Princess Alice of Battenberg
Alice of Battenberg | |||||
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Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark | |||||
Born | Windsor Castle, Berkshire, United Kingdom | 25 February 1885||||
Died | 5 December 1969 Buckingham Palace, London, United Kingdom | (aged 84)||||
Burial | 10 December 1969 | ||||
Spouse | |||||
Issue | |||||
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Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven | |||||
Mother | Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine | ||||
Religion |
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Signature |
Princess Alice of Battenberg (Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie; 25 February 1885 – 5 December 1969) was the mother of
A great-granddaughter of
In 1930, Princess Andrew was diagnosed with
After the fall of
Early life
Alice was born in the Tapestry Room at
Alice was christened Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie in
Alice spent her childhood between Darmstadt, London,
Marriage
Princess Alice met Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (known as Andrea within the family), the fourth son of King
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
Successive life crises
With the advent of the
The global war effectively ended much of the political power of Europe's dynasties. The naval career of Princess Andrew's father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, had collapsed at the beginning of the war in the face of
On Constantine's restoration in 1920, Prince and Princess Andrew briefly returned to Greece, taking up residence on
Illness
The family settled in a small house loaned to them by
In 1930, her behaviour became increasingly erratic, and she asserted that she was in communication with the Buddha and Christ. She was diagnosed with
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.[29]
Princess Andrew remained at Kreuzlingen for two years, but after a brief stay at a clinic in
World War II
During
The occupying forces apparently presumed Princess Andrew was pro-German, as one of her sons-in-law,
After the
When Athens was liberated in October 1944,
Widowhood
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.[43] 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. Princess Andrew's daughters were not invited to the wedding because of anti-German sentiment in Britain following World War II.[44]
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 martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, had founded in Russia in 1909. She trained on the Greek island of
In 1960, she visited India at the invitation of
Increasingly deaf and in failing health, Princess Andrew left Greece for the last time following the
Death and burial
Despite suggestions of senility in later life, Princess Andrew remained lucid but physically frail.
Righteous Among the Nations |
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By country |
On 31 October 1994, Princess Andrew's two surviving children, the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess George 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.[54][55] 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."[56] In 2010, the princess was posthumously named a Hero of the Holocaust by the British Government.[57]
Titles, styles, and honours
Titles and styles
- 25 February 1885 – 6 October 1903: Her Serene Highness Princess Alice of Battenberg[58]
- 6 October 1903 – 5 December 1969: Her Royal Highness Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark[58]
- From 1949 until her death, she was sometimes known as Mother Superior Alice-Elizabeth[46]
Honours
- Order of the Golden Lion, 7 October 1903[59]
- Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Olga and Sophia[60]
- Royal Red Cross, 1913
- Dame of the Order of Queen Maria Luisa, 9 April 1928[61]
Posthumous:
Issue
Name | Birth | Death | Marriage | Their children | |
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Date | Spouse | ||||
Princess Margarita | 18 April 1905 | 24 April 1981 (aged 76) | 20 April 1931 Widowed 11 May 1960 |
Gottfried, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg |
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Princess Theodora | 30 May 1906 | 16 October 1969 (aged 63) | 17 August 1931 Widowed 27 October 1963 |
Berthold, Margrave of Baden |
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Princess Cecilie | 22 June 1911 | 16 November 1937 (aged 26) | 2 February 1931 | Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse |
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Princess Sophie | 26 June 1914 | 24 November 2001 (aged 87) | 15 December 1930 Widowed 7 October 1943 |
Prince Christoph of Hesse |
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23 April 1946 | Prince George William of Hanover
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Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh | 10 June 1921 | 9 April 2021 (aged 99) | 20 November 1947 | Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom
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Ancestry
Ancestors of Princess Alice of Battenberg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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References
- ^ Vickers, p. 2
- ^ Vickers, p. 19
- ^ required.) (subscription required)
- ^ Vickers, pp. 24–26
- ^ Vickers, p. 57
- ^ Vickers, pp. 57, 71
- ^ Vickers, pp. 29–48
- ^ Vickers, p. 51
- ^ Vickers, p. 52
- ISBN 3-926165-73-1
- ^ Eilers, p. 181
- ^ Vickers, pp. 73, 75, 91, 110, 153.
