#Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark

[februaryfrost]

Princess Alice of Battenberg and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. About 1901.

Nicholas was married to Alexandra, who was the youngest sister of Alice's mother, Victoria. Alexandra and Victoria were born Princesses of Hesse and by Rhine and granddaughters of Queen Victoria via her second daughter, Alice.

In 1903 Alice would marry Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, a cousin of Nicholas' and her last born child would become Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. Alice was the grandmother of King Charles III.

Though congenitally deaf, Alice learned to read lips and speak English and German, and also later Greek, the language of her new homeland.

[heavyarethecrowns]

[grandmaster-anne]

1955 Princess Alice with Prince Charles and Princess Anne getting off the train in Portsmouth to aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia. © Grinberg, Paramount

[royally-obsessed]

🧁

Which royal deserved better?

I think Princess Alice really did deserve better, she deserved a happier marriage, without infidelity, if only Prince Andrea could have realized that. She deserved so much better than the asylum they had put her in.

[ykzzr]

Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark with his daughters Theodora and Cecilie 1910s.

[postcard-from-the-past]

1903 wedding of Princess Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie of Battenberg and Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark at the Darmstadt Palace. You can spot the Russian Imperial family among the guests

German vintage postcard, mailed in 1903

[loiladadiani]

Princess Alice of Battenberg (Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie; 1885 – 1969) - Princess of Greece and Denmark

One of her Great-Grandmothers was Queen Victoria; her maternal grandmother was Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine; her mother was Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, sister of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia; her father was Prince Louis of Battenberg. Her son was Prince Phillip, consort of Queen Elizabeth II.

She married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark

She had five children: Margarita, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg

Theodora, Margravine of Baden

Cecilie, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Hesse

Sophie, Princess George of Hanover

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Alice suffered incredibly through her life, but she did not let that stop her from always thinking of others; she was born with a hearing deficit and her brilliant mother Victoria, taught her to lip read not in one but several languages. She had a husband who preferred to gamble in Montecarlo to being with his wife and children or...anything else. She was diagnosed with squizophrenia (there is no evidence that this was a correct diagnosis even though it was issue by Dr. Freud himself) and her pelvic organs irradiated to produce an early menopause (this was supposed to relieve the symptoms according to the medical thinking of the times). She lost her daughter Cecilie in a plane crash.

Yet, like her grandmother Alice, helping others came to her naturally. Israel gave her the award Righteous Among the Nations, bestowed on people who risked their own lives to help Jewish people survive the Holocaust. She worked for the Swiss Red Cross.

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 dedicated herself to helping others but eventually the order failed because of lack of funds.

And besides all of that, she was beautiful.

She died at Buckingham Palace at the age of 84.

(I have to add something here: Alice's smile in the picture is one of the most open, sweetest, tenderest, and most beautiful smiles I have ever seen. It filled me with awe, and thinking about her life brought tears to my eyes)

[foreverinthepagesofhistory]

Princess Louise of Battenberg (middle) with her cousins (foster cousins) Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (the younger) and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich,

Princess Alice of Battenberg and Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark’s wedding celebrations, Germany 1903

[royalpain16]

Prince Philip (above middle) was the youngest child and only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (right) and Princess Alice of Battenberg (left)

Prince Philip was born in Corfu in 1921 eight years after the assassination of his grandfather, King George I of Greece.

[charlotte-of-wales]

Happy 89th birthday to Prince Edward, Duke of Kent!

Born 9 October 1935, Edward George Nicholas Paul Patrick is the elder son of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, a grandson of George V, a nephew of Edward VIII and George VI, a and first cousin of Elizabeth II. Edward's mother was also a first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, consort of Elizabeth II, making him both a second cousin and first cousin once removed to Charles III. He is 41st in the line of succession to the British throne.

Prince Edward began his education at Ludgrove, a preparatory school in Berkshire, before going on to Eton College and then Le Rosey in Switzerland. After school he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He graduated from Sandhurst in 1955, as a second lieutenant in the Royal Scots Greys, the beginning of a military career which lasted over 20 years.

On 25 August 1942, Prince Edward's father, the Duke of Kent, was killed when his plane crashed in bad weather in Caithness. Prince Edward, at six years old, succeeded his father as Duke of Kent, Earl of St Andrews and Baron Downpatrick. He has held the title of Duke of Kent for over 82 years, making him the longest-serving duke in British history.

At York Minster on 8 June 1961 the Duke of Kent married Katharine Worsley, and couple have three children: George, Earl of St Andrews (62), Lady Helen Taylor, (60), and Lord Nicholas Windsor (54).

