and jumped directly into a boat that was permanently moored there, but fell as she got in. The next day, she collapsed in the middle of a ball from violent labour pains.

She gave birth to her son, Dimitri, lapsed into a fatal coma, and she died six days later in the Romanovs’ estate Ilyinskoe near Moscow. The Grand Duchess was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, St. Petersburg. Her grieving husband had to be restrained from throwing himself into the grave with her.

Her husband later morganatically remarried Olga Karnovich. Alexandra’s son would be involved in the murder of Grigori Rasputin, a favorite of Empress Alexandra Feodorvna, in 1916.

In 1939 during the reign of her nephew King George II of the Hellenes, the Greek government obtained permission from the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin to rebury Princess Alexandra in Greece. Her body was removed from the vault in Leningrad and transferred by a Greek ship to Athens. It was finally laid to rest near the Tatoi Palace. Alexandra’s marble tombstone over an empty tomb is still in its place in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

The “Alexandra Maternity Hospital” (now “Alexandra General Hospital”) in Athens was later named in her memory by another nephew, King Paul; it was affiliated with the University of Athens with a special remit to research and combat postpartum maternal mortality. Alexandras Avenue in Athens was also named after her.

History of the Kingdom of Greece. Part V. King George I.

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Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg, Alexandros Schinas, Crown Prince Constantine of the Hellenes, Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, King George I of the Hellenes

King George I of the Hellenes first met Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia in 1863, when she was 12 years old, on a visit to the court of Emperor Alexander II of Russia between his election to the Greek throne and his arrival in Athens.

They met for a second time in April 1867, when George went to the Russian Empire to visit his sister Dagmar, who had married into the Russian imperial family. While George was privately a Lutheran, the Romanovs were Orthodox Christians like the majority of Greeks, and George thought a marriage with a Russian Grand Duchess would re-assure his subjects on the question of his future children’s religion.

Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Queen of the Hellenes

Olga was born at Pavlovsk Palace near Saint Petersburg on September 3, 1851. She was the second child and elder daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg (Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia). Through her father, Olga was a granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, a niece of Emperor Alexander II and first cousin of Emperor Alexander III.

Olga fell in love with George, but she was nevertheless anxious and distraught at the thought of leaving Russia. Her father was initially reluctant to agree to their marriage, thinking that at the age of fifteen she was too young and, being close to his daughter, concerned by the distance between Greece and Russia.

Olga was just 16 years old when she married George at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg on October 27, 1867. After a brief honeymoon at Tsarskoye Selo, the couple left Russia for Greece on November 9.

From 1864 to 1874, Greece had 21 governments, the longest of which lasted a year and a half. In July 1874, Charilaos Trikoupis, a member of the Greek Parliament, wrote an anonymous article in the newspaper Kairoi blaming King George and his advisors for the continuing political crisis caused by the lack of stable governments.

In the article, he accused the King of acting like an absolute monarch by imposing minority governments on the people. If the King insisted, he argued, that only a politician commanding a majority in the Vouli could be appointed prime minister, then politicians would be forced to work together more harmoniously to construct a coalition government. Such a plan, he wrote, would end the political instability and reduce the large number of smaller parties.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia, mother of Olga Constantinovna of Russia

Trikoupis admitted to writing the article after a man supposed by the authorities to be the author was arrested, whereupon he was taken into custody himself. After a public outcry, he was released and subsequently acquitted of the charge of “undermining the constitutional order”.

The following year, the King asked Trikoupis to form a government (without a majority) and then read a speech from the throne declaring that in future the leader of the majority party in parliament would be appointed prime minister.

King George’s silver jubilee in 1888 was celebrated throughout the Hellenic world, and Athens was decorated with garlands for the anniversary of his accession on October 30.

Visitors included the Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark (the King’s brother) the Prince and Princess of Wales (the Princess of Wales was the King’s sister) the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, Grand Dukes Sergei and Paul of Russia, and Djevad Pasha from the Ottoman Empire, who presented the King with two Arabian horses as gifts.

Jubilee events in the week of October 30th included balls, galas, parades, a thanksgiving service at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens, and a lunch for 500 invited guests in a blue and white tent on the Acropolis.

Greece in the last decades of the 19th century was increasingly prosperous and was developing a sense of its role on the European stage. In 1893, the Corinth Canal was built by a French company cutting the sea journey from the Adriatic Sea to Piraeus by 150 miles (241 km).

In 1896, the Olympic Games were revived in Athens, and the Opening Ceremony of the 1896 Summer Olympics was presided over by the King. When Spiridon Louis, a shepherd from just outside Athens, ran into the Panathinaiko Stadium to win the Marathon event, the Crown Prince ran down onto the field to run the last thousand yards beside the Greek gold medalist, while the King stood and applauded.

The popular desire to unite all Greeks within a single territory (Megali Idea) was never far below the surface and another revolt against Turkish rule erupted in Crete. In February 1897, King George sent his son, Prince George, to take possession of the island. The Greeks refused an Ottoman offer of an autonomous administration, and Deligiannis mobilized for war.

