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.

February 25, 1885: Birth of Princess Alice of Battenberg

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Princess Alice of Battenberg (February 25, 1885 – December 5, 1969) was the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II.

Alice was born in the Tapestry Room at Windsor Castle in Berkshire in the presence of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. She was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine.

Her mother was the eldest daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria’s second daughter. Her father was the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine through his morganatic marriage to Countess Julia Hauke, who was created Princess of Battenberg in 1858 by Ludwig III, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine.

Alice’s three younger siblings, Louise, George, and Louis, later became Queen of Sweden, Marquess of Milford Haven, and Earl Mountbatten of Burma, respectively.

Alice was christened Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie in Darmstadt on April 25, 1885.

She was congenitally deaf.

Princess Alice met Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (known as Andrea within the family), the fourth son of King George I of Greece and Olga Constantinovna of Russia, while in London for King Edward VII’s coronation in 1902.

They married in a civil ceremony on October 6, 1903 at Darmstadt. The following day, there were two religious marriage ceremonies; one Lutheran in the Evangelical Castle Church, and one Greek Orthodox in the Russian Chapel on the Mathildenhöhe. She adopted the style of her husband, becoming “Princess Andrew”.

The bride and groom were closely related to the ruling houses of the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Denmark, and Greece, and their wedding was one of the great gatherings of the descendants of Queen Victoria and Christian IX of Denmark held before World War I.

Prince and Princess Andrew had five children, all of whom later had children of their own.

Princess Margarita 1905 – 1981.
Married Gottfried, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

Princess Theodora 1906 – 1969.
Married Berthold, Margrave of Baden.

Princess Cecilie 1911 – 1937.
Married Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine.

Princess Sophie 1914 – 2001.
Married 1. Prince Christoph of Hesse-Cassel
Married 2. Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hanover

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh 1921 – 2021.
Married Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom

After their wedding, Prince Andrew continued his career in the military and Princess Andrew became involved in charity work. In 1908, she visited Russia for the wedding of Grand Duchess Marie of Russia and Prince William of Sweden.

While there, she talked with her aunt Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, (born Elizabeth of Hesse and by Rhine) who was formulating plans for the foundation of a religious order of nurses. Princess Andrew attended the laying of the foundation stone for her aunt’s new church. Later in the year, the Grand Duchess began giving away all her possessions in preparation for a more spiritual life.

She lived in Greece until the exile of most of the Greek royal family in 1917. On returning to Greece a few years later, her husband was blamed in part for the country’s defeat in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), and the family was once again forced into exile until the restoration of the Greek monarchy in 1935.

In 1930, Princess Andrew was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed to a sanatorium in Switzerland; thereafter, she lived separately from her husband.

After her recovery, she devoted most of her remaining years to charity work in Greece. She stayed in Athens during the Second World War, sheltering Jewish refugees, for which she is recognised as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel’s Holocaust memorial institution, Yad Vashem. After the war, she stayed in Greece and founded a Greek Orthodox nursing order of nuns known as the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary.

Princess Andrew returned to the United Kingdom in April 1947 to attend the November wedding of her only son, Philip, to Princess Elizabeth, the elder daughter and heir presumptive of King George VI. She had some of her remaining jewels used in Princess Elizabeth’s engagement ring. On the day of the wedding, her son was created Duke of Edinburgh by George VI.

For the wedding ceremony, Princess Andrew sat at the head of her family on the north side of Westminster Abbey, opposite the King, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary. It was decided not to invite Princess Andrew’s daughters (the groom’s sisters) to the wedding because of anti-German sentiment in Britain following World War II.

After the fall of King Constantine II of Greece and the imposition of military rule in Greece in 1967, Princess Andrew was invited by her son and daughter-in-law to live at Buckingham Palace in London, where she died two years later.

In 1988, her remains were transferred from a vault in her birthplace, Windsor Castle, to the Church of Mary Magdalene at the Russian Orthodox convent of the same name on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

The Life of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. Part I.