The Duke of Kent performed engagements on behalf of his cousin, the Queen, for over 50 years. He also acted as Counsellor of State during periods of the Queen's absence abroad. Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Kent became the oldest living descendent of King George V, and the last surviving descendent born in George V's lifetime.

[meraki-yao]

This is random as fuck but I'm thinking about Henry's royal surname

So I happen to be a bit of nerd when it comes to British royalty, I literally don't have a reason for that except it's interesting to me

I actually really appreciated changing movie Henry's surname, until I found out they're real royal houses and started wondering about RWRB's history

In the book it was Mountchristen-Windsor, obviously modelled after irl royal family Mountbatten-Windsor, although Mountbatten was derived from the German Battenberg family from the Queen's husband, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, which is also an actual place in Germany. As far as I can tell Mountchristen is entirely fictional?

Book Henry mentioned having a Great Uncle who abdicated because he was a Nazi, which is irl Duke of Winsdor, Queen Elizabeth's uncle (although the reason he stated was for love), so I think? That the lineage was the same until at least that generation. But Queen Mary, Henry's grandmother said she's been serving the country for 47 years, and Princess Catherine, Henry's mother is 60 years old in 2020, born in 1960, approximately the same age as Prince Andrew, Queen E's third child. Henry was born in 1997, and Prince William was born in 1982. So the generational year gap changes there: for RWRB there's four generations, while irl there are five generations in 2020.

So a bit of math here, assuming that the Duke of Windsor's abdication is the same as the real world, which is 1936, so the lineage is the same up to 1936. The book takes place in 2020, so Queen Mary ascended to the throne in 1973, 37 years after the Duke of Windsor's abdication, a reasonable amount of years for one monarch's reign. So that monarch is where things went differently. As for how it went differently...yeah I don't fucking know my brain cells ran out.

But Movie Henry's royal family name is Hanover-Stuart, two actual houses of royalty: King James IV&I of M&G belongs to the House of Stuart (so what the fuck Nick another coincidental connection between your characters) with Anne, Queen of Britain being the last reigning monarch of the House of Stuart (after her death her cousin George of Hanover inherited the British Throne); Queen Victoria was the last reigning monarch of the House of Hanover (her children belonged to the house of her husband: the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which was later renamed Windsor during WWI). In our world, the House of Stuart went extinct in 1807, while the House of Hanover still has living members in Europe, granted no longer in direct relations to the British monarchy

So what I'm wondering if for movie verse, where the history of the British royal family changes for Henry to have this different surname:

For Hanover, it's possible that for the universe, Queen Victoria's children still bore her name of Hanover and didn't change it during the war, so the rest of the lineup to Henry kept Hanover. But I cannot for the life of me imagine where would Stuart come from given that the line broke off there

... yeah I don't know what point I'm trying to make or what conclusion I drew, but I used up an hour going down this rabbit hole. If my dad knew I was doing math for this instead of doing my calculus homework he'd kill me but whatever

Also I bet neither Casey nor Matthew actually thought this deep about such a minor thing this is how bad my rwrb brainrot is if we don't get something soon I'm gonna go stir crazy

[the-jewel-catalogue]

Princess Andrew's Meander Tiara

The term “meander” is another word for the Greek key design that makes up the band of this tiara. No one seems to know precisely when Princess Andrew, who was born Princess Alice of Battenberg, acquired the tiara, but it would make sense that she received a Greek key tiara after marrying Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1903.

The tiara is made of diamonds, and the Greek key design is punctuated by a central laurel wreath element and two honeysuckle elements. 

The tiara was handed over to Princess Anne, who still owns the piece today. 

Zara paired her great-grandmother’s tiara with a veil for her Scottish wedding, paying tribute to her lesser-known royal heritage.

~ The Court Jeweller

[heavyarethecrowns]

[thehessiansisters]

Family portrait of Prince and Princess Louis of Battenberg, with their children Princess Louise of Battenberg, Princes George and Louis of Battenberg and Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark, and grandchildren Princesses Margarita and Theodora of Greece, 1910.

[graceofromanovs]

Emperor Nicholas II of Russia with his daughters, Prince George of Battenberg, and Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark (nephew and niece of the Empress), and several ladies-in-waiting. Photographed by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna at Münzenberg Castle, Hesse, Germany in 1910.

[ykzzr]

Bernstorff 1895

Princess Victoria of Wales, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, Princes Andrew, Christopher of Greece and Denmark, Grand duchess Olga Alexandrovna, Prince Johann of Glocksburg.

on the opposite side

Princess Maud of Wales, Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, Princess Maria of Greece and Denmark.