The Great Powers refused to allow the expansion of Greece, and on February 25, 1897 announced that Crete would be under an autonomous administration and ordered the Greek and Ottoman Turk militias to withdraw.

The death of Britain’s Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom on January 22, 1901 left King George as the second-longest-reigning monarch in Europe. His always cordial relations with his brother-in-law, the new King Edward VII, continued to tie Greece to Britain.

This was abundantly important in Britain’s support of King George’s son Prince George as Governor-General of Crete. Nevertheless, Prince George resigned in 1906 after a leader in the Cretan Assembly, Eleftherios Venizelos, campaigned to have him removed.

As a response to the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, Venizelos’s power base was further strengthened, and on October 8, 1908 the Cretan Assembly passed a resolution in favor of union despite both the reservations of the Athens government under Georgios Theotokis and the objections of the Great Powers. The muted reaction of the Athens Government to the news from Crete led to an unsettled state of affairs on the mainland.

In August 1909, a group of army officers that had formed a military league, Stratiotikos Syndesmos, demanded, among other things, that the Royal Family be stripped of their military commissions.

To save the King the embarrassment of removing his sons from their commissions, they resigned them. The military league attempted a coup d’état, and the King insisted on supporting the duly elected Hellenic Parliament in response.

Eventually, the military league joined forces with Venizelos in calling for a National Assembly to revise the constitution. King George gave way, and new elections to the revising assembly were held in August 1910.

After some political maneuvering, Venizelos became prime minister of a minority government. Just a month later, Venizelos called new elections for December 11, 1910, at which he won an overwhelming majority after most of the opposition parties declined to take part.

When the Kingdom of Montenegro declared war on Turkey on October 8, 1912, it was joined quickly by Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece in what is known as the First Balkan War.

King George I was on vacation in Denmark, so he immediately returned to Greece via Vienna, arriving in Athens to be met by a large and enthusiastic crowd on the evening of October 9. The results of this campaign differed radically from the Greek experience at the hands of the Turks in 1897.

The well-trained Greek forces, 200,000 strong, won victory after victory. On November 9, 1912, Greek forces commanded by Crown Prince Constantine rode into Thessaloniki, just a few hours ahead of a Bulgarian division. Three days later King George rode in triumph through the streets of Thessaloniki, the second-largest Greek city, accompanied by the Crown Prince and Prime Minster Venizelos.

As he approached the fiftieth anniversary of his accession, the King made plans to abdicate in favor of his son Crown Prince Constantine immediately after the celebration of his Golden Jubilee in October 1913.

Just as he did in Athens, George went about Thessaloniki without any meaningful protection force. While out on an afternoon walk near the White Tower on March 18, 1913, the King was shot at close range in the back by Alexandros Schinas, who was “said to belong to a Socialist organization” and “declared when arrested that he had killed the King because he refused to give him money”.

King George died instantly, the bullet having penetrated his heart. The Greek government denied any political motive for the assassination, saying that Schinas was an alcoholic vagrant. Schinas was tortured in prison and fell to his death from a police station window six weeks later.

The King’s body was taken to Athens on the Amphitrite, escorted by a flotilla of naval vessels. For three days the coffin of the King, draped in the Danish and Greek flags, lay in the Metropolitan Cathedral in Athens before his body was committed to a tomb at his palace in Tatoi.

His eldest son became King Constantine I of the Hellenes.

History of the Kingdom of Greece. Part IV. King George I.

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Argos, Corinth, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, King George I of the Hellenes, King Otto of Greece, Prince Alfred of the United Kingdom, Prince of Wales, Prince Wilhelm of Denmark, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Sparta, Tripolitsa

Following the overthrow of the Bavarian-born King Otto of Greece in October 1862, the Greek people had rejected Otto’s brother and designated successor Luitpold, although they still favored a monarchy rather than a republic.

Many Greeks, seeking closer ties to the pre-eminent world power, the United Kingdom, rallied around Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. British prime minister Lord Palmerston believed that the Greeks were “panting for increase in territory”, hoping for a gift of the Ionian Islands, which were then a British protectorate.

The London Conference of 1832, however, prohibited any of the Great Powers’ ruling families from accepting the crown, and in any event, Queen Victoria was adamantly opposed to the idea.

The Greeks nevertheless insisted on holding a plebiscite in which Prince Alfred received over 95% of the 240,000 votes. There were 93 votes for a Republic and six for a Greek national to be chosen as king. Former King Otto received one vote.

With Prince Alfred’s exclusion, the search began for an alternative candidate. The French favored Henri d’Orléans, duc d’Aumale, while the British proposed Queen Victoria’s brother-in-law Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, her nephew Prince Leiningen, and Archduke Maximilian of Austria, among others.

Eventually, the Greeks and Great Powers winnowed their choice to Prince Wilhelm of Denmark, who had received six votes in the plebiscite. Aged only 17, he was elected King of the Hellenes on March 30, 1863 by the Greek National Assembly and he chose to reign under the regnal name of George I.