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Corfu, Duke of Edinburgh, Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, Greece, King George I of Greece, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, Prince Philip, Princess Alice of Battenberg

Born on June 10, 1921 to HRH Prince Andreas of Greece and Denmark and HSH Princess Alice of Battenburg. Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was a member of the House of House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and a great-great grandson of Britain’s Queen Victoria and great grandson of Denmark’s King Christian IX of Denmark.

Philip’s father was Prince Andreas of Greece and Denmark the fourth son of George I of Greece and his wife Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, a member of the Romanov dynasty, she was the daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich of Russia and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg.

Philip’s mother was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Her mother was the eldest daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Her father was the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine through his morganatic marriage to Countess Julia Hauke, who was created Princess of Battenberg in 1858 by Ludwig III, Grand Duke of Hesse. Her three younger siblings, Louise, George, and Louis, later became Queen of Sweden, Marquess of Milford Haven, and Earl Mountbatten of Burma, respectively.

Despite his Danish and German ancestry the Duke of Edinburgh was very British and lived the overwhelming majority of his life in the United Kingdon. In 1939 he joined the British Navy and on his 90th birthday Her Majesty the Queen awarded her husband with the rank of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom.

Philip was first educated at The Elms, an American school in Paris run by Donald MacJannet, who described Philip as a “know it all smarty person, but always remarkably polite”. 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.

In the next three years, his four sisters married German princes and moved to Germany, his mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and placed in an asylum, and his father took up residence in Monte Carlo. Philip had little contact with his mother for the remainder of his childhood.

In 1933, he was sent to Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, which had the “advantage of saving school fees” because it was owned by the family of his brother-in-law, Berthold, Margrave of Baden. With the rise of Nazism in Germany, Salem’s Jewish founder, Kurt Hahn, fled persecution and founded Gordonstoun School in Scotland, to which Philip moved after two terms at Salem.

In 1937, his sister Cecilie, her husband Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, her two young sons, Ludwig and Alexander, her newborn infant, and her mother-in-law, Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich, were killed in an air crash at Ostend; Philip, then 16 years old, attended the funeral in Darmstadt. Both Cecilie and her husband were members of the Nazi Party. The following year, his uncle and guardian Lord Milford Haven died of bone marrow cancer.

Happy 99th Birthday to HRH The Duke of Edinburgh

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George I of Greece, Happy Birthday, King George VI of the United Kingdom, Prince Louis of Battenberg, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, Princess Alice of Battenberg, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, June 10, 1921), is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms.

HRH Duke of Edinburgh and HM Queen (official photo released in honor of the Duke of Edinburgh’s 99th birthday).

Ancestry

Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was born in Mon Repos on the Greek island of Corfu on June 10, 1921, the only son and fifth and final child of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. Prince Philip is a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, itself a Collateral branch of the House of Oldenburg, he was a prince of both Greece and Denmark by virtue of his patrilineal descent from George I of Greece and Christian IX of Denmark, and he was from birth in the line of succession to both thrones; the 1953 Succession Act removed his family branch’s succession rights in Denmark. Philip’s four elder sisters were Margarita, Theodora, Cecilie, and Sophie. He was baptised in the Greek Orthodox rite at St. George’s Church in the Old Fortress in Corfu.

Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark

Philip’s mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Her mother was the eldest daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and By Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Princess Alice of Battenberg

Princess Alice of Battenberg’s father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, was the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and By Rhine through his morganatic marriage to Countess Julia von Hauke, who was created Princess of Battenberg in 1858 by Ludwig III, Grand Duke of Hesse of By Rhine. Alice’s three younger siblings, Louise, George, and Louis, later became Queen of Sweden, Marquess of Milford Haven, and Earl Mountbatten of Burma, respectively.

Prince and Princess Andrew of of Greece and Denmark

Prince Philip’s family was exiled from the Greece when he was an infant. After being educated in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, he joined the British Royal Navy in 1939, aged 18.

Prince Philip and his father.

That same year, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth toured the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. During the visit, the Queen and Louis Mountbatten asked Philip to escort the King’s two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, who were Philip’s third cousins through Queen Victoria, and second cousins once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark. Elizabeth fell in love with Philip, and they began to exchange letters when she was 13.

From July 1939, he began corresponding with the 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth, whom he had first met in 1934. During the Second World War he served with distinction in the Mediterranean and Pacific Fleets. After the war, Philip was granted permission by George VI to marry Elizabeth.

