Royal Insight Forum

I heard Princess Alice of Greece loved her granson very much.Was she little bit strange? They say she was an orthodox nun with very particular ideas...

In January 1949, the Princess Alice founded an order of Greek Orthodox nuns, the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, on the Greek island of Trinos

:)  

Princess Alice was the granddaughter of Princess Alice Windsor, 3rd daughter of Queen Victoria, her mother was Princess Victoria of Prussia, so her great- grandmum was Queen Victoria- she was a real Princess, let's not forget it-

http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alice7ps.jpg (http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alice7ps.jpg)

Princess Alice of Greece (Mother of Duke of Edinburgh) with her grandchildren, Prince Charles and Princess Anne after they welcomed her on their arrival to Athens Airport to attend the wedding of King Constantine of Greece and Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark on the 18th September 1964. 16th September 1964

It was informative to learn about two George Mountbattens:     
George Louis Victor Henry Serge Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven and his grandson, George Ivar Louis Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven.

Yes, George the 2nd Marquess Milford Haven (he of the exotic wife and extensive porno collection) was Philip's favourite uncle on the British side of the family. Because he died so prematurely some myth seemed to grow after Philip joined the BRF that Lord Louis Mountbatten was Philip's surrogate father in his youth. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Princess Alice wither her spouse Prince Andrew in Athens, Greece in 1921.     
Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark*20.01.1882-+with his wife... News Photo | Getty Images (http://www.gettyimages.com/license/543894743)

I read that Princess Alice grew quite close to her Mountbatten-Windsor grandchildren, especially Princess Anne, while she was living her final years with the Royal Family in Buckingham Palace. Of course she had other grandchildren, too, but I did not read anything about her relationship with them. 

I think Alice probably was close to Philip's children but I don't think she was probably a conventional granny figure. On one documentary I saw Princess Anne said that you would always know when her grandmother was approaching by the cloud of cigarette smoke that accompanied her wherever she went! (She was quite elderly by then of course, in contrast to the Queen Mother, their other grandmother and had lived a very full and varied life.)

Alice's daughters married at a very young age when she was confined to a mental institution and Andrew had more or less drifted off. Therefore she probably didn't see very much of her grandchildren during the early to mid 1930s. In the bio of Philip it said she was often visiting her daughters in Germany after she was released from the mental institution though.

It said that everyone remarked on how calm Alice was when her daughter Cecile, sil Donatus of Hesse and three little grandchildren were killed in a terrible air crash while on their way to a wedding in 1937. I suppose her religious faith came to the fore a lot when she experienced tragedies in her life.

@Curryong-Thank you for sharing your incredible knowledge of the various royal families. Good points regarding the relationship between Princess Alice and her older grandchildren. I would imagine that with Princess Alice living at BP towards the end of her life, that Phillip's sisters and their families could quietly go and see her in London after the war.

Quote from: TLLK on January 27, 2019, 02:41:46 PM
@Curryong-Thank you for sharing your incredible knowledge of the various royal families. Good points regarding the relationship between Princess Alice and her older grandchildren. I would imagine that with Princess Alice living at BP towards the end of her life, that Phillip's sisters and their families could quietly go and see her in London after the war.

I  hope you are right. When you see pictures of her with her young family, they seemed a happy group. How sad if she couldn't see her remaining children (and their children) in her final years. 

ThankYou for the nice words, TLLK. I'm sure her children and grandchildren did come privately to see Alice. I know that Philip's surviving  sisters and their spouses weren't invited to Philip's wedding because TPTB at BP became incredibly nervous about anti-German feeling in Britain in 1947.

The sisters didn't like this at all and one complained to Dickie Mountbatten that reporters in Germany kept asking whether they were going which made them feel 'humiliated'. Alice tried to make it up to them by writing a 22 page description of the wedding ceremony and telling them that Philip had signed the wedding register with the gold-plated pen the sisters had bought him as a joint wedding present.

They did all go to the Coronation, and Sophie, (whose second husband was Prince George of Hanover) went to stay at Birkhall with Elizabeth and Philip in 1948, and her husband, who was then headmaster at the boarding school founded by Kurt Hahn, Salem which Philip had briefly attended, went with her. I also read that Philip would take his older children Charles and Anne to see his sisters and their families over the years.

One of Philip's sisters was often photographed at the Windsor Horse Show over the years and I did read that Charles said to a friend once that he wanted to invite the 'cousins' to Highgrove but Diana didn't want them. (This was in the early years of the marriage and he was apparently quite sad about it rather than angry.) So really, it looks as though good and quite close relations were maintained between Alice and her daughters and their families to the end but it seems that these were very private visits.

George Louis Victor, the future 2nd Marquis of Milford Haven, had his own workshop  at his father's Heiligenberg Castle by the age of ten.

