After the coronation, she returned to Greece. She grew to become one of Europe's loveliest princesses, adept at lip reading and speaking German and English. He didnt just stop at diagnosing the cause of her illness, though. Princess Alice of Battenberg (born Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie) was the mother of Prince Philip and mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II. Shortly after Philip and Elizabeth's wedding, she started a convent in Greece and increasingly fell on hard times. Copyright 2023 by Factinate.com. [11] 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. Her great-uncle, Prince Albert, was crowned King Edward VII soon after. [19], The family settled in a small house loaned to them by Princess George of Greece and Denmark at Saint-Cloud, on the outskirts of Paris, where Princess Andrew helped in a charity shop for Greek refugees. Naturally, Alice attended the coronation, likely a long and boring day for herbut at least she had something to keep her distracted. She is said to have used her deafness as an excuse to. He had barely seen Alice a handful of times since he sent her off to the sanatorium in 1930. But Alices time with her boy Philip would be painfully short. Alice lived a simple, obscure life in Central Europe for the years following her stay in the asylumbut soon, her entire life would be thrown upside down once again. 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. [49] She died at Buckingham Palace on 5 December 1969. She converted to the Greek Orthodox Church and began plans for a religious order of nursesthe same plan her martyred cousin Elizabeth Feodorovna had outlined all those years ago to her. [38], When Athens was liberated in October 1944, Harold Macmillan visited Princess Andrew and described her as "living in humble, not to say somewhat squalid conditions". The first Battenbergs were a family of German counts that died out about 1314 and whose seat was the castle of Kellerburg, near Battenberg, in Hesse. After a failed restoration, another banishment, and the near-execution of her husband at the hands of Greek revolutionaries, Princess Alice converted to the Greek Orthodox church and began to experience religious hallucinations. The British Royal Family orbits around Princess Alice of Battenberg. She was christened Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie in Darmstadt on 25 April 1885. Philip was the fifth child of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. As they sat there, the building shaking around them, Alice must have simply prayed for her nightmare to be over. One man tried to warn her that a stray bullet could strike her at any minute. Princess Alice of Battenberg. [28], Princess Andrew remained at Kreuzlingen for two years, but after a brief stay at a clinic in Merano in northern Italy, was released and began an itinerant, incognito existence in Central Europe. Princess Alice married Prince Andrew of Greece in 1903. Her sisters, most notably Queen Elena of Italy, were married into the Italian, Serbian . [27] Binswanger also diagnosed the princess with schizophrenia. The Greek Liberation movement gained traction, and that was not good news for a royal like Alice. [33][34] She moved out of her small flat and into her brother-in-law George's three-storey house in the centre of Athens. Around this point in her life, Princess Alice started to claim that she was receiving divine messages from spiritual forces. You would think that, being a royal and all, Princess Alice would have left a handsome will behind. [3] King Constantine II of Greece and Queen Anne-Marie went into exile that December after a failed royalist counter-coup. 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. A great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Philip's mother was born as Princess Alice of Battenberg at Windsor Castle in 1985, and was born congenitally deaf. . She was born in Tatoi, Greece as the third child and daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. People believe that gender equality is improving, but the rest of the data tells a different story. The Crowns ability to take something as complex as the postWWI fall of European monarchies and distill it into a deeply human story is admirable. Please submit feedback to contribute@factinate.com. It all happened in the aftermath of World War I. There's something about the family structure that encourages secrets. [39] In a letter to her son, she admitted that in the last week before liberation she had had no food except bread and butter, and no meat for several months. For other uses, see, The Russian Chapel was the personal possession of, Princess Alice of Battenberg never used the Mountbatten surname nor did she assume the. In the fourth episode, Princess Alice unknowingly boosts the family's public perception by opening up about her tumultuous life for a Guardian profile (which didn't happen in real life)earning sympathy from private citizens who were beginning to lose faith in the necessity of the royals. After her death, it took nearly 20 years for Alice's wishes to be honored . Alice, who was the daughter of Prince Louis of Battenberg (whose family name was anglicised to Mountbatten during World War One), had been born profoundly deaf. Any military officials with ties to the monarchy were arrestedand who had closer ties than the kings brother? She was congenitally deaf. Soon, her plight became truly heartbreaking. [3] Her mother noticed that she was slow in learning to talk, and became concerned by her indistinct pronunciation. During World War II, Princess Alice lived in the Athens palace of her brother in law, Prince George of Greece, and worked with the Swedish and Swiss Red Cross. She lived in Greece until the exile of most of the Greek royal family in 1917. Despite the health struggles she faced, the. In October 1937, Cecilie's father-in-law Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse died. [24], 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 Prince Philip went to the United Kingdom 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. After her recovery, she devoted most of her remaining years to charity work in Greece. Princess Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie of Battenberg. [21][22] Soon afterward, she began claiming that she was receiving divine messages and that she had healing powers. After a show trial, he was sentenced to banishment, and Prince and Princess Andrew and their children fled Greece aboard a British cruiser, HMS Calypso, under the protection of the British naval attach, Commander Gerald Talbot. Thanks for your time! When her daughter, Princess George 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!". Alice, Princess of Greece, circa 1910. "[41], 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. Before they could figure out how to have a reunionor if Princess Alice even wanted a reunion between the two of themPrince Andrew succumbed to heart failure in Monaco. She was a hero, she had royal blood, but the military dictatorship was a threat. 