Before the official announcement of their engagement in July 1947, he abandoned his Greek and Danish royal titles, became a naturalised British subject, and adopted his maternal grandparents’ surname Mountbatten. He married Princess Elizabeth on November 20, 1947. Just before the wedding, he was created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich. In post-war Britain it was not acceptable for any of the Duke of Edinburgh’s German relations to be invited to the wedding, including Philip’s three surviving sisters, all of whom had married German princes.

The Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Elizabeth

Philip left active military service when Elizabeth became queen in 1952, having reached the rank of commander, and was formally made a British prince in 1957.

Philip and Elizabeth have four children: Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward. Through a British Order in Council issued in 1960, descendants of the couple not bearing royal styles and titles can use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor, which has also been used by some members of the royal family who do hold titles, such as Princess Anne, and Princes Andrew and Edward.

A keen sports enthusiast, Philip helped develop the equestrian event of carriage driving. He is a patron, president, or member of over 780 organisations, and he serves as chairman of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award for people aged 14 to 24. He is the longest-serving consort of a reigning British monarch and the oldest ever male member of the British royal family. Philip retired from his royal duties on 2 August 2017, aged 96, having completed 22,219 solo engagements since 1952.

Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark, Princess of of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

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Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Prince Andrew of Greece., Prince Ernst II of Hohenlohe-Lagenburg, Prince Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Lagenburg, Princess Alice of Battenberg, Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark, Princess of of Hohenlohe-Langenburg., Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

From the Emperor’s Desk: Sorry I’m late with this. April 18th was the 115th anniversary of the birth of Princess Margarita of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, born Princess of Greece and Denmark. April 24th 1981 was the 39th anniversary of her death.

Princess Margarita with her mother Princess Alice and sister Princess Theodora, c. 1912.

Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark (April 18, 1905 – April 24, 1981) was the eldest child and daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. She was born at the Royal Palace in Athens. She was the first great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and the eldest sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the consort of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. She also had three sisters: Theodora, Margravine of Baden; Cecilie, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine; and Sophie, later Princess Georg of Hanover.

Marriage and children

Margarita married Prince Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg on April 20, 1931 in Langenburg, Germany.

Prince Gottfried was a son of Prince Ernst II of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and Princess Alexandra of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria through her second son, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and his wife, Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia, a daughter of Emperor Alexander II of Russia.

In descent from Queen Victoria, Prince Gottfried was a second cousin once removed of Princess Margarita and in descent from Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, they were third cousins.
Gottfried succeeded his father as reigning Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg on December 11, 1950.

Six children were born of their marriage, all of whom were styled as His/Her Serene Highness:

* Stillborn daughter (born and died December 3, 1933)
* Prince Kraft Alexander Ernst Ludwig Georg Emich (June 23, 1935 – March 16, 2004); succeeded his father as The Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.
* Princess Beatrix Alice Marie Melita Margarete of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (June 10, 1936 – November 15, 1997)
* Prince Georg Andreas Heinrich of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (born November 24, 1938) married Luise, Princess of Schönburg-Waldenburg on September 9, 1968.
* Prince Rupprecht Sigismund Philipp Ernst of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (April 7, 1944 – April 8, 1978)
* Prince Albrecht Wolfgang Christoph of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (April 7, 1944 – April 23, 1992) married Maria-Hildegard Fischer on 23 January 1976. They have one son:

All of Princess Margarita of Hohenlohe-Langenburg’s children are first cousins to the Children of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom: The Prince of Wales, The Princess Royal, The Duke of York and The Earl of Wessex.

Death

Princess Margarita died aged 76 on April 24, 1981 in Langenburg, Germany.She survived her husband by 21 years.

Princess Alice of Battenberg: Part II.

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Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven (Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine), Greek Orthodox, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Alice of Battenberg, Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark, Princess George of Hanover, Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark, Queen Elizabeth II

Princess Andrew returned to the United Kingdom in April 1947 to attend the wedding of her only son, Philip, to Princess Elizabeth, the elder daughter and heir presumptive of King George VI. The wedding occurred on November 20, 1947. She had some of her remaining jewels used in Princess Elizabeth’s engagement ring. On the day before the wedding, her son was created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich by George VI. For the wedding ceremony, Princess Andrew sat at the head of her family on the north side of Westminster Abbey, opposite King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary. It was decided not to invite Princess Andrew’s daughters to the wedding because of anti-German sentiment in Britain following World War II.

