#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.

[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

[heavyarethecrowns]

[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.

[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

[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.

[aimeedaisies]

How may tiaras does Anne own

These are the tiaras that she has worn in the past

(Descriptions from The Court Jeweller)

What I think are in her personal collection;

✨ Festoon tiara

This delicate diamond festoon tiara was given to Princess Anne in 1973 when she christened a ship. (Not a bad thank-you present!) It’s intricate and pretty, which made it a perfect wedding tiara for Anne’s daughter-in-law in 2008. Anne still wears it regularly, including an appearance at a Guildhall banquet during the Spanish state visit in July 2017.

✨ Princess Andrew’s Meander Tiara

Princess Anne has been wearing this diamond bandeau, featuring laurel wreaths, anthemions, and a Greek Key (or meander) pattern, since she was a young woman. The tiara originally belonged to her grandmother, Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark, who had given it to Queen Elizabeth II as a wedding present. The Queen loaned it to Princess Anne for some of her early tiara appearances (including a state visit to Austria in May 1969) before giving her the tiara in 1972. Anne still wears it regularly today, and she also loaned it to her daughter, Zara, as a bridal tiara in 2011.

✨ Aquamarine Pineflower tiara

This Cartier diamond and aquamarine tiara, which has a unique pinecone design theme, was a wedding anniversary gift from King George VI to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in the 1940s. In November 1973, the Queen Mother offered it to Princess Anne as a wedding present. She’s been wearing it ever since (including at a state banquet in June 2019), and has even made a few design tweaks along the way.

In the family vault;

✨ Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara

In November 1973, Princess Anne borrowed Queen Mary’s diamond fringe tiara from her grandmother, the Queen Mother, for her wedding to Mark Phillips. Anne was the second royal bride to wear the tiara after her mother, Queen Elizabeth II (who now owns it). Most recently, it was worn by another family bride: Princess Beatrice of York.

✨ Double Row Meander Tiara

This diamond kokoshnik tiara, made of two rows of Greek Key (or meander) patterns, is a little bit of a mystery. Made in the nineteenth-century, it originally also accommodated an aigrette plume. It belonged to the Queen Mother, but we’ve only seen it worn once by a royal woman: Princess Anne’s outing in the tiara for a state banquet at Buckingham Palace during the Chinese state visit in November 2005.

✨ Cartier Halo Tiara

Like two other members of the royal family — Princess Margaret and the Duchess of Cambridge — Princess Anne’s very first tiara was the delicate scrolling halo tiara made by Cartier for the Queen Mother. The piece was loaned to Anne by her mother, Queen Elizabeth II, and she wore it often in her teen years for events like the State Opening of Parliament (October 1967)

✨ Birthday Portrait Tiara

For her twenty-first birthday, Princess Anne sat for a series of official commemorative portraits. She wore an ice green gown with a diamond scroll tiara and posed in front of a background specially painted by Gordon Davies for the portrait session. The tiara has never been seen on a royal woman before or since, so there’s a general consensus that it was probably a loan. (Why would the Brits borrow a tiara? Hard to know. Perhaps they wanted a specific look?) The images were published in British newspapers in August 1971.

✨ Pearl Bandeau

Princess Anne has also worn one more mystery tiara in recent memory: a gold-hued bandeau, which appears to be set with large pearls. She donned the tiara for a state banquet at Windsor Castle during the Indian state visit in October 2009. We still don’t know anything more about it, including its provenance, and we haven’t seen it in public since.

I would love to see her wear the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara (although she probably won’t now that Cam has 🥲), there is also an absolutely gorgeous tiara called the Teck Tiara that has crescent moons, roses and leaves (I don’t even know if it’s still in the main family anymore) 😍

Please drop your favourite tiaras that you’d love to see Anne wear in the comments 😍

[heavyarethecrowns]

[dopescissorscashwagon]

Princess Elizabeth (Queen Elizabeth II), Prince Philip, & Princess Anne pose with the baby’s godparents, Lord Mountbatten, Princess Margarita of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Andrew Elphinstone, Queen Elizabeth (Queen Mother), and Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone (standing proxy for Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark), and in other photos pose with Queen Mary, King George VI, Princess Margaret & Prince Charles after the baby’s christening at Buckingham Palace on October 21, 1950

[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.