Prince Alfred of the United Kingdom

Paradoxically, he ascended a royal throne before his father, who became King Christian IX of Denmark on November 15 the same year. There were two significant differences between George’s elevation and that of his predecessor, Otto. First, he was acclaimed unanimously by the Greek Assembly, rather than imposed on the people by foreign powers. Second, he was proclaimed “King of the Hellenes” instead of “King of Greece”, which had been Otto’s style.

His ceremonial enthronement in Copenhagen on June 6 was attended by a delegation of Greeks led by First Admiral and Prime Minister Konstantinos Kanaris. At the ceremony, it was announced that the British government would cede the Ionian Islands to Greece in honor of the new monarch.

The new 17-year-old king toured Saint Petersburg, London and Paris before departing for Greece from the French port of Toulon on October 22, aboard the Greek flagship Hellas.

He arrived in Athens on October 30, 1863, after docking at Piraeus the previous day. He was determined not to make the mistakes of his predecessor, so he quickly learned Greek. The new king was seen frequently and informally in the streets of Athens, where his predecessor had only appeared in pomp.

King George found the palace in a state of disarray, after the hasty departure of King Otto, and took to putting it right by mending and updating the 40-year-old building. He also sought to ensure that he was not seen as too influenced by his Danish advisers, ultimately sending his uncle, Prince Julius, back to Denmark with the words, “I will not allow any interference with the conduct of my government”. Another adviser, Count Wilhelm Sponneck, became unpopular for advocating a policy of disarmament and tactlessly questioning the descent of modern Greeks from classical antecedents. Like Julius, he was dispatched back to Denmark.

King George I of the Hellenes

From May 1864, George undertook a tour of the Peloponnese, through Corinth, Argos, Tripolitsa, Sparta, and Kalamata, where he embarked on the frigate Hellas. Proceeding northwards along the coast accompanied by British, French and Russian naval vessels, the Hellas reached Corfu on June 6 for the ceremonial handover of the Ionian Islands by the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Storks.

Politically, the new king took steps to conclude the protracted constitutional deliberations of the Assembly. On October 19, 1864, he sent the Assembly a demand, countersigned by Konstantinos Kanaris, explaining that he had accepted the crown on the understanding that a new constitution would be finalized, and that if it was not he would feel himself at “perfect liberty to adopt such measures as the disappointment of my hopes may suggest”.

It was unclear from the wording whether he meant to return to Denmark or impose a constitution, but as either event was undesirable the Assembly soon came to an agreement.

On November 28, 1864, he took the oath to defend the new constitution, which created a unicameral assembly (Vouli) with representatives elected by direct, secret, universal male suffrage, a first in modern Europe.

A constitutional monarchy was set up with George deferring to the legitimate authority of the elected officials, although he was aware of the corruption present in elections and the difficulty of ruling a mostly illiterate population. Between 1864 and 1910, there were 21 general elections and 70 different governments.

Internationally, George maintained a strong relationship with his brother-in-law the Prince of Wales, who in 1901 became King Edward VII, and sought his help in defusing the recurring and contentious issue of Crete, an overwhelmingly Greek island that remained under Ottoman Turk control.

Since the reign of Otto, the Greek desire to unite Greek lands in one nation had been a sore spot with Great Britain and France, which had embarrassed Otto by occupying the main Greek port of Piraeus to dissuade Greek irredentism during the Crimean War.

During the Cretan Revolt (1866–1869), the Prince of Wales unsuccessfully sought the support of the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Derby, to intervene in Crete on behalf of Greece. Ultimately, the Great Powers did not intervene, and the Ottomans put down the rebellion.

February 2, 1882: Birth of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark.

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Duke of Edinburgh, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna, House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, King Charles III of the United Kingdom, King George I of the Hellenes, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, Prince Philip, Princess Alice of Battenberg, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (February 2, 1882 – December 3, 1944) of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of the Hellenes and He was a grandson of Christian IX of Denmark, and the father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He was a prince of both Denmark and Greece by virtue of his patrilineal descent.

Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark

Prince Andrew was born at the Tatoi Palace just north of Athens on February 2, 1882, the fourth son of George I of the Hellenes and Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, the oldest daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg.

Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich was the son of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia and Princess Charlotte of Prussia, the eldest surviving daughter and fourth child of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, and Duchess Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and a sister of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV and of German Emperor Wilhelm I, King of Prussia.

King George I of the Hellenes

Prince Andrew was a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, he was a Prince of both Greece and Denmark, as his father, King George I of the Hellenes a younger son of Christian IX of Denmark and his wife Prince Louise of Hesse-Cassel. Prince Andrew was in the line of succession to the Greek and more distantly to the Danish throne.

A career soldier, he began military training at an early age, and was commissioned as an officer in the Greek army. His command positions were substantive appointments rather than honorary, and he saw service in the Balkan Wars.

Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna

In 1913, his father was assassinated and Andrew’s elder brother, Constantine, became king. The king’s neutrality policy during World War I led to his abdication, and most of the royal family, including Andrew, was exiled. On their return a few years later, Andrew saw service as Major General in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), but the war went badly for Greece, and Andrew was blamed, in part, for the loss of Greek territory. He was exiled for a second time in 1922, and spent most of the rest of his life in France.

Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna

Marriage

In 1902, Prince Andrew met Princess Alice of Battenberg during his stay in London on the occasion of the coronation of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom who was his uncle-by-marriage and her grand-uncle.

Princess Alice was a daughter of Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, King Edward VII’s niece. They fell in love, and the following year, on October 6, 1903, Andrew married Alice in a civil wedding at Darmstadt.

Princess Alice of Battenberg

The following day two religious wedding services were performed: one Lutheran in the Evangelical Castle Church, and another Greek Orthodox in the Russian Chapel on the Mathildenhöhe. Prince and Princess Andrew had five children, all of whom later had children of their own.

Princess Alice of Battenberg

During their time in exile the family became more and more dispersed. Alice suffered a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized in Switzerland. Philip was sent to school in Britain, where he was brought up by his mother’s British relatives. Andrew went to live in the South of France.

Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark

By 1930, he was estranged from his wife, Princess Alice of Battenberg. His only son, Prince Philip, served in the British navy during World War II, while all four of his daughters were married to German Royals, three of whom had Nazi connections.

On the French Riviera, Andrew lived in a small apartment, or hotel rooms, or on board a yacht with Countess Andrée de La Bigne. His marriage to Alice was effectively over, and after her recovery and release, she returned to Greece.

In 1936, his sentence of exile was quashed by emergency laws, which also restored land and annuities to the King. Andrew returned to Greece for a brief visit that May.

The following year, his pregnant daughter Cecilie, his son-in-law and two of his grandchildren were killed in an air accident at Ostend; he met Alice for the first time in six years at the funeral, which was also attended by Andrew’s sixteen-year-old son Prince Philip.

During World War II, he found himself essentially trapped in Vichy France, while his son, Prince Philip, fought on the side of the British. They were unable to see or even correspond with one another.

Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark

Andrew’s three surviving sons-in-law fought on the German side: Prince Christoph of Hesse was a member of the Nazi Party and the Waffen-SS; Berthold, Margrave of Baden, was invalided out of the Wehrmacht in 1940 after an injury in France; Prince Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg served on the Eastern Front and was dismissed after the July 20 plot. For five years, Andrew saw neither his wife nor his son.

Death and burial

He died on December 3, 1944 in the Hotel Metropole, Monte Carlo, Monaco, of heart failure and arteriosclerosis in the closing months of the war in Europe.

Andrew was at first buried in the Russian Orthodox church in Nice, but in 1946 his remains were transferred, by the Greek cruiser Averof, to the royal cemetery at Tatoi Palace, near Athens.

Prince Philip and then-private secretary, Mike Parker, traveled to Monte Carlo to collect items belonging to his father from Andrée de La Bigne; among these items: a signet ring which the Prince wore from then onwards, an ivory shaving brush he took to using, and some clothes he had adapted to fit him.

Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, Duke of Edinburgh

Prince Andrew left to his only son seven-tenths of his estate, but he also left behind a debt of £17,500, leading Philip’s maternal grandmother, Victoria, Marchioness of Milford Haven, to complain bitterly of the extravagance the Greek prince had been led into by his French mistress.

His only son, Prince Philip married Princess Elizabeth on November 20, 1947, the daughter of King George VI of the United Kingdom and his wife Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. Prince Philip was created Duke of Edinburgh by the King. Princess Elizabeth succeeded to the throne in 1952 as Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. This makes Prince Andrew the paternal grandfather of King Charles III of the United Kingdom.

July 12: 1915: Birth of Princess Catherine Ivanovna of Russia

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Duke of Edinburgh, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinova of Russia, House of Romanov, King George I of the Hellenes, Marchese di Villaforesta, Prince Philip, Princess Catherine Ivanovna of Russia, Queen Elena of Montenegro, Ruggero Farace, Russian Revolution

Princess Catherine Ivanovna of Russia (July 12, 1915 – March 13, 2007) was a male line great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia and a niece of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. She was the last member of the Imperial Family to be born before the fall of the dynasty. She was also second cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, as Catherine’s grandfather Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia was a younger brother of Prince Philip’s grandmother Grand Duchess Olga Constantinova of Russia, Queen of Hellenes as wife of King George I of the Hellenes.

Born in Pavlovsk Palace, she was the second child of Prince John Constantinovich of Russia and Princess Helen of Serbia. After the Revolution, her father was arrested and deported from the capital and her mother followed her husband into exile.