In January 1949, the princess founded a nursing order of Greek Orthodox nuns, the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, modelled after the convent that her aunt, the martyred Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, had founded in Russia in 1909. She trained on the Greek island of Tinos, established a home for the order in a hamlet north of Athens, and undertook two tours of the United States in 1950 and 1952 in an effort to raise funds. Her mother, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, later Victoria Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven, was baffled by her actions, “What can you say of a nun who smokes and plays canasta?”, she said. Her daughter-in-law became Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of the Commonwealth realms in 1952, and Princess Andrew attended her coronation in June 1953, wearing a two-tone grey dress and wimple in the style of her nun’s habit. However, the order eventually failed through a lack of suitable applicants.

Duke of Edinburgh with his mother Princess Andrew of Greece

In 1960, she visited India at the invitation of Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, who had been impressed by Princess Andrew’s interest in Indian religious thought, and for her own spiritual quest. The trip was cut short when she unexpectedly took ill, and her sister-in-law, Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, who happened to be passing through Delhi on her own tour, had to smooth things with the Indian hosts who were taken aback at Princess Andrew’s sudden change of plans. She later claimed she had had an out-of-body experience. Edwina continued her own tour, and died the following month.

Increasingly deaf and in failing health, Princess Andrew left Greece for the last time following the April 21, 1967 Colonels’ Coup. Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh invited Princess Andrew to reside permanently at Buckingham Palace in London. King Constantine II of Greece and Queen Anne-Marie went into exile that December after a failed royalist counter-coup.

Despite suggestions of senility in later life, Princess Andrew remained lucid but physically frail. She died at Buckingham Palace on December 5, 1969. She left no possessions, having given everything away. Initially her remains were placed in the Royal Crypt in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, but before she died she had expressed her wish to be buried at the Convent of Saint Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem (near her aunt Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, a Russian Orthodox saint).

When her daughter Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark (Princess Georg of Hanover), complained that it would be too far away for them to visit her grave, Princess Andrew jested, “Nonsense, there’s a perfectly good bus service!” Her wish was realized on August 3, 1988 when her remains were transferred to her final resting place in a crypt below the church.

Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark with her grandchildren Prince Charles and Princess Anne.

On October 31, 1994, Princess Andrew’s two surviving children, the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Georg of Hanover, went to Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Memorial) in Jerusalem to witness a ceremony honouring her as “Righteous Among the Nations” for having hidden the Cohens in her house in Athens during the Second World War. Prince Philip said of his mother’s sheltering of persecuted Jews, “I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. She was a person with a deep religious faith, and she would have considered it to be a perfectly natural human reaction to fellow beings in distress.” In 2010, the Princess was posthumously named a Hero of the Holocaust by the British Government.

February 25, 1885: Birth of Princess Alice of Battenberg. Part I.

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Duke of Edinburgh, Louis IV of Hesse and By Rhine, Prince Andrew of Greece., Prince Louis of Battenberg, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Alice of Battenberg, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Princess Alice of Battenberg (Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie; February 25, 1885 – December 5, 1969) was the mother of Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark (HRH The Duke of Edinburgh) and mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

A great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, she was born in Windsor Castle and grew up in the United Kingdom, the German Empire, and the Mediterranean. A Hessian princess by birth, she was a member of the Battenberg family, a morganatic branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt. She was congenitally deaf.

Alice was born in the Tapestry Room at Windsor Castle in Berkshire in the presence of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. She was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Her mother was the eldest daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria’s second daughter. Her father was the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine through his morganatic marriage to Countess Julia Hauke, who was created Princess of Battenberg in 1858 by Ludwig III, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, Her three younger siblings, Louise, George, and Louis, later became Queen of Sweden, Marquess of Milford Haven, and Earl Mountbatten of Burma, respectively.

Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark

Princess Alice met Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (known as Andrea within the family), the fourth son of King George I of Greece and Olga Constantinovna of Russia, while in London for King Edward VII’s coronation in 1902. They married in a civil ceremony on October 6, 1903 at Darmstadt. The following day, there were two religious marriage ceremonies; one Lutheran in the Evangelical Castle Church, and one Greek Orthodox in the Russian Chapel on the Mathildenhöhe. She adopted the style of her husband, becoming “Princess Andrew”.

The bride and groom were closely related to the ruling houses of the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Denmark, and Greece, and their wedding was one of the great gatherings of the descendants of Queen Victoria and Christian IX of Denmark held before World War I. Prince and Princess Andrew had five children, all of whom later had children of their own.

Princess Alice with her two eldest daughters, Margarita and Theodora.

The global war effectively ended much of the political power of Europe’s dynasties. The naval career of her father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, had collapsed at the beginning of the war in the face of anti-German sentiment in Britain. At the request of King George V, he relinquished the Hessian title Prince of Battenberg and the style of Serene Highness on July 14, 1917, and anglicized the family name to Mountbatten. The following day, the King created him Marquess of Milford Haven in the peerage of the United Kingdom. The following year, two of her aunts, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, were murdered by Bolsheviks after the Russian revolution. At the end of the war the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires had fallen, and Princess Andrew’s uncle, Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse, was deposed

In 1930, after suffering a severe nervous breakdown, Princess Andrew was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, first by Thomas Ross, a psychiatrist who specialised in shell-shock, and subsequently by Sir Maurice Craig, who treated the future King George VI before he had speech therapy. The diagnosis was confirmed at Ernst Simmel’s sanatorium at Tegel, Berlin. Princess Andrew was forcibly removed from her family and placed in Ludwig Binswanger’s sanatorium in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland.

During Princess Andrew’s long convalescence, she and Prince Andrew drifted apart, her daughters all married German princes in 1930 and 1931 (she did not attend any of the weddings), and her son Prince Philip went to England to stay with his uncles, Lord Louis Mountbatten and George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, and his grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven.

During World War II, Princess Andrew was in the difficult situation of having sons-in-law fighting on the German side and a son in the British Royal Navy. Her cousin, Prince Victor zu Erbach-Schönberg was the German ambassador in Greece until the occupation of Athens by Axis forces in April 1941. She and her sister-in-law, Princess Nicholas of Greece, lived in Athens for the duration of the war, while most of the Greek royal family remained in exile in South Africa. She worked for the Red Cross, helped organise soup kitchens for the starving populace and flew to Sweden to bring back medical supplies on the pretext of visiting her sister, Louise, who was married to the Crown Prince. She organised two shelters for orphaned and lost children, and a nursing circuit for poor neighborhoods.

On December 3, 1944 Prince Andrew died in the Hotel Metropole, Monte Carlo, Monaco, of heart failure and arteriosclerosis just as the war was ending. He was 62.

Part II Tomorrow.

Happy 98th birthday to HRH The Duke of Edinburgh!

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Christian IX of Denmark, Happy Birthday, House of Battenberg, Kingdom of Denmark, Kingdom of Greece, Kingdom of the Hellenes, London Protocol 1852, Prince Philip, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Alice of Battenberg, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, The Duke of Edinburgh

In honor of the 98th birthday of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh I thought I would give some genealogical and biographical information on him.

Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was born in Mon Repos on the Greek island of Corfu on June 10, 1921. He was the only son and fifth and final child of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. Prince Philip had four elder sisters, Margarita (1905-1981), Theodora (1906-1969), Cecilie (1911-1937) and Sophie (1914-2001).

Prince Philip’s Father:

Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (January 20 – 1882 – December 3, 1944) of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of Greece and Olga Constantinovna of Russia. He was a grandson of Christian IX of Denmark and Prince Louise of Hesse-Cassel.

Prince Andrew (left), with his older brothers, the Crown Prince Constantine and Prince Nicholas.

Paternal Grandfather:

George I of the Hellenes was born December 24, 1845 at the Yellow Palace, an 18th-century town house at 18 Amaliegade, right next to the Amalienborg Palace complex in Copenhagen. He was the second son and third child of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel. Until his accession in Greece, he was known as Prince Vilhelm, the namesake of his grandfathers Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Cassel.