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 Mathildenhhe. Few have heard of the Queen's mother-in-law, Princess Alice. Princess Alice stood out for another reason: she was deaf from birth. Mini Bio (1) Princess Alice of Battenberg was born on February 25, 1885 in Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England, UK. They eventually got their answer. Several former ministers and generals arrested at the same time were shot following a brief trial, and British diplomats assumed that Prince Andrew was also in mortal danger. 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. She was born HSH Princess Victoria Alice Elisabeth Julia Maria on February 25, 1885, in the Tapestry Room at Windsor Castle in Windsor, England. She left no possessions whatsoever behind, as she had given everything she had ever owned to the needy. Alice had five daughters, here are the possibilities: Alice chose to stay in Athens to help the poor rather than go be with her husband, but doing so was no walk in the park. Please reach out to us to let us know what youre interested in reading. Princess Alice wanted to be left alone, but WWII made her simple life impossible. Cecilie was the third child and daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. Death. After years in a small, humble flat, Alice moved to the former royal palace in the middle of the city. In 1930, Princess Andrew was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed to a sanatorium in Switzerland; thereafter, she lived separately from her husband. The liberation of Athens didnt free the city from conflict. Alice was devastated and she saw her husband for the first time in many years, at the funeral. [3] That winter, she translated into English her husband's defence of his actions during the Greco-Turkish War. Princess Alice of Battenberg (Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie; 25 February 1885 - 5 December 1969) was the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II . Calling all Disney adults and 'Titanic' fanatics. [31], 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. I tried to get my ex-wife served with divorce papers. Princess Alice of Battenberg, the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse, was born in Windsor Castle in 1885 . Princess Alice of Battenberg was exiled from Greece again in 1967 in the aftermath of the Greek junta and lived at Buckingham Palace with her son and daughter-in-law until her death in 1969.. But after the defeat of the Hellenic Army in the Greco-Turkish War, a Revolutionary Committee under the leadership of Colonels Nikolaos Plastiras and Stylianos Gonatas seized power and forced King Constantine into exile once again. 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. Just a few short years later, she sat at a British royal wedding, across from the King of England himself. That is just the kind of woman that Princess Alice was. Though Alice preferred to remain in Greece, the 1967 Colonels Coup made it too dangerous to do so. There was nothing she could do but listen to the doctors and hope they might one day let her walk free again. The Crown is also incorrect in assuming Prince Philip didnt want his mother to live with his family in the palace, when the reality is quite the opposite. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. Maybe she would have carried on like that for the rest of her life. Her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, was present for her birth. Madame de Pompadour didn't just share King Louis XV's bed, she also shared his power. Discovery to sue Paramount over 'South Park' streaming rights, Wordle today: Here's the answer, hints for March 4, Daters have a 'reality gap' about gender equality, Bumble says, Wordle today: Here's the answer, hints for March 3, The best Xbox controller out there is on sale get one while it lasts, Best hookup apps and dating sites to find casual sex with no strings attached. As Princess Alice's biographer, Hugo Vickers, has written, many of her family were dismayed when she announced that she wanted to spend eternity in Jerusalem. With no other options, he ventured to the palace where he appealed to Princess Alice. She was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Her tribulations were explored during Channel 5's documentary, 'Princess Alice: The Royals' Greatest Secret'.. Alice grew up at a tumultuous time for European monarchs her maternal aunt Alix was the wife of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, who was famously assassinated with his entire family in 1917 (remember Anastasia? But Alice didnt simply cower behind palace walls. It was a disaster for the monarchyand Alice was in even more danger than most. This content is imported from poll. )[30] She resumed contact with her family, and in 1938 returned to Athens alone to work with the poor, while living in a two-bedroom flat near the Benaki Museum. The son of Princess Andrew's godmother and aunt, Margarita, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Cecilie, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Hesse, Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, restoration of the Greek monarchy in 1935, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, Edwina Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, Gottfried, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom, Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, "Real Orden de la Reina Maria Luisa: Damas extranjeras", Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, Portraits of Princess Alice of