Catherine and her brother, Vsevolod, remained in the care of her grandmother, the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Mavriekievna of Russia. On July 18, 1918, their father, Prince John, was killed, and their mother, Princess Jelena, was arrested and spent several months in Soviet prisons. Grand Duchess Elizabeth was able to take Catherine and her brother to Sweden. Sometime later, they were reunited with their mother.

The family lived in Yugoslavia, then moved to England. There, Catherine received an excellent education, although she never learned the Russian language because her mother, devastated by her husband’s death, did not want her children speaking that language in front of her.

Marriage

From 1937 to 1945, Princess Catherine Ivanovna lived in Italy, with her great-aunt Queen Elena of Montenegro. During her stay she married the Italian diplomat Ruggero Farace, Marchese di Villaforesta (1909 – 1970), in Rome on September 15, 1937; on occasion of her wedding, she renounced to her succession rights to the Russian throne.

Marchese Ruggero Farace Farace di Villaforesta (1909-1970) was son of Alfredo, Marchese Farace di Villaforesta (1860-1949), member of an old Sicilian noble family and Greek aristocrat Caterina Fachiri (1882-1968), who was descendant of some of the most prominent Phanariote families of Constantinople.

Through mutual descent from Princes of Mavrocordato Ruggero was distantly related to Queen Natalia of Serbia (1859-1941), Princess Aspasia of Greece and Denmark (1896-1972) and her daughter Queen Alexandra of Yugoslavia (1921-1993), who was married to his wife’s first cousin King Peter II of Yugoslavia (1922-1970).

In 1945, after the end of the World War II, Princess Catherine separated from her husband (although they never legally divorced) and moved with her children to South America. In later years, she lived in Montevideo, capital city of Uruguay.

Death

She died on March 13, 2007 in Montevideo, Uruquay. Aged 91.

Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Queen of the Hellenes. Part II

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Demotic Greek, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Evangelika Controversy, King George I of the Hellenes, Koine Greek, Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Queen of the Hellenes

The Emperor Alexander II told Olga “to love her new country twice more than her own”, but she was ill-prepared for her new life. Aware of her youth, she chose to retain the services of her governess to continue her education. On arrival at Piraeus, Olga wore blue and white, the national colors of Greece, to the delight of the crowd.

On the way to the capital, popular unrest was such that Olga, who was not accustomed to such demonstrations, was close to tears. Unable to speak Greek, and with little time for rest, she attended official functions over several days. Overwhelmed, Olga was found sobbing under a staircase cuddling her teddy bear a few days after her arrival in the kingdom while she was expected for a formal event. In less than a year, she learnt Greek and English. On the advice of her mother, she took an interest in the archeology and history of Greece to gain public support.

Private life

Throughout their marriage, George I and Olga were a close-knit couple, and contrary to the prevailing custom spent much time with their children, who grew up in a warm family atmosphere. With age, however, George I argued with his sons and Olga lamented the quarrels that divided the family periodically. In private, Olga and George I conversed in German because it was the only language they both spoke at the time of their marriage. With their offspring, they spoke mainly English, although the children were required to speak Greek among themselves, and Prince Andrew refused to speak anything but Greek to his parents.

The life of the royal family was relatively quiet and withdrawn. The Athenian court was not as brilliant and sumptuous as that of Saint Petersburg, and days in the Greek capital were sometimes monotonous for members of the royal family. In spring and winter, they divided time between the Royal Palace in Athens and Tatoi Palace at the foot of Mount Parnitha. Summers were spent on vacation at Aix-les-Bains in France, visiting relatives in the Russian capital or at Fredensborg and Bernstorff in Denmark, and relaxing at Mon Repos, Corfu.

Olga remained nostalgic for Russia. Her room was filled with icons from her homeland and, in the palace chapel, she sang Slavic hymns with her children. She often visited Russian ships that were docked at Piraeus and invited the Russian sailors to the royal palace. She was the only woman in history to bear the title of Admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy, an honor given to her on marriage. She was honored in the Greek navy by having a ship named after her.

Social work

Olga was genuinely popular and was extensively involved in charity work. On arrival in Athens, her immediate patronages included the Amalieion orphanage founded by the previous queen consort Amalia of Oldenburg, and the Arsakeion school for girls located on University Boulevard. With her personal support and the support of wealthy donors, she built asylums for the terminally ill and for the elderly disabled, and a sanatorium for patients with consumption. She founded a society to help the poor, a kindergarten for the children of the poor, and a soup kitchen in Piraeus that doubled as a cooking school for poor girls that was later expanded into a weaving school for girls and elderly women in financial difficulty.

She was patron of two military hospitals and endowed the Evangelismos (Annunciation) Hospital, Greece’s largest, in downtown Athens. She built the Russian Hospital in Piraeus in memory of her daughter, Alexandra, who died in Moscow in 1891. Although aimed primarily at Russian sailors, the hospital was open to all seamen visiting Greece, with consultation fees set at the low rate of thirty lepta and medicines being free.

Olga also supported the establishment and funding of hospitals during the conflicts between Greece and its neighbors, including the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and the First Balkan War (1912–13). For their work for the wounded, Olga and her daughter-in-law Crown Princess Sophia were awarded the Royal Red Cross by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom in December 1897.