King George I of the Hellenes

Paternal Grandmother:

Olga Constantinovna of Russia was born on August 22, 1851 the daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg. Olga’s father was Grand Duke Constantine Nikolayevich of Russia (September 21, 1827 – January 25, 1892) was the second son of Czar Nicholas I of Russia and younger brother of Czar Alexander II. This gives the Duke of Edinburgh strong familial ties to the Imperial Russian royal family.

Grand Duchess Olga, Queen of the Hellenes

Prince Philip’s mother:

Alice of Battenberg was born on February 25, 1885 in the Tapestry Room at Windsor Castle in Berkshire in the presence of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. She was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg (after 1917: Louis Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven) and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Her mother was the eldest daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the Queen’s second daughter.

Princess Alice of Battenberg

Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark

Royal House

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

In 1460, Glücksburg came, as part of the conjoined Danish-German duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, to Count Christian VII of Oldenburg whom, in 1448, the Danes had elected their king as Christian I, the Norwegians likewise taking him as their hereditary king in 1450.

In 1564, Christian I’s great-grandson, King Frederik II, in re-distributing Schleswig and Holstein’s fiefs, allocated Glücksburg to his brother Duke Johann the Younger (1545-1622), along with Sonderburg, in appanage. Johann’s heirs further sub-divided their share and created, among other branches, a line of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg at Beck (an estate near Minden bought by the family in 1605), who remained vassals of Denmark’s kings.

The Danish line of Oldenburg kings died out in 1863 with the death of King Frederik VII of Denmark. Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, the fourth son of Duke Friedrich of Glücksburg, was recognized in the London Protocol of 1852 as successor to the childless King Frederick VII of Denmark. He became King of Denmark as Christian IX as king of Denmark on November 15, 1863.

A few months prior to becoming King of Denmark, Christian IX’s second son, Prince Vilhelm, was elected King of the Hellenes on March 30, 1863, succeeding the ousted Wittelsbach Otto of Greece and reigning under the name George I. As stated above, the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of Greece was Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, the father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Highlights of the life the Duke of Edinburgh:

After being educated in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, he joined the British Royal Navy in 1939, aged 18. In 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth toured the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. During the visit, the Queen and Louis Mountbatten asked Philip to escort the King’s two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, who were Philip’s third cousinsthrough Queen Victoria, and second cousins once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark.

Elizabeth fell in love with Philip and they began to exchange letters when she was thirteen. Eventually, in the summer of 1946, Philip asked the King for his daughter’s hand in marriage. The King granted his request, provided that any formal engagement be delayed until Elizabeth’s twenty-first birthday the following April. By March 1947, Philip had abandoned his Greek and Danish royal titles, had adopted the surname Mountbatten from his mother’s family, and had become a naturalised British subject. However, this was unnecessary as Philip was a descendent of Sofia of Hanover and due to this he already was a British subject.

The day preceding his wedding, King George VI bestowed the style of Royal Highness on Philip and, on the morning of the wedding, November 20, 1947, he was made the Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich of Greenwich in the County of London. Philip and Elizabeth were married in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey, recorded and broadcast by BBC radio to 200 million people around the world. However, in post-war Britain, it was not acceptable for any of the Duke of Edinburgh’s German relations to be invited to the wedding, including Philip’s three surviving sisters, all of whom had married German princes. After their marriage, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh took up residence at Clarence House.

On February 25, 1957, the Queen granted her husband the style and title of a Prince of the United Kingdom by Letters Patent, and it was gazetted that he was to be known as “His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh”.

New name of the Royal House?:

The accession of Elizabeth II to the throne brought up the question of the name of the royal house, as Elizabeth would typically have taken Philip’s last name on marriage. The Duke’s uncle, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, advocated the name House of Mountbatten. Philip suggested House of Edinburgh, after his ducal title. When Queen Mary, Elizabeth’s grandmother, heard of this, she informed the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who himself later advised the Queen to issue a royal proclamation declaring that the royal house was to remain known as the House of Windsor. Prince Philip privately complained, “I am nothing but a bloody amoeba. I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children.”

