Alice of Battenberg
1885 – 1969 · Generation XXXVI
Alice of Battenberg (1885–1969). Married Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1903. One of their children is recorded in this archive. Sheltered a Jewish family in occupied Athens; honoured at Yad Vashem. Born at Windsor Castle in the presence of her great-grandmother Queen Victoria, the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg, she was congenitally deaf but learned to lip-read in English and German. Her Darmstadt wedding gathered descendants of Victoria and Christian IX from across Europe. She nursed the wounded in the Balkan Wars, earning the Royal Red Cross, and twice shared the Greek royal family’s exile, the second time fleeing with her children aboard HMS Calypso in 1922. After converting to Orthodoxy she was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1930 and confined in a Swiss sanatorium, drifting apart from her husband. Back in Athens, she ran soup kitchens and shelters through the occupation. In 1949 she founded an Orthodox nursing sisterhood, and after the 1967 coup she lived at Buckingham Palace, dying there in 1969. Her remains now lie on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
Place in the family
- Alice of Battenberg was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
- Alice of Battenberg was the elder of 2 children of Louis Mountbatten and Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine recorded in this archive.
- The archive records 28 of her descendants, across 4 generations.
Line of descent: Owen Tudor → Edmund Tudor → King Henry VII → Margaret Tudor → King James V of Scotland → Mary Queen of Scots → King James I → Elizabeth Stuart → Sophia of Hanover → King George I → King George II → Frederick Prince of Wales → King George III → Edward Duke of Kent → Queen Victoria → Alice of the United Kingdom → Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine → Alice of Battenberg.
Parents
- Louis Mountbatten (1854 – 1921)
- Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (1863 – 1950)
Siblings
- Louis Mountbatten (1900 – 1979)
Partners
- Married Andrew of Greece and Denmark (1882 – 1944) in 1903 — one child together
Children
- Philip Mountbatten (1921 – 2021)
Life
- 1885 — Born
- 1903 — Married Andrew of Greece and Denmark
- 1969 — Died