Battenberg, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Princess_Alice_of_Battenberg&oldid=1138218710, From 1949 until her death, she was sometimes known as Mother Superior Alice-Elizabeth, This page was last edited on 8 February 2023, at 16:11. Windsor, Windsor and Maidenhead Royal Borough, Berkshire, England. Meanwhile, the days kept ticking by, and Alice remained trapped against her will. So, what was she going to do? Princess Alice of Battenberg (Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie; 25 February 1885 5 December 1969) was the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II, and the paternal grandmother of King Charles III. That boy would grow up to be Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and consort to Queen Elizabeth II. Prince Harry Got Emotional During His Speech, How The Crown's Actors Compare to the Royals, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. Spoiler alert: It didnt work. She was Alices first cousin), and Alices eventual marriage to Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark brought her directly into conflict with the decline of royalty following World War I. Truth is often stranger than fiction though, and Season 3 of The Crown didnt have to stray too far from history to introduce Prince Philips mother Princess Alice of Battenberg (also known as Mother-Superior Alice-Elizabeth or Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark) to its story. The move was due to her old age and declining health (she'd been deaf since childhood) in addition to a military dictatorship that overtook Greece that same year. The coup meant that there was a target on Prince Andrews back. 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. Charitable to a fault, she had long since given everything away. I doubt he expected her defiant response. She was the wife of Prince Andrew of Greece, and mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Princess Alice of Battenberg was born in Windsor Castle in 1885; her mother was Queen Victoria Is granddaughter and her father was a Prince of Rhine and Hesse. Princess Alice was born in Windsor Castles Tapestry Rooma far cry from the sanatorium shed eventually find herself in. Princess Andrew attended the laying of the foundation stone for her aunt's new church. Apparently, sending her to an insane asylum just wasnt the kind of thing Princess Alice would get over. (Prince Philip and Lord Louis Mountbatten also attended. However, her work only got harder as WWII raged on. Thanks for your help! Princess Alice of Battenberg is one of the most compelling new characters in the latest season of "The Crown" - the hit Netflix show that has given the world an insider's view of the private and public lives of the British royal family over the past century. On a trip to Russia, she met her cousin Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. 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. Then a tragedy forced her to change her plans. Prince Philip's mother set up a convent to nurse the ill in Athens, Greece, and was brought to live with the royal family in Buckingham Palace during the final years of her life Andrew sat in captivity as several other officers whod been arrested along with him were triedand then executed. When Alice was released she returned to Athens and resisted the Nazi occupation of Greece by harboring a Jewish family and smuggling them out of the country, an act for which she was posthumously awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel. Princess Alice of Battenberg was famed for saving a Jewish family from the Holocaust during the Second World War by sheltering them in her Athens home. Battenberg family, English Mountbatten, a family that rose to international prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries, the name being a revival of a medieval title. Princess Alices final wish was to be interred in Jerusalem, at the Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives. After Mussolinis fall in 1943, the Axis forces occupied Athens. But along with Helena Bonham Carter's tortured Princess Margaret, the firecracker that is Princess Anne (Erin Doherty), and the tortured future king that is Prince Charles (Josh O'Connor), one of season 3's most intriguing characters is only shown briefly. Her doctors subjected her to electroconvulsive therapy and x-rayed her reproductive organs under the assumption that her mental instability was connected to her libido (that treatment was Sigmund Freuds idea, which tracks). From 1949 until her death, she was sometimes known as Mother Superior Alice-Elizabeth; Honours; Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Olga and . [40] By early December, the situation in Athens was far from improved; Communist guerrillas (ELAS) were fighting the British for control of the capital. Her mother was baffled by her actions, "What can you say of a nun who smokes and plays canasta? Born Her Serene Highness Princess Alice of Battenberg, and eldest sister of Lord Mountbatten. Her family didnt agree. Increasingly deaf and in failing health, Princess Andrew left Greece for the last time following the 21 April 1967 Colonels' Coup. It took Cecilies funeral to get Alice to finally see her family again. That winter, her father fell seriously ill with typhoid fever. On returning to Greece a few years later, her husband was blamed in part for the country's defeat in the Greco-Turkish War (19191922), and the family was once again forced into exile until the restoration of the Greek monarchy in 1935. 