Before Olga’s arrival in Greece, there were no separate prisons for women or the young, and she was instrumental in the establishment of a women’s prison in the capital and, with the support of wealthy philanthropist George Averoff, one for juvenile delinquents.

Shortly after Greece’s defeat in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, shots were fired at Olga’s husband and daughter by disgruntled Greeks in 1898. Despite the failed assassination, Olga insisted on continuing her engagements without a military guard. Her son Nicolas wrote in his memoirs that one day he spoke of the importance of public opinion to his mother, and she retorted, “I prefer to be governed by a well born lion rather than four hundred rats like me.” Olga’s interest in political and public opinion was limited. Although she favored Greece’s Russian party, she had no political influence over her husband and did not seek political influence in the Greek parliament.

Evangelika controversy

An Orthodox Christian from birth, Queen Olga became aware, during visits to wounded servicemen in the Greco-Turkish War (1897), that many were unable to read the Bible. The version used by the Church of Greece included the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and the original Greek-language version of the New Testament. Both were written in ancient Koine Greek, but her contemporaries used either Katharevousa or the so-called Demotic version of Modern Greek.

Katharevousa was a formal language that contained archaized forms of modern words, was purged of “non-Greek” vocabulary from other European languages and Turkish, and had a (simplified) archaic grammar. Modern or Demotic Greek was the version commonly spoken. Olga decided to have the Bible translated into a version that could be understood by most contemporary Greeks rather than only those educated in Koine Greek.

Opponents of the translation, however, considered it “tantamount to a renunciation of Greece’s ‘sacred heritage'”. In February 1901, the translation of the New Testament from Koine into Modern Greek that she had sponsored was published without the authorization of the Greek Holy Synod. The price was set at one drachma, far below its actual cost, and the edition sold well. To mitigate opposition to the translation, both the old and new texts were included and the frontispiece specifically stated it was for “exclusive family use” rather than in church.

At the same time, another translation was completed by Alexandros Pallis, a major supporter of a literary movement supporting the use of Demotic in written language. Publication of the translation started in serial form in the newspaper Akropolis on September 9, 1901. Purist theologians and Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople denounced the translation.

A faction of the Greek press started accusing Pallis and his Demoticist supporters of blasphemy and treason. Riots, peaking on November 8, were started by students of the University of Athens, partly motivated by conservative professors. They demanded the excommunication of Pallis and anyone involved with the translations, including Olga and Procopios, the Metropolitan bishop of Athens, who had supervised the translation at her personal request.

Troops were called in to maintain order, and conflict between them and the rioters resulted in eight deaths and over sixty people wounded. By December, the remaining copies of Olga’s translation had been confiscated and their circulation prohibited. Anyone selling or reading the translations was threatened with excommunication. The controversy was called Evangelika, i.e. “the Gospel events” or Gospel riots, after the word Evangelion, Greek for “Gospel”, and led to the resignation of the metropolitan bishop, Procopius, and the fall of the government of Georgios Theotokis.

September 3, 1851: Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Queen of the Hellenes. Part I.

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Alexander II of Russia, Alexander III of Russia, Duke of Edinburgh, Felipe VI of Spain, King George I of the Hellenes, Nicholas Constantinovich of Russia, Nicholas II of Russia, Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Philip of Gr÷ce and Denmark, Poland, Queen of the Hellenes, Russian Empire

Olga Constantinovna of Russia (September 3, 1851 – June 18, 1926) was queen consort of the Hellenes as the wife of King George I. She was briefly the regent of Greece in 1920. Olga was the Grandmother of Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh and the great-great-grandmother of Spains current king, Felipe VI.

Family and early life

Olga was born at Pavlovsk Palace near Saint Petersburg and was the second child and elder daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Grand Duchess Alexandra, a former princess of Saxe-Altenburg. Through her father, Olga was a granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, a niece of Emperor Alexander II and first cousin of Emperor Alexander III.

Her childhood was spent at her father’s homes, including Pavlovsk Palace and estates in the Crimea. Her father was a younger brother of Alexander II, and her mother was considered one of the most intelligent and elegant women of the court. Olga was particularly close to her older brother, Nicholas, and was one of the few members of the imperial family to keep in touch with him after he was banished to Tashkent.

Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovich of Russia had an affair with a notorious American woman Fanny Lear. Due to his affair, he stole three valuable diamonds from the revetment of one of the most valuable family icons. He was declared insane and he was banished to Tashkent.

As a child, Olga was described as a simple and chubby little girl with a broad face and big blue eyes. Unlike her younger sister, Vera, she had a calm temperament, but she was also extremely shy. For example, when interrogated by her tutors during lessons, she burst into tears and ran from the classroom.

