Her mother was Victoria of Hesse, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria’s third daughter, Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, while her father was Prince Louis of Battenberg, related to Alice’s husband, the Grand Duke. This same year he met his future wife, Princess Alice of Battenberg.Īlice was born on Februat Windsor Castle in the presence of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. George I and Queen OlgaĪndrew’s education emphasized military training and in 1902 he passed a rigorous examination that led to his entrance into the calvary.
There were also regular trips to Russia to see their other aunt, now Tsarina Marie Feodorovna, and for Olga to visit her own family. Every summer they decamped to Denmark to visit their Danish grandparents and cousins, which usually their aunt, the Princess of Wales, and her children. The family shared one bathroom where it wasn’t shocking to see the odd cockroach. George and Olga implemented a strict and austere upbringing on their children – the royal palace was spartan and uncomfortable. The adage George raised his children with was, “You must never forget that you are foreigners in this country, but you must make them forget it.” It was a humbling motto, but one his offspring took to heart, particularly Andrew, who became the most “Greek” of all of his siblings, refusing to speak anything else at home, though he was also fluent in English, French, Danish and German. He was so small as a newborn that he apparently spent his few days in a cigar box and was fed via toothpick, however he was eventually transferred to a proper wet-nurse and grew into a tall and athletic adult – indeed, there is a strong resemblance between Andrew and Philip. Andrew was George’s and Olga’s seventh child, born in 1882. Their eldest son, Constantine (“Tino”), succeeded his father after George’s assassination in 1913 and married Queen Victoria’s Prussian granddaughter, Sophie. In 1867 George married Princess Olga of Russia and between 18, the couple had eight children. George and Olga with Alexandra, the Princess of Wales As such, Greece suddenly had familial ties with major European powers, a fact which enhanced George’s hold on the throne and would later on complicate his family’s place in the country. A few years later, his younger sister, Dagmar, would marry the future Tsar of Russia.
The year he ascended the Greek throne his sister, Alexandra, married Queen Victoria’s eldest son, the future Edward VII. He was in fact a Danish prince, the son of Christian IX and his wife, Louise of Hesse-Kassel. He was its lawful king, but he was selected out of a group of European princes to succeed Otto I after his deposition in 1862. His father was King George I of Greece, who arrived in Athens for the first time at the age of 17 in 1863. That started a question in the papers as to whether that was true and the answer is, well yes, but you’d be forgiven for not knowing that given the styling of his father’s name.Īndrew was legally a Greek prince and he was born in Athens, but he possessed no Greek heritage and his family didn’t consider itself Greek. A couple years ago a guest at Buckingham Palace remarked that, like Philip, they were also Greek, to which he responded that he actually didn’t have a drop of Greek blood. So, who were they? His father was Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and his mother was Princess Alice of Battenberg.
His lineage is unique in the context of the British Royal Family and his entry into the House of Windsor was perhaps the most dramatic in its history, quite a bit of which had to do with his parents and siblings. But ahead of that I thought it was fitting that there was a post on Prince Philip’s parents, particularly since his origin story isn’t particularly well-known. Next month marks the 70th wedding anniversary of Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh and, as such, we’ll cover all that brought about the original 1947 pairing.