It’s interesting that the question of the name of the Royal House was raised. The name of the dynasty remains the same during the reign of a Queen Regnant. For example, Queen Mary I 1553-1558, remained a Tudor despite being married to a Habsburg. Queen Anne remained a Stuart despite being married to a Danish prince of the House of Oldenburg. The same with Queen Victoria, the name of the Royal House did not change from Hanover to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha until the accession of her son. King Edward VII, in 1901.

In times past this would not have been an issue and the name of the royal house would automatically change once the Crown passed through the female line to reflect the patrilineal line. I believe that Lord Mountbatten was eager to elevate the status of his family name.

On February 8, 1960, several years after the death of Queen Mary and the resignation of Churchill, the Queen issued an Order in Council declaring that Mountbatten-Windsor would be the surname of her and her husband’s male-line descendants who are not styled as Royal Highness or titled as Prince or Princess. The son of the Duke of Sussex, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, is the first descendant of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh that this order applies to.

Service as Consort to Her Majesty the Queen.

The Duke of Edinburgh has been an excellent support to Her Majesty the queen. However, he has not been without controversy. The prince is no wall flower and often speaks his mind. Sometimes he would make and off-the-cuff remark or joke that would be taken either out of context or was not meant to be offensive but people would at times be offended but what he has said.

The princes has always been a very active man. He played polo until 1971 and then took up the sport of carriage driving. I worked at a historical house and have seen competitive carriage driving myself. I really enjoyed watching that and was happy that the prince took up that sport. Philip was also a skilled yachtsman and pilot.

Philip is patron of some 800 organisations, particularly focused on the environment, industry, sport, and education. His first solo engagement as Duke of Edinburgh was in March 1948, presenting prizes at the boxing finals of the London Federation of Boys’ Clubs at the Royal Albert Hall. He was President of the National Playing Fields Association (now known as Fields in Trust) for 64 years, from 1947 until his grandson Prince William took over the role in 2013.

He served as UK President of the World Wildlife Fund from 1961 to 1982, International President from 1981, and President Emeritus from 1996. In 1952, he became patron of The Industrial Society (since renamed The Work Foundation). He was President of the International Equestrian Federation from 1964 to 1986, and has served as Chancellor of the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Salford, and Wales.

In 2017, the British Heart Foundation thanked Prince Philip for being its patron for 55 years, during which time, in addition to organising fundraisers, he “supported the creation of nine BHF-funded centres of excellence”. He is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge.

Prince Philip retired from his royal duties on 2 August 2017, meeting Royal Marines in his final solo public engagement, aged 96. Since 1952 he had completed 22,219 solo engagements. Prime Minister Theresa May thanked him for “a remarkable lifetime of service”. On November 20, 2017, he celebrated his 70th wedding anniversary with the Queen, which made her the first British monarch to celebrate a platinum wedding anniversary.

The Duke of Edinburgh is the longest-lived descendant of both Queen Victoria and King Christian IX of Denmark, he is the longest serving British royal consort and his marriage to HM The Queen is the longest in British royal history.

HSH Princess Alice of Battenberg (1885-1969)

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Battenberg, Buckingham Palace, Convent of Saint Mary Magdalene, Duke of Edinburgh, Hesse and By Rhine, Holocaust, King Edward VII, King Gustaf VI Adolph of Sweden, Kings and Queens of England, Prince Andrew of Greece., Prince Philip, Princess Alice of Battenberg, Queen Victoria, Righteous among the Nations

She was christened HSH Princess Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie of Battenberg and was the eldest daughter and child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of Hesse and By Rhine. Prince Louis of Battenberg was a morganatic scion of the house of Hesse and was the son of f Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Countess Julia von Hauke. Louis was first cousin to his wife’s father, Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine. Grand Duke Ludwig had married Princess Alice of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Because of his close relationship with the British royal family, Alice’s father, Prince Louis, lived in the UK and had an illustrious career in the British Navy rising to the post of First Sea Lord in 1912.

