Who was Princess Alice, who ‘lived a thousand lives’ in her 84 years?

She arrived on this planet when Queen Victoria was on the throne, handled by Sigmund Freud, exiled from Greece, rescued Jews from the Nazis and ultimately based her personal convent.

Princess Alice, Prince Philip’s mom, spanned the eras and lived what some would take into account to have been a thousand lives in her 84 years. The anniversary of her demise is tomorrow.

Born as Princess Alice of Battenberg in February, 1885, at Windsor Castle within the presence of her great-grandmother, Victoria, she was raised as an English princess.

Her dad and mom,  Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine and Louis, Prince of Battenberg, have been German.

Alice was one among 4, the others being sister Louise, brother Louis and George. Louise later grew to become Queen of Sweden. 

Louis ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten was Prince Philip‘s uncle and mentor – and mentor to Prince Charles – earlier than he was murdered by the IRA in 1979.

The Battenbergs have been suggested to Anglicise their surname to ‘Mountbatten’ throughout the First World War to drop the German connection.

When she was a younger little one, Alice was identified as congenitally deaf, nevertheless, might converse clearly and have become a fluent lip reader.

Photographs of her as a younger girl confirmed a good-looking, elegant girl, usually pictured with upswept hair. 

She was aged simply  17 years previous, whereas on the Coronation of King Edward VII in 1902, she met and fell in love with Prince Andrew, a youthful son of the King of Greece.

A yr later the couple wed in a German ceremony – the place they obtained no less than $750,000 in wedding ceremony items – Alice grew to become Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark.

The diamonds in Queen Elizabeth’s future engagement ring got here from a tiara gifted to Alice on her wedding ceremony day from Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra of Russia. 

When the Balkan Wars started in 1912, Prince Andrew was reinstated within the military, whereas Prince Alice helped help struggle efforts by organising discipline hospitals.

She was later awarded the Royal Red Cross in 1913 by King George V, the late Queen’s grandfather, for her exhausting work.

By 1914, Alice had given delivery to 4 daughters – Princesses Margarita, Theodora, Cecilie, and Sophie – with a revolution brewing in Greece, the place she was residing on the time.

Shortly after her youngest little one and solely son, Prince Philip, was born in 1921, the Greek royal household have been exiled following the abdication of King Constantine I of Greece, who was pressured out in 1917.

While he was only a toddler, the longer term Duke of Edinburgh was positioned right into a makeshift cot – an orange crate – as his household fled to Paris on a British warship.

Once in France, they lived on handouts from family. The anxious interval triggered pressure on Alice, whose ardent spiritual beliefs had slowly develop into extra eccentric through the years.

After struggling a nervous breakdown in 1930, she started listening to voices and believed she was having intimate relationships with Jesus and different spiritual figures.

She was later identified as schizophrenic earlier than being handled by Sigmund Freud at a clinic in Berlin.

Under the recommendation of the famend psychoanalyst, her ovaries have been blasted with X-rays, which have been stated to remedy her of her annoyed sexual wishes.

This remedy is believed to have prompted early menopause. There can be no proof that Alice herself was consulted about this, or consented to the process.

Following the remedy, she was admitted to a Swiss sanatorium the place she remained imprisoned for 2 and a half years.

At the time she was locked away, Prince Philip was simply 9 years previous. He had been taken out for a picnic together with his grandmother and when he arrived dwelling his mom had gone.

Prince Andrew successfully deserted his spouse to go stay on the French Rivera together with his mistress, regardless of by no means getting divorced. He died in 1944 in Monaco.

During this time, younger Prince Philip spent his time at boarding faculty in England and Scotland, being bounced from relative to relative throughout the holidays, together with his uncle Lord Mountbatten.

When his mom was ultimately launched from the sanatorium in 1932, she drifted between modest German B&Bs.

The mom and son weren’t reunited till 1937, once they met on the funeral of Philip’s sister Cecilie who died in a airplane crash on the age of 26.

At this level, Alice needed 16-year-old Philip to return to Athens together with her, following the restoration of the Greek monarchy in 1935. But Philip already had his future etched out within the Royal Navy, so his mom was left alone in Greece.

By 1941, Alice was stranded in Nazi-occupied Greece. Lord Mountbatten despatched her meals parcels which she handed out to these in want.

During the struggle, she hid a Jewish household on the highest flooring of her dwelling, simply yards away from Gestapo headquarters.

When the Gestapo grew to become suspicious and questioned the Princess, she used her deafness as an excuse to not reply their questions.

‘I believe that it by no means occurred to her that her motion was in any method particular,’ Prince Philip stated when visiting her grave in 1994. 

‘She was an individual with deep spiritual religion and he or she would have thought of it to be a completely human motion to fellow human beings in misery.’

Following the struggle, diamonds have been used from Alice’s tiara so Philip might current a hoop to Princess Elizabeth, the longer term Queen.

Alice offered the remainder of her jewels to create her personal spiritual order, the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, in 1949, turning into a nun.

She went on to construct a convent and orphanage in a poor suburb of Athens.

She remained in Greece till 1967, the place there was a Greek army coup. Alice refused to depart the nation till Prince Philip despatched a airplane and a particular request from the Queen to convey her dwelling.

She spent the ultimate years of her life residing at Buckingham Palace together with her son and daughter-in-law earlier than she died in December 1969, aged 84.

The princess was initially interred within the royal crypt in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, however she wished to be laid to relaxation close to her aunt, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, on the convent on the Mount of Olives.

In 2018, Prince William undertook a royal tour of the Middle East, which included a cease in Jerusalem. The royal took the time to put flowers at her gravesite.

William had beforehand proclaimed his admiration for Alice. In gentle of her defending the Cohens, he stated: ‘Her story is a matter of nice pleasure for my entire household.’

The previous couple of months of her life have been fictionalised within the third season of Netflix’s The Crown, performed by Jane Lapotaire.

The collection incorrectly instructed she gave a tell-all interview with the Guardian, masking matters about her psychological well being situation.

Shortly earlier than her demise, she wrote a heartbreaking letter to her solely son, that learn: ‘Dearest Philip, Be courageous, and keep in mind I’ll by no means go away you, and you’ll all the time discover me once you want me most. All my devoted love, your previous Mama.’