In 1862, Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich was appointed viceroy of Russian Poland by his brother and moved to Warsaw with his wife and children. The stay in Poland proved difficult for the Grand Duke, who was the victim of a nationalist assassination attempt the day after his arrival in the Polish capital. Although Constantine embarked on a program of liberalization and re-instated Polish as an official language, Polish nationalists agitating for reform were not appeased. Finally, an uprising in January 1863 and the radicalization of the separatists pushed the Emperor to recall his brother in August. Olga’s difficult experiences in Poland marked her profoundly.

Engagement and marriage

The 17 year old King George I of Greece visited Russia in 1863 to thank Olga’s uncle Emperor Aexander II for his support during George’s election to the throne of Greece. Whilst there, George met the then twelve-year-old Olga for the first time.

George visited Russia again in 1867 to meet with his sister Dagmar, who had married Tsarevitch Alexander (later Alexander III) the year before. He was determined to find a wife and the idea of an alliance with a Russian grand duchess, born into the Eastern Orthodox Church, appealed to him.

Olga fell in love with George, but she was nevertheless anxious and distraught at the thought of leaving Russia. Her father was initially reluctant to agree to their marriage, thinking that at the age of fifteen she was too young and, being close to his daughter, concerned by the distance between Greece and Russia.

For her part, Grand Duchess Alexandra was much more enthusiastic than her husband and, when some members of the imperial family noted the extreme youth of her daughter, she replied that Olga would not always be as young. Eventually, it was decided that Olga and George would marry when she had reached her sixteenth birthday. Meanwhile, she would continue her schoolwork until her wedding day.

Olga and George married at the chapel of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg on October 27, 1867. After five days of festivities, they spent a brief honeymoon at Ropsha, south-west of Saint Petersburg. Over the following twenty years, they had eight children:

Constantine (August 2, 1868 – January 11, 1923), who was born ten months after the marriage of his parents; he married Princess Sophia of Prussia and succeeded his father as king;

George (June 24, 1869 – November 25, 1957), High Commissioner of Crete from 1898 to 1906, married Princess Marie Bonaparte;

Alexandra (August 30, 1870 – September 24, 1891), married Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia; their children included Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, one of the assassins of Grigori Rasputin;

Nicholas (January 22, 1872 – February 8, 1938), married Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia;

Marie (March 3, 1876 – December 14, 1940), married firstly Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia and secondly Perikles Ioannidis;

Olga (April 7, 1880 – November 2, 1880);

Andrew (February 2, 1882 – December 3, 1944), he married Princess Alice of Battenberg, their children included Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; and

Christopher (August 10, 1888 – January 21, 1940), father of Prince Michael of Greece.

September 3, 1851: Birth of Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Queen consort of the Hellenes.

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Alexander III of Russia, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, King George I of the Hellenes, Kingdom of Greece, Olga Constantinova of Russia, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg, Revolution, Russian Empire

Olga Constantinovna of Russia (September 3, 1851 – June 18, 1926) was Queen consort of the Hellenes as the wife of King George I. She was briefly the regent of Greece in 1920.

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Olga Constantinovna of Russia

A member of the Romanov dynasty, she was the daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg, the fifth daughter of Joseph, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg and Amelie Theresa Luise, Duchess of Württemberg. She is an ancestor of the British, Greek, Romanian, Yugoslavian and Spanish Royal Families through her elder daughter Olga.

Through her father, Olga was a granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I, a niece of Emperor Alexander II and first cousin of Emperor Alexander III.

She spent her childhood in Saint Petersburg, Poland and the Crimea. Her father was a younger brother of Alexander II, and her mother was considered one of the most intelligent and elegant women of the court. Olga was particularly close to her older brother, Nicholas, and was one of the few members of the imperial family to keep in touch with him after he was banished to Tashkent.

Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg (Mother)

The young King George I of Greece visited Russia in 1863 to thank Olga’s uncle Emperor Alexander II for his support during George’s election to the throne of Greece. Whilst there, George met the then twelve-year-old Olga for the first time.

George visited Russia again in 1867 to meet with his sister Dagmar, who had married Tsarevitch Alexander (later Alexander III) the year before. He was determined to find a wife and the idea of an alliance with a Russian grand duchess, born into the Eastern Orthodox Church, appealed to him.

Olga fell in love with George, but she was nevertheless anxious and distraught at the thought of leaving Russia. Her father was initially reluctant to agree to their marriage, thinking that at the age of fifteen she was too young and, being close to his daughter, concerned by the distance between Greece and Russia.

For her part, Grand Duchess Alexandra was much more enthusiastic than her husband and, when some members of the imperial family noted the extreme youth of her daughter, she replied that Olga would not always be as young. Eventually, it was decided that Olga and George would marry when she had reached her sixteenth birthday. Meanwhile, she would continue her schoolwork until her wedding day.

Olga and George married at the chapel of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg on October 27, 1867. After five days of festivities, they spent a brief honeymoon at Ropsha, south-west of Saint Petersburg. Over the following twenty years, they had eight children.

At first, she felt ill at ease in the Kingdom of Greece, but she quickly became involved in social and charitable work. She founded hospitals and schools, but her attempt to promote a new, more accessible, Greek translation of the Gospels sparked riots by religious conservatives.

On the assassination of her husband in 1913, Olga returned to Russia. When the First World War broke out, she set up a military hospital in Pavlovsk Palace, which belonged to her brother. She was trapped in the palace after the Russian Revolution of 1917, until the Danish embassy intervened, allowing her to escape to Switzerland. Olga could not return to Greece as her son, King Constantine I, had been deposed.

In October 1920, she returned to Athens on the fatal illness of her grandson, King Alexander. After his death, she was appointed regent until the restoration of Constantine I the following month. After the defeat of the Greeks in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–22 the Greek royal family were again exiled and Olga spent the last years of her life in the United Kingdom, France and Italy.

Are the descendants of the Duke of Edinburgh also Prince/Princess of Greece and Denmark? Part I.

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Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, House of Glucksburg, House of House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, King George I of the Hellenes, king George II of the Hellenes, King George VI of the United Kingdom, Prince of Greece and Denmark, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Sophia of the Rhine (Electress Sophia)

George I, King of the Hellenes, (December 24, 1845 – March 18, 1913) was born as Christian Wilhelm Ferdinand Adolf George, the second son and third child of King Christian IX of Denmark and Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel. Until his accession in Greece, he was known as Prince Wilhelm. At age only 17, he was elected King of the Hellenes on March 30, 1863 by the Greek National Assembly under the regnal name of George I.

King George I of the Hellenes

King George I of the Hellenes married Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia (September 3, 1851 – June 18, 1926), the daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg, at the chapel of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg on October 27, 1867 when she was barely 16 and he was he was 21. Over the next twenty years, they had eight children.

Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia

All male line descendants of King George are entitled to the be a Prince of Greece and Denmark. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, was born the only son and fifth and final child of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, was a prince of both Greece and Denmark by virtue of his patrilineal descent from George I of Greece and Christian IX of Denmark.

The Duke of Edinburgh is also member of the House of Glücksburg, itself a branch of the House of Oldenburg. The House of Glücksburg (also spelled Glücksborg), shortened from House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, is a Dano-German branch of the House of Oldenburg, members of which have reigned at various times in Denmark, Norway, Greece and several northern German states.

The question I raise is, are the Duke of Edinburgh’s children and other descendants also princes/princesses of Greece and Denmark?

At birth the Duke of Edinburgh was in the line of succession to both thrones of Greece and Denmark; the 1953 Succession Act removed his family branch’s succession rights in Denmark.

In 1947 Philip was granted permission by George VI to marry Princess Elizabeth. Before the official announcement of their engagement in July of that year, Philip renounced his Greek and Danish royal titles, became a naturalised British subject, and adopted his maternal grandparents’ surname Mountbatten.

Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark

However, it wasn’t necessary for Philip to under go the naturalization process due to the fact that he was born a British national as a descendant of the Electress Sophia of Hanover and the subsequent Sophia Naturalization Act of 1705 which granted British nationality in perpetuity to Sophia’s descendants. The act was superseded in 1949 by the passage of the British Nationality Act.

Although born a Prince of Greece and Denmark his upbringing was thoroughly British. On September 22, 1922, Philip’s uncle, King Constantine I of the Hellenes was forced to abdicate and the new military government arrested Prince Andrew, his father, along with others. In December, a revolutionary court banished Prince Andrew from Greece for life. The British naval vessel HMS Calypso evacuated Prince Andrew’s family, with Philip carried to safety in a cot made from a fruit box.

Because Philip left Greece as a baby, he does not speak Greek, and has stated that he thinks of himself as Danish. In 1928, he was sent to the United Kingdom to attend Cheam School, living with his maternal grandmother, Victoria Mountbatten, Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven, at Kensington Palace and his uncle, George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, at Lynden Manor in Bray, Berkshire. Philip has always lived in the United Kingdom ever since.

Prince Philip initially started the process of renouncing his Greek and Danish titles in 1941, after he had joined the British Royal Navy. The renunciation of his Greek and Danish titles was done in a private via a letter to King George II, then in exile, in December of that year. The king accepted the renunciation with some reluctance, but only accepted his request due to Philip’s desire to serve in the British Royal Navy. After George II returned there was never any official action taken by the Greek government to remove Philip’s Greek and Danish, but the decision was accepted by the Greek king therefore that action in itself has been considered official by many historians and governmental figures.

However, there are some historians that believed since there isn’t any direct evidence that official documentation was submitted by King George II of the Hellenes to the government to remove Philip’s titles, therefore it is believed that Philip just simply stopped using his titles. Therefore theoretically, do Philip and his descendants still have their Dynastic titles such as Prince/Princesses of Greece and Denmark as well as other dynastic titles, Duke of Schleswig, Holstein, Stormarn, Dithmarschen, Lauenburg, and Oldenburg? Are they still there, and just in a state of disuse?

Is that true? That is what we’ll examine in part II.