Princess Alice was born on February 25, 1885 in the Tapestry Room at Windsor Castle in the presence of her great-grandmother Queen Victoria. While very young her mother noticed that Alice was slow in learning to talk. Soon it was diagnosed that she suffered from a congenital form of deafness. Despite this problem Alice was able to lip read and speak English, German, French and later Greek. Because of her father’s military career Alice lived in London, Darmstadt, Jugenheim, and Malta. She was later joined by three siblings, George, Louise (who became Queen Consort of Sweden) and Louis, who became Earl Mountbatten of Burma and the last Viceroy of India.

At the coronation for her great-uncle, King Edward VII, in 1902 she met and fell in love with Queen Alexandra’s nephew, Prince Andrea (Andrew) of Greece and Denmark. The two were married the next year, October 6, 1903 with a civil ceremony in Darmstadt, followed by a Lutheran and then Greek Orthodox services. Alice and Andrea had four children between 1905 and 1914. They were all girls, Margarita, Theodora, Cecile, Sophie who all married into various German royal houses. After a gap of six years Alice and Andrea had their last child a son, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, who made the most prized marriage of them all when he married the future Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on November 20, 1947.

During the early part of her marriage Alice visited her aunt, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, in Russia and became interested in the religious order she had founded along with the charity work she was engaged in. These were to become a significant focus for her entire life. Also at this juncture Greek politics, which seems to often be unstable, were experiencing political tumult once again and Prince Andrea had to renounce his military position because the political squabbles. However, he was reinstated once the Balkan Crisis of 1912 required his presence. During the Balkan Wars Alice’s nursing work lead to her being given the Royal Red Cross Award in 1913. When World War I broke out in 1914 her brother-in-law King Constantine I of Greece kept the country neutral despite the prime Minister’s support of the allies.

World War I caused great pains and tragedy for Alice and her relatives. All her German relations lost their thrones and postilions at the end of the war. He maternal aunts, Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia and the Empress Alexandra of Russia and her family, were brutally murdered in 1917. Her father and two brothers, living in the UK were forced to give up their German princely titles in a wave of anti- German sentiment. In replace of their titles they Anglicized their territorial designation of Battenberg into the surname of Mountbatten and her father was created Marquess of Mildford Haven. King Constantine I was exiled during the war and briefly reinstated. Shortly after the birth of her son, Prince Philip, in 1921 the Greek Royal Family was once again exiled. The situation became so precarious that Prince Andrea was arrested and with his life endangered King George V sent a British cruiser, the HMS Calypso, to rescue the royal family. The king feared a repeat of what happened to the Russian Royal Family.

By the 1930s Princess Alice became very religious and reported having visions. She was shortly diagnosed with schizophrenia and was institutionalized for brief period and then took two years to recover her stability. During the time she cut off ties to her family and she became estranged from her husband. In 1936 her daughter Cecile and her husband (her cousin Georg Donatus of Hesse and By Rhine) and two of their sons were killed in a plane crash. At the funeral she saw her husband for the first time in six years. When World War II broke out Princess Alice found herself with divided loyalties. Her son prince Philip was a member of the British Navy while her sons-in-law were fighting for Germany. She remained in Greece during the war continuing her charity work such as setting up soup kitchens for the poor. She would visit her sister Louise, who was married to King Gustaf VI Adolph of Sweden, and smuggle in medical supplies. She also helped hide escaped Jews during this period when Athens was occupied by Italy.

Sadly as she was moving toward a reconciliation with her husband Prince Andrea died of a heart attack in 1944 at the age of 62. In 1947 Alice returned to Great Britain for the marriage of her son to Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King George VI. Alice returned to Greece, which had restored the monarchy after the war, and established an order of nuns. She remained in Greece until politics once again the monarchy was the victim of a military coup in 1967 forcing her to leave. Her son and the Queen Elizabeth II offered her an apartment in Buckingham Palace and lived there until her death on December 5, 1969 at the age of 84. She was initially interred in St George’s Chapel but was transferred to Convent of Saint Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. In 1994 Alice was named by Israel “Righteous among the Nations” for aiding Jews during the war. In 2010 she was named a Hero of the Holocaust by the British Government. A deeply religious woman dedicated to service she left no material possessions. For a large part of her life she wore a nun’s habit even though she was never ordained as a nun. She also was a chain smoker for the majority of her adult life.

HRH Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark