As #princephilip is being talked about so much, I think it's worth talking about the remarkable woman that was his mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg. A woman who overcame deafness, being locked up in an asylum, overthrow of her royal house, Nazi occupation, the...(cont'd)

... death of her daughter & 4 grandchildren in a hideous plane crash & a useless, absent husband, to become a committed nun, a penniless charity worker, a hero of the Jewish people & mother-in-law to the Queen.

Born at Windsor Castle, where her son's body now lays...(cont'd)

... Princess Alice was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. In her early years her family believed her to be "slow" (as was the term at the time), in fact, Alice had been born with congenital deafness. Once her condition was recognised, appropriate help could be...(cont'd)

... drafted in &, far from being slow, she was very bright. She learnt to lip-read & speak in several languages & picked up her tutors teachings rapidly.

In 1903 she married a younger son of the Greek King, Prince Andrew of Greece & Denmark. They had 5 children...(cont'd)

... 4 daughters and 1 son, the youngest, Philip, born in 1921. These were difficult years for the Hellenic Royal Family in Greece. The fallout of WWI saw the Greek royals briefly exiled & 2 of Alice's Romanov aunts murdered by Bolsheviks in Russia. The Greek King...(cont'd)

... Constantine (Alice's brother-in-law) was restored to the throne in 1920, but without much of the family's previous property & estates. Andrew & Alice settled at a large farmhouse on the island of Corfu, Mon Repos () & it was there, on a kitchen table, she gave...(cont'd)

...birth to her 5th & final baby, Prince Philip. But things would not stay peaceful for long. At the end of the Greco-Turkish war in 1922, a revolutionary Gov't took control in Greece. The Royal Family took much of the blame for losing the war & King Constantine fled...(cont'd)

...leaving Prince Andrew () & Princess Alice to deal with the fallout. Andrew was court-martialed, accused of treason, put on show-trial & banished with his family. Alice had to flee Mon Ropos so quickly & in such fear, she put the infant Philip in an orange crate to...(cont'd)

... conceal him. The family settled in Paris & what seemed to be a life of no real purpose. It was here that Andrew & Alice's marriage really began to fall apart & implode & Alice's mental health declined & then broke. Their daughters quickly married German Princes &...(cont'd)

... moved away. Andrew spent more & more time with his mistress & less & less with his family. Alice struggled with Parisian social life. She could not fluently speak French or lip-read it, unlike English, German & Greek, & many social occasions involved large groups...(cont'd)

...gathered around tables, eating long meals, something Alice neither enjoyed, nor suited her disability (trying to keep up with group conversation, in an unfamiliar language, whilst lip-reading, is no easy task). Instead, observers noted, Alice would sit quietly...(cont'd)

... in her own silent world, withdrawn. Her behaviour also became increasingly bizarre, she started giving away her expensive possessions, appeared to become obsessed by religion, spoke to herself publicly, talked crudely and even claimed she could see angelic children...(cont'd)

... and was regularly being visited by, & having sex with, Jesus & the Buddha.

In truth Alice had been suffering from severe post-natal depression ever since the birth of Philip. Untreated & poorly understood, this had descended into schizophrenia & psychosis &...(cont'd)

... by 1930 she had a nervous breakdown, received a proper diagnosis & was forcibly taken away to a Swiss sanatorium. Prince Philip, aged just 9, was left without either parent. Instead he was passed around between governesses, relatives & his sister Cecilie ()...(cont'd)

... who was now married and producing children of her own & had always been close to him.

Meanwhile Alice was trying to do everything she could to convince the sanatorium that she was now sane & well. She was even treated by Sigmund Freud, who believed her psychosis...(cont'd)

... was caused, unsurprisingly for Freud, by sexual frustration & recommended her ovaries & uterus be repeatedly x-rayed to 'cure' her libido (hasten to say this is not an effective, safe or ethical medical technique today).

Alice even mounted several escape attempts...(cont'd)

... climbing out of windows, getting out across the grounds, even once nearly managing to catch a train before being caught.

After 2 years she was finally released. But rather than return to her family (who she had basically cut all contact with) Alice disappeared...(cont'd)

... and to this day we are really not sure where she went or why. The only records of Alice we have at this time are the occasional member of the public who came across her & recognised her, as she appeared to drift around Europe, staying in small hotels & guest houses...(cont'd)

... One thing that people who stumbled on her did note however, was whilst her behaviour was no longer erratic, her devotion to Greek Orthodoxy was highly evident. Seemingly, whilst Alice's mental health problems had been treated, her new devotion to God remained...(cont'd)

... & that faith would be needed to deal with what eventually brought Alice back into the spotlight.

In 1937, her daughter Princess Cecile, 8 months pregnant, along with Cecile's husband & their 3 children, boarded a Junkers Ju52 airliner for a flight from Munich...(cont'd)

... to London, where Cecilie's brother-in-law was due to get married the next day.

Cecilie was terrified of flying. We can't be sure, but it was possibly her anxiety, particularly when the aircraft encountered bad weather, that triggered Cecilie to go into premature...(cont'd)

... labour. What we do know is what happened next. The captain of the Ju52 tried to make an emergency landing at Ostend in Belgium. The bad weather led to the plane hitting the chimney stack of a factory & the aircraft broke up & crashed killing all onboard. Cecilie's...(cont'd)

new-born son was found dead amongst the wreckage. She'd given birth in the moments leading up to the crash.

The tragedy devastated Alice & Andrew & finally reunited the disparate family in one place at the same time. Prince Philip, now a teenager, was particularly...(cont'd)

... traumatized by all accounts. His favourite sibling, his surrogate mother, had been taken away in the most hideous way imaginable, aged just 26. Philip would, reportedly, never talk about the crash for the rest of his long life.

The funeral was the first time Alice...(cont'd)

...had seen her estranged spouse or son in years. It brought Alice & Andrew & their surviving children & grandchildren together in one place for once

However the funeral for the slain family, proved to be a chilling omen for a new threat Alice & Philip would soon face...(cont'd)

... for Cecile's husband, & Cecilie herself in fact, had recently joined Germany's ruling Nazi Party. So had Alice's other daughters & their husbands. The funeral was overseen by the 3rd Reich & Hitler insisted on walking with Philip (circled) & Andrew in the procession..(cont'd)

... In less than 2 years, Europe would be at war, a war that'd see Alice & her son Philip on one side (the allies) & Andrew & their surviving 2 daughters on the other (the axis powers).

In those intervening 2 years Alice began to re-emerge, a new woman, into public...(cont'd)

...life. She did not, however, return to her family, though she now restored full comms with them. The Hellenic Royal Family had been restored in Greece (again) in 1935. This is where Alice chose to return, on her own, in 1938, to a 2 bed apartment in central Athens...(cont'd)

... in 1939, WWII exploded out across Europe & in 1941 the axis powers seized Athens & control of the Greek government.

Again most of the Greek royal family fled, all bar 2, Princess Alice & her sister-in-law Princess Nicholas. They chose to stay & moved in together...(cont'd)

... in a 3 story townhouse in Athens.

Alice was in a precarious position. On the one hand she was part German & her daughters & son-in-laws were Nazi Party member.

On the other she was a high-ranking member of British royalty, her brother Louis Mountbatten () was...(cont'd)

... head of joint ops in the Navy & her son Philip, now fully grown & basically adopted by his uncle Mountbatten, was a Commander in the Navy. Plus Alice & Princess Nicholas' continued presence in Athens, made them a potential rallying point for Greek independence...(cont'd)

...But if anyone thought Alice was going to hide her hatred of Nazis, they had another thing coming. Instead, when they'd periodically come to her home & ask "if there was anything they could do for her?" she'd angrily retort "yes, take your troops out of my country!"...(Cont'd)

... Princess Alice began busying herself to help the (ever growing under occupation) poor of Athens. Some of this was practical. She liaised with the Red Cross, set up soup kitchens, sought out accommodation for the homeless or refugees. Some of it was much, much, more...(cont'd)

...risky. She convinced the authorities to let her fly to neutral Sweden (under the guise of seeing her sister, Princess Louise, the future Swedish Queen) then used the return flight to smuggle, illegally, large quantities of much needed medicine. She begged for care...(cont'd)

...packages & money from family in Britain, only then to (again illegally) start distributing the contents to others. She & Princess Nicholas even went as far as having some of their antique furniture broken up, to be given as firewood, for cooking & heating...(cont'd)

... for the poor, in the chill of the Athenian winter.

But it was what Alice did next, that really risked her neck & her life.

In 1943, after the collapse of Mussolini's regime in Italy & the beginning of the disintegration of Nazi power in the Mediterranean...(cont'd)

... the Germans refocused on Greece & brought with them "the final solution". 60,000 of Athens' Jews were deported to concentration camps & murdered.

Alice, in a moment of stunning bravery, agreed to take in & hide her Jewish friend Rachel Cohen, along with 2 of...(cont'd)

... her children, Tilde & Alfred (the family, with their father, pictured below ) inside Alice's own home.

It would seem the Nazis cottoned-on that something was amiss, as they stepped up their "visits" to Alice & Princess Nicholas' house. Alfred Cohen recalled...(cont'd)

... how Alice would scare them off. The Germans knew she was deaf, so she played on it, pretending not to understand what they were saying & only speaking Greek. If that didn't do the job, Alice would act "mad" (many Germans had heard rumours of her "madness") &...(cont'd)

...Princess Nicholas would play along, in a convincing display. Thankfully the "mad, daft old woman" routine succeeded.

In 1944 as the Third Reich lost its grip on Athens, future British PM, Harold Macmillan () managed to visit Alice in her home & reported back that...(cont'd)

... years of poor resources, fighting & giving away everything & anything had left the Princesses' living conditions "squalid". Alice, not one to normally complain, wrote her son Philip, explaining she & her sister-in-law had nothing left to eat but bread & butter...(cont'd)

... & had not eaten meat in months.

As if to put the proverbial cherry on the cake, as WWII drew to a close, a new Greek civil war exploded out, initially between British loyalists & Greek communists.

But conditions did improve, neither side blocked supplies...(cont'd)

... the Germans had. Alice soon found herself enduring the ire of the British forces, as she continued to do her charity work in the streets, ignoring curfews, often in the midst of guerilla fighting & not seemingly caring much which side she may be assisting. One...(cont'd)

...British officer warned her she risked being shot in the crossfire, to which Alice replied "they say that you don't hear the bullet that kills you, besides, I'm deaf anyway, why should I care!"

It was also around this time that Alice got some more shocking news...(cont'd)

...her long estranged husband, Prince Andrew, had died in the Metropole Hotel () in the tiny nation of Monaco. He died isolated from his children, reportedly still holding Nazi sympathies & in a mountain of debts, run up by his mistress.

Alice was now officially a...(cont'd)

...widow, though she'd acted like one for years anyway.

Her daughters & son-in-laws meanwhile, escaped punishment for their part in the Nazi regime, more through dumb-luck than anything else. One son-in-law had been disabled & pensioned off early in the war...(cont'd)

... the other had been removed from power for getting caught-up in a plot against Hitler.

But, just as it looked like Alice's family would now live penniless & disgraced, there was a remarkable change in fortune.

For the heir to the throne, Princess Elizabeth...(cont'd)

... had just asked Philip to marry her.

Princess Alice travelled to London in November 1947 for the wedding. After years of pretending to be anything but royal, Alice now found herself back at the of Monarchy. In the post-war Britain however, there was no...(cont'd)

... tolerance for Germans. Prince Philip had rapidly Anglisied his surname, similar to his uncle, "Mountbatten" & Philip & Alice's Britishness & Greekness were played up, their Germanic roots, played down. Alice's daughters meanwhile, were certainly not on the guest...(cont'd)

...list.

Elizabeth reportedly found her new mother-in-law endearing & likeable. Down to Earth, with a keen sense of humour & with a wide range of interests. She also found Alice's insistence on calling Philip by his childhood pet name "bubbikins" hilarious...(cont'd)

... Philip meanwhile, despite the often distance & strained relationship he had had with his mother, seemed thrilled to have her back by his side.

But, despite repeated offers, Alice refused to come back to the British court permanently. Instead off she went, back...(cont'd)

... to Athens, this time to complete her most stunning transformation of all. Pawning & selling the last of her exquisite royal jewels, Alice poured the money into training to become a Orthdox Nun & set up a new religious order & community, the Order of Martha & Mary...(cont'd)

... Alice continued to live a spartan lifestyle. Her niece, Lady Pamela Hicks (), would sometimes travel from Ireland to Greece to stay with her elderly aunt in Athens. Her apartment was tiny, barely furnished & whenever Pamela arrived Alice would insist on giving...(cont'd)

... up the one bed for Pamela to sleep in, despite the age disparity between the two.

That's not to say Alice had given up all lifes pleasures. Unusually for a nun (& much to the humour of her friends & family) smoke woodbine cigarettes like a chimney &enjoyed playing...(cont'd)

... the card game canasta!

In the end, despite doing many good deeds for the people of Athens, the Order of Martha & Mary would fail due to money shortages (despite Alice travelling as far as India & the USA to try and raise interest).

When the Monarchy fell from...(cont'd)

...power in Greece for (presumably) the very final time in 1967, it became too unsafe for Alice to remain in Athens, particularly as her physical health was now failing.

Her daughter-in-law, now Queen Elizabeth II, finally insisted her mother-in-law come live with...(cont'd)

...her and Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace in London. Alice left her beloved Greece for the final time.

Despite concerns from some that she might 'embarrass' the British Royals (the Queen Mum, who's nose was rather put out of joint as she'd been terfed out of...(cont'd)

... Buckingham Palace previously and who had a notorious hatred for Germans, rather cruelly referred to Alice as 'the Hun Nun') she actually proved to be a rather popular, though relatively rarely seen member of the family. She also proved to be a beloved grandma...(cont'd)

... to her grandchildren, particularly Princess Anne who, it could be said, adopted many of her paternal grandmothers qualities. She also reconnected with her brother Lord Mountbatten.

Princess Alice died at Buckingham Palace on 5th Dec 1969, surrounded by her family...(cont'd)

... a family that fate, health & circumstance had often cruelly kept her from. It's perhaps fitting that a woman who was born in a castle, died in palace, left no worldly possessions other than three dressing-gowns, everything else had been given away years prior...(cont'd)

... but even in death Alice continued to surprise & buck convention.

In the days before she died & despite advanced preparations being made for her burial at Windsor Chapel, she revealed she actually wanted to be buried at the Orthodox Church, on the Mount of Olives...(cont'd)

... in Jerusalem, when her family pointed out that would be difficult & would also make visiting her grave very difficult, she turned to them & said "nonsense, there's a perfectly good bus service!"

So whilst a temporary burial went ahead at Windsor, negotiations were...(cont'd)

...opened with the state of Israel about providing Alice with a permanent burial there. It took nearly 20 years, but in 1988 Princess Alice was exhumed, flown to Tel Aviv & buried, as she wished, on the Mount of Olives.

Even more extraordinary, in 1994 the Israeli...(cont'd)

... holocaust memorial organisation Yad Vashem recognised Alice as "Righteous Among the Nations" the highest honour that can be bestowed on a non-Jewish person for protecting Jewish peoples, for her hiding of the Cohen family in the War.

Prince Philip became the first...(cont'd)

... senior British royal to travel to Israel, to witness his mother's investiture. Even more extraordinary, his surviving sister, Sophie, was also invited, a woman who had once been a Nazi party member.

Philip paid tribute to his mother saying;

"I suspect it never...(cont'd)

...occurred to her that her action was in any way special. She was a person with deep religious faith & she would have considered it to be a totally human action to fellow human beings in distress."

Since then both Princes' Charles & William have visited Alice's grave...(cont'd)

... perhaps the final word though belongs to Alice. After her death her last message was found in her bible...

"Dearest Philip, be brave, & remember I will never leave you, & you will always find me when you need me most. All my devoted love, your old Mama."

Thanks for reading!

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