Prince Philip mother

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Prince Philip Mother was Princess Alice of Battenberg.

She was born in the year 1885 in Windsor Castle (United Kingdom) and was Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, although she spent a large part of her life away from royalty.

Alice of Battenberg, known as the Princess of Greece and Denmark after marrying Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1903.

It is one of the most beloved British monarchy characters.

However, for many people, it was genuinely unknown. A mystery that the popular series The Crown has tried to relate by recovering its historical figure.

She was the mother (mommy) of Prince Philip, who was the Duke of Edinburgh.

Princess Alice had to face complex difficulties throughout her life since she was little.

He had congenital deafness, and his childhood developed in different destinations due to his father’s work as a naval officer, such as Germany or England.

She is also the mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II.

Royal wedding, exile, and admitted to a psychiatric hospital

After marrying Prince Andres in 1903, the couple moved their residence to Greece.
However, the obstacles would soon reach the family when in 1922, they had to go into exile after the Greek defeat in the Greek-Turkish war.
At the