Prince Andrew of Greece (Prince Philip's father) with Grand Duchess Marie of Russia and her daughters Xenia and Nina in July 1916   
Prince Andrew of Greece , brother of King Constantine I with Grand... News Photo - Getty Images (http://www.gettyimages.com/license/3437754.html)

Princess Margarita of Greece (1905-1981) is the eldest sister of Prince Philip.   
   
Princess Margarita with her sister Princess Theodora in 1923     
( left ) Princess Theodora and Princess Marguerite ( right ) . Daughters of Princess Andrew of Greece 1 July 1923 Stock Photo - Alamy (http://www.alamy.com/left-princess-theodora-and-princess-margarita-right-image359832838.html)

In 1900 Prince Philip's grandmother Princess Victoria gave birth to her fourth and last child, another son, Louis. Notably, in a time when her siblings and cousins were giving birth every one to two years, Victoria's children spanned 15 years.

Prince Philip's nephew and King Charles' first cousin dies aged 89.

Prince Philip?s nephew and King Charles? first cousin dies aged 89 (https://www.gbnews.uk/royal/prince-philips-nephew-and-king-charles-first-cousin-dies-aged-89/414700)

A little background on the late Margrave of Baden who passed away on Thursday 12/28/22.

QuoteKing Charles? first cousin Maximillian, Margrave of Baden, passed away in the early hours of Thursday morning at Selem Castle in Germany aged 89.

The House of Baden confirmed that there will be two memorial services held for the nephew of the late Prince William.

One memorial service will see friends and employees invited and the other will be held for family members and political representatives.

He was the son of Philip's older sister, Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark and was the Head of House at Baden since 1963.

Three of  DoE's German relatives were present at his funeral in 2021 and later at the memorial in 2022.

Thanks for moving the article TLLK - I was sure there was a thread for this but couldn't find it lol.

@PrincessOfPeace -LOL just spent five minutes trying to remember where it was! This seems like a better place for it.

The new Margrave of Baden is Bernhard who was Phillip's great nephew and is first cousin once removed to Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.  He attend the DoE's and QEII's funerals. He and his wife Stephanie live in Linzgau near Schloss Salem with their three sons and is a commercial lawyer by profession.

Bernhard - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard),_Hereditary_Prince_of_Baden

Here's Bernhard and Stephanie's wedding information which saw a mix of reigning and non-reigning royals.

Wedding of Hereditary Prince Bernhard of Baden, 2001 | The Royal Watcher (https://royalwatcherblog.com/2021/06/23/wedding-of-hereditary-prince-bernhard-of-baden-2001/)

I have vague recollections of hearing of and reading about Prince Philip taking his two older children on private trips to Germany to stay with his (and their) relatives in the school holidays in the 1950s. It may well have been the Badens they went to see, as Berthold and his wife, Philip?s sister Theodora (Dolla) as she was apparently called within the family, were both then still alive. I know that they also visited the Hanovers (his sister Sophie and her second husband Georg and her family), as well. I suppose that link with ?the German cousins? is frayed a good bit now, as older relatives die off second cousins become third and so on.

The Duke of Edinburgh had some major family connections. His great-aunt was the last tsarina of Russia and hs first cousin Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia was one of the assassins of Rasputin.

Quote from: PrincessOfPeace on December 30, 2022, 05:11:39 PM
The Duke of Edinburgh had some major family connections. His great-aunt was the last tsarina of Russia and hs first cousin Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia was one of the assassins of Rasputin.

Yes, his grandmother Victoria Milford Haven was a Princess of Hesse. Although she was a very practical and pragmatic woman she never got over what happened to her younger sister Alix and her family and of course another sister (great aunt to Philip) ended up being thrown down a mineshaft by the Bolsheviks, with others while still alive. She was the Grand Duchess Serge. Her husband had been assassinated earlier but he was uncle to the last Tsar, a younger brother to Tsar Alexander III.

Quote from: Nightowl on January 13, 2023, 11:16:11 PM

**Respect is not a given in life just because a person has money, power, or a title, it is earned by how a person treats other people*....Family comes first in life as that is who we are born into yet Harry has shown he has NO respect for his family and mostly his grandparents., There is NO SPIN on how he has treated his family or friends, and that goes double for Meghan.

Family comes first does it? Not in the BRF it seems. Prince Philip?s nephew, Max, Margrave of Baden, died very recently. Charles was taken to Baden to see the family with his father and sister many times in childhood. Yet when the funeral of this cousin of Charles was held, which royal representative of the Windsors was there? No Anne, Max?s cousin, no Charles, Max?s cousin, no Edward, not even Andrew, also cousins. Family comes first in life?.??

Yet when Prince Philip died three members of Philip?s family from Germany (including Bernhard the new Margarve of Baden) made a huge effort to attend his funeral - time in quarantine in the UK, Covid tests, then attending the service and immediately leaving at the end. Attending was important to them, that?s why. Family!

And now we have Constantine of Greece, a man related to both the late Prince Philip and the late Queen. An ex King we were told for years by the media who was a close friend and confidante to Charles, a godfather to William. He and his wife Queen Anne Marie (who is also related to the British royal family) lived for years in London.

Royals from the Danish, Spanish, Belgians and other European royal families are making the time and effort to go to Greece to attend Constantine?s funeral. Their attendance has been announced. Family!

And the BRF? MIA again it seems as there is no indication that anybody from the Windsor family?s senior ranks (or even junior such as the Danish-born Duchess of Gloucester) will be attending. Family? In BRF terms it seems only when it doesn?t inconvenience them!

Lady Pamela Hicks (cousin of the late Duke of Edinburgh) has a book coming out in the Spring of 2023.

My Years with the Queen: and Other Stories - Lady Pamela Hicks - Google Books (https://www.google.ca/books/edition/My_Years_with_the_Queen/uPU1EAAAQBAJ?hl=en)

Lady Pamela Hicks will share intimate details of her life as lady-in-waiting in memoir offering an ?unequalled portrait? of the Queen | Tatler (https://www.tatler.com/article/lady-pamela-hicks-queen-memoir)

QuoteHer new book, My Years With The Queen and Other Stories, will no doubt offer fascinating insights into what went on behind-the-scenes during some of the most important moments of the Queen?s life, including her wedding and coronation. This will be the third title published by Lady Pamela, following 2007?s India Remembered: A Personal Account of the Mountbattens During the Transfer of Power and Daughter of Empire: Life as a Mountbatten, published in 2012.

Today is the 101st anniversary of the wedding of Louis Mountbatten (Prince Phillip's uncle) and Edwina Ashley.

1922: Marriage to Mountbatten | mountbatten (https://www.lordmountbattenofburma.com/1922-marriage-to-mountbatten)

Quote from: LouisFerdinand on July 18, 2023, 10:34:38 PM

Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia attended the Mountbatten wedding.

Yes, she was a very old lady then and most of her children with Alexander III were dead. She remained close to her sister Alexandra, even though Alex?s deafness irritated her considerably, as it would anybody I suppose, as out of vanity she refused to use an ear trumpet.

I believe that at this time, although White Russian forces had fought their way to the property where Nicholas II and his family were murdered, just too late, there was still no news officially of where the bodies were and the Dowager Empress believed for a very long time that perhaps they or one or two had survived and were still being held by the Bolsheviks within Russia. I believe she knew that her son Michael had been killed.

August 27, 2023 was the 44th anniversary of the murder of the Earl Mountbatten of Burma, his grandson Lord Nicholas Knatchbull, his daughter's mother-in-law Lady Bradbourne and a local boy Paul Maxwell. Injured in the explosion were his eldest daughter Patricia and her son Timothy Knatchbull.

On the anniversary of his assassination, we look back on the murder of Louis Mountbatten by the IRA | Daily Mail Online (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12271303/On-anniversary-assassination-look-murder-Louis-Mountbatten-IRA.html?ico=related-replace)

QuoteIt is now the best part of half a century distant.

But the blast that murdered Louis Mountbatten, Prince Philip's uncle and 'surrogate grandfather' to Prince Charles on this day in 1979 still echoes down the years.

The bomb which the IRA planted on his fishing boat at Mullaghmore on Carlingford Lough killed Mountbatten,  one of his twin grandsons, Nicholas Knatchbull, his daughter-in-law Lady Doreen Brabourne and a local 15-year-old, Paul Maxwell.

On the same day, 18 more lives were lost when the IRA ambushed a convoy of British soldiers with two roadside bombs at nearby Warrenpoint.

I do remember the occasion of the Mountbatten assassination, and the feeling (at least here in Australia) as being ?Why blow up an old man and his family on their holidays when there are plenty of other targets to go for in Ireland?? And after all, Mountbatten had been peaceably taking his holidays there in County Sligo regularly for years, he was well and truly retired from the Royal Navy and from Command anywhere and was aged.

Of course it was recognised that Mountbatten was a high profile person and this was a direct hit at PP I suppose as Consort to the British HOS, who was and is C-in-C of all Britain?s armed forces. I don?t know whether the IRA knew about the closeness between Charles and his great-uncle and mentor at the time they did it, probably not, but it was certainly aimed at the BRF. The worst of it was, as was pointed out at the time, there were children and other relatives killed and injured on that boat.

Yes it was such a senseless attack on Mountbatten, his family and Paul Maxwell. Reportedly Mountbatten was well-known and liked by those in County Sligo.

Quote from: LouisFerdinand on December 05, 2023, 09:16:18 PM

Princess Cecilie of Greece was one of Prince Philip's sisters.   
Royals from the past ? on Instagram: ?Cecilie of Greece and Denmark, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Hesse an? | Princess alice of battenberg, Princess (http://www.pinterest.com/pin/669840144570046394)

She was the sister who was killed, along with her family, in a terrible plane crash in Belgium while on their way to a family wedding. The first of the siblings to die.