Princess Alice of Battenberg was even more interesting than 'The Crown' gives her credit for. Below, the real-life details surrounding the last years of Princess Alice of Battenberg, who died at Buckingham Palace at the age of 84 on December 5, 1969. Princess Alice wanted to be left alone, but WWII made her simple life impossible. She devoted her life to good deeds and spiritual growth, and was notable among European royalty for taking Jews into her home during the Holocaust. The secret tragedy Princess Alice kept from Prince Henry Cecilie was the third child and daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. Meanwhile, the days kept ticking by, and Alice remained trapped against her will. That boy would grow up to be Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and consort to Queen Elizabeth II. Because of that, royals from all over traveled to London to see their brother/cousin/uncle King Edward VIIs coronation. After years in a small, humble flat, Alice moved to the former royal palace in the middle of the city. It was a tough pill to swallow, but it was also the first step in the right direction. Things had started going wrong before WWI. She was committed to a psychiatric clinic when Philip was just eight. .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. 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. Princess Alice was the last grandchild of Queen Victoria to die, in January 1981, almost 115 years after the death of Prince Sigismund of Prussia, the first grandchild of Queen Victoria to die. Sigmund Freud recommended that Princess Alices regular doctors at the sanatorium should X-ray her ovaries. Despite her distance from her husband (she had barely seen him in a decade), she still wanted to be with her people. 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 had few possessions remaining, as she had given most of them away to those in need. Of course, thats when tragedy struck again. However, while she made it out of Greece, she didnt have much time left. Royal Musings: Funeral for Philip's mother - Blogger 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 liberation of Athens didnt free the city from conflict. All Rights Reserved. Defiant Facts About Princess Keelikolani, Hawaiis Fierce Defender, These People Shared The Worst Moments Of Their LivesAnd Theyre Utterly Brutal, Absolute Legends: The Wildest Pranks Ever Pulled, These Ultra-Spoiled Brats Made Our Eyes Roll Into Our Heads, Lawyers Reveal Their Most Jaw-Dropping Court Cases, These Cruel Teachers Are The Stuff Of Student Nightmares. Church of Maria Magdalene (1988-) St George's Chapel, Windsor (1969-1988) Country of citizenship. She founded the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary. How Princess Alice of Battenberg, Prince Philip's Mother, Became the [18] Prince Andrew, who had served as commander of the Second Army Corps during the war, was arrested. 5 December 1969. She was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Then WWII broke out, and five more years passed with the couple not seeing one another. Her three younger siblings, Louise, George, and Louis, later became Queen of Sweden, Marquess of Milford Haven, and Earl Mountbatten of Burma, respectively. She died two years later at the age of 84 on December 5, 1969. She arrived in the palace an an honored guest, and lived there until her death in 1969. He had a treatment in mind, too. She gave away most of her possessions and started preparing for an ascetic, spiritual existence. Here are some tips and tricks to help you find the answer to 'Wordle' #622. Life can change fast. Alices family sent her to the finest psychiatrists in Europe, and they all offered the same diagnosis: Princess Alice was a paranoid schizophrenic. However, despite our best efforts, we sometimes miss the mark. LONDON Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II's husband and the longest-serving consort of any British monarch, has died at age 99. She usually went by Ccile. The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William today made a profoundly moving visited the tomb of his great-grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, on the final da. Nonetheless, when visited by a German general who asked her, "Is there anything I can do for you? Through her divine messages, Princess Alice became convinced that she had been given healing powers by God. 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. The Princess married the handsome Georg Donatus, the Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse. Spoiler alert: It didnt work. Princess Alice and her. She suffered a nervous breakdown in 1928 and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at two separate mental sanitariums. After all, two of her daughters were married to Germans. After the Colonels' Coup in 1967, she . [10] She adopted the style of her husband, becoming "Princess Andrew". Catherine of Aragon was King Henry VIIIs first wife and longest-lasting Queen of England. Please reach out to us to let us know what youre interested in reading. Catherine of Aragon is now infamous as King Henry VIIIs rejected queenbut few people know her even darker history. Alice returned to Athens to work with the poor, despite the fact that Andrew was still banned from the country. Princess Alice had one other son who was not a hemophiliac. The only problem was, it was completely deranged. It is an interesting recreation of Queen Victoria's family, grouped around a bust of the dead Prince Consort. Alice, now 18 years old, devoted her entire time to nursing her father in order to allow the Queen to attend to the business of the monarchy. Prince Philip: A turbulent childhood stalked by exile, mental - BBC Around this point in her life, Princess Alice started to claim that she was receiving divine messages from spiritual forces. 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? Princess Andrew protested that she was sane and repeatedly tried to leave the asylum. [37] During this period, Princess Andrew hid Jewish widow Rachel Cohen and two of her five children, who sought to evade the Gestapo and deportation to the death camps. Our editors handpick the products that we feature. Let's stop playing and make it happen. Princess Alice worked tirelessly to help the people of Athens. Mashable is a registered trademark of Ziff Davis and may not be used by third parties without express written permission. Queen Victoria was her great-grandmother and Queen Elizabeth II is her daughter-in-law. Princess Alice of Battenberg: the incredible true story of Prince Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone - Simple English Wikipedia, the A Hessian princess by birth, she was a member of the Battenberg family, a morganatic branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt. At Factinate, were dedicated to getting things right. During the fighting, to the dismay of the British, she insisted on walking the streets distributing rations to policemen and children in contravention of the curfew order. 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. That is just the kind of woman that Princess Alice was. 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. 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. She spent the duration of the conflict living in Athens while the rest of the Greek royal family fled the country for South Africa. 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. Any military officials with ties to the monarchy were arrestedand who had closer ties than the kings brother? When German forces entered Athens, they assumed that Alice had stayed behind because she supported the Axis cause. "[35], After the fall of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in September 1943, the German Army occupied Athens, where a minority of Greek Jews had sought refuge. She left no possessions whatsoever behind, as she had given everything she had ever owned to the needy. Princess Alice married Prince Andrew of Greece in 1903. 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. )[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. By signing up to the Mashable newsletter you agree to receive electronic communications They eventually got their answer. Maybe she would have carried on like that for the rest of her life. Though she saw her husband at the funeral, the reunion was brief. You would think that, being a royal and all, Princess Alice would have left a handsome will behind. They knew that Prince Andrews family was in grave danger, so they sent a British cruiser, the HMS Calypso, to take them out of Greece. Born in Windsor, England, on February 25, 1885, Alice of Battenberg, princess of Greece, was one of Queen Victoria 's many grandchildren. 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. By June of 1917, the Greeks had finally had enough of their king and all his relativesand that included Alice herself. Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II's husband, has died aged 99, Buckingham Palace has announced. The liberation came just in time, because only a little while longer and Alice might not have made it. That was the day she met the man who would change her life forever. Princess Alices final wish was to be interred in Jerusalem, at the Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives. With encouragement from her mother, Alice learned to both lip-read and speak in English and German. The Deaf Princess - Alice of Battenberg