5 Dec 1969 (aged 84) City of Westminster, Greater London, England. With encouragement from her mother, Alice learned to both lip-read and speak in English and German. .css-ssumvd{display:block;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.0625rem;font-weight:bold;line-height:1.25;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-ssumvd:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-ssumvd{letter-spacing:0rem;margin-top:0.9375rem;}}Gayle King Interviews Angela Bassett, Gayle Says March Is a Good Month for TV Lovers, Sheryl Lee Ralphs Definition of True Love, What We Know About The Little Mermaid Remake, Oprah Congratulates Kimmel on 20 Years of His Show, Nikole Hannah-Jones on "The 1619 Project", Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Wakanda Forever Podcast, Oprah Is Acting in Tyler Perrys Next Netflix Film. He and then-Princess Elizabeth were married in November 1947, and they were married for more . She remained in Athens, with the Cohens, until 1944, when the Allies liberated the city. Finally, after the liberation of Athens, it seemed like the time might finally be right for them to get back together. Buckingham Palace ( London) Place of burial. Greece was a vipers den, but Alice still had people in her corner back in England. His conclusions were absolutely bizarre. [6] Her early years were spent in the company of her royal relatives, and she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of the Duke of York (later King George V) and Mary of Teck in 1893. During a coup in Greece in 1922, the family was banished and had to flee Greece and exile in Paris (via Reuters ). [36], The occupying forces apparently presumed Princess Andrew was pro-German, as one of her sons-in-law, Prince Christoph of Hesse, was a member of the NSDAP and the Waffen-SS, and another, Berthold, Margrave of Baden, had been invalided out of the German army in 1940 after an injury in France. So, when the general asked what he could do for her, she looked him in the eye and barked, You can take your troops out of my country. A statement issued by the palace just after midday spoke of the Queen's "deep sorrow" following his. Alices parents were desperate for an answerbut they wouldnt like the one theyd get. Traveling to England must have been a strange experience for Alice. He recommended "X-raying her ovaries in order to kill off her libido." [1] She was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. The majority (about 60,000 out of a total population of 75,000) were deported to Nazi concentration camps, where all but 2,000 died. Though WWI had put Alices religious ambitions on hold, now that she had free time on her hands, she dove right back into her work. Alice later revealed to her son just how desperate the final days of Germanys occupation had been. We want our readers to trust us. [42] On the day of the wedding, her son was created Duke of Edinburgh by George VI. [25] Princess Andrew was forcibly removed from her family and placed in Ludwig Binswanger's sanatorium in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland. There was only so much Alice could do to protect her peoplebut she did what she could. . Within a year, they were ready to jump in the deep end. Princess Alice was royalty, and she was staying in a fairy swanky sanatorium, which meant the greatest minds of the day studied her and tried to understand her condition further. Alice and Andrew didnt wait long. You would hope that getting the answer might be the beginning of Alices journey to recoverybut mental health was more of an art than a science back in those days. She organized soup kitchens, and even smuggled medical supplies into the country from Sweden under the guise of a visit to her sister, Louise. The British Royal Family was in turmoil during Alices childhood. A group of dissatisfied officers formed a Greek nationalist Military League that eventually led to Prince Andrew's resignation from the army and the rise to power of Eleftherios Venizelos. All Rights Reserved. Prince Philip's mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was born profoundly deaf at Windsor Castle in the presence of her great grandmother Queen Victoria. Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. Of his mother, Philip said: I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. Melissa Gervais is a freelance writer with both a print journalism diploma and a BA in Communication Studies. Unfortunately, her family never quite got over the idea that something was wrong with her. Princess Alice of Battenberg was even more interesting than 'The Crown' gives her credit for. Making distraction rewarding since 2017. Honestly, that would have been preferable to what really awaited Princess Alice. She was ready towork. [44] Her daughter-in-law became queen 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. By June of 1917, the Greeks had finally had enough of their king and all his relativesand that included Alice herself. 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. From petty paybacks to insane acts of karma, these bitter people somehow found the most ingenious ways. This, coupled with an unreliable father who was often absent in the. Catherine of Aragon was King Henry VIIIs first wife and longest-lasting Queen of England. Why? She was born on February 25, 1885, at Windsor Castle. By the turn of the 20th century, every royal family in Europe was one big, tangled mess. After several years, she left the . You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Church of Maria Magdalene (1988-) St George's Chapel, Windsor (1969-1988) Country of citizenship. Princess Alice was low on the totem pole, but her connection to Victoria ensured she'd end up embroiled in Europe's messy game of thrones before long. Such a hectic childhood would be hard on anyone, and Princess Alice of Battenberg wasnt just anyone. The title was revived in 1851, when Alexander (1823-88), a younger son of Louis . An . Princess Alice of Battenberg (* 25.2.1885, O 6.10.1903, 5.12.1969) Princess Louise of Battenberg, Queen consort of Sweden Prince George of Battenberg, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven Prince Louis of Battenberg, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma: Prince Louis of Battenberg (* 24.5.1854, O 30.4.1884, 11.9.1921) Prince Heinrich of Battenberg Alice was born in the Tapestry Room at Windsor Castle in Berkshire in the presence of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. The funeral of Her Royal Highness Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester will take place on 5 November at 11am in St George's Chapel, Windsor. Alice didnt personally owe this man anything, but he needed her help, and she wasnt going to turn him away. Princess Alice may have been an outlier amongst the British royal family, but just about every person depicted on the show lived an even more astounding life in the reality of history. Sigmund Freud recommended that Princess Alices regular doctors at the sanatorium should X-ray her ovaries. She openly walked the streets of the city, distributing rations to children.