- ^ Vickers, pp. 82–83
- ^ Clogg, pp. 97–99
- ^ Vickers, p. 121
- ^ Van der Kiste, pp. 96 ff.
- ^ Princess Alice of Battenberg never used the Mountbatten surname nor did she assume the courtesy title as a daughter of a British marquess, since she had married into the Royal House of Greece in 1903.
- ^ Vickers, pp. 137–138
- ^ Vickers, p. 162
- ^ Vickers, p. 171
- ^ Vickers, pp. 176–178
- Greece, H.R.H. Prince Andrew of(1930), Towards Disaster: The Greek Army in Asia Minor in 1921, Translated and Preface by H.R.H. Princess Andrew of Greece, London: John Murray
- ^ Vickers, pp. 198–199
- ^ Vickers, p. 200
- ^ a b Cohen, D. (2013), "Freud and the British Royal Family", The Psychologist, Vol. 26, No. 6, pp. 462–463
- ^ Vickers, p. 205
- ^ Vickers, p. 209
- ^ Vickers, p. 213
- ^ Ziegler, p. 101
- ^ Vickers, pp. 245–256
- ^ Vickers, p. 273
- ^ Vickers, pp. 281, 291
- ^ The son of Princess Andrew's godmother and aunt, Princess Marie of Battenberg, who had married into the Erbach-Schönberg family.
- ^ Vickers, p. 292
- ^ a b "Princess Andrew, Mother of the Duke of Edinburgh", The Times, London, p. 8 col. E, 6 December 1969
- ^ a b Vickers, pp. 293–295
- ^ Vickers, p. 297
- ISBN 1-85065-706-8
- ^ a b Vickers, pp. 298–299
- ^ Macmillan, pp. 558–559
- ^ Vickers, p. 306
- ^ Vickers, p. 311
- ^ Vickers, p. 326
- ^ Bradford, p. 424
- ^ Vickers, p. 336
- ^ New York Times, p. 37 col. 2, 6 December 1969
- ^ Vickers, pp. 364–366
- ^ Clogg, pp. 188–189
- ^ Woodhouse, p. 293
- ^ Vickers, p. 392
- ^ Royal Burials in the Chapel since 1805, College of St George, Windsor Castle, retrieved 24 August 2020
- ^ Vickers, p. 396
- ^ Convent of Saint Mary Magdalene – The Garden of Gethsemane, Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, archived from the original on 25 July 2017, retrieved 8 May 2009
- ^ Vickers, p. 398.
- ^ Walker, Christopher (1 November 1994), "Duke pays homage to Holocaust millions", The Times, London, p. 12
- ^ Brozan, Nadine (1 November 1994), "Chronicle", New York Times
- ^ Britons honoured for holocaust heroism, The Telegraph, 9 March 2010, archived from the original on 18 September 2016, retrieved 4 July 2016
- ^ a b Ruvigny, p. 71
- ^ "Goldener Löwen-orden", Großherzoglich Hessische Ordensliste (in German), Darmstadt: Staatsverlag, 1914, p. 3
- ISBN 0-85011-023-8
- ^ "Real Orden de la Reina Maria Luisa: Damas extranjeras", Guía Oficial de España (in Spanish), Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1930, p. 238
- ^ a b Battenberg family at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ ISBN 0-7126-7448-9
- ^ a b Metnitz, Gustav Adolf (1953), "Alexander", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 1, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, p. 192; (full text online)
- ^ OCLC 76873355
- ^ a b Franz, Eckhart G. (1987), "Ludwig IV.", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 15, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 398–400; (full text online)
Bibliography
- Bradford, Sarah (1989), King George VI, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-79667-4
- ISBN 0-521-22479-9
- Eilers, Marlene A. (1987), Queen Victoria's Descendants, Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co.
- ISBN 0-333-39404-6
- Ruvigny, Marquis of (1914), The Titled Nobility of Europe, London: Harrison and Sons
- ISBN 0-7509-0525-5
- ISBN 0-241-13686-5 (The official biography by Vickers is the only English-language book-length biography of Princess Alice. Library of Congress catalog and British Library catalog; accessed on 8 May 2009.)
- Woodhouse, C. M. (1968), The Story of Modern Greece, London: Faber and Faber
- ISBN 0-00-216543-0
External links
- Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority
- Portraits of Princess Alice of Battenberg at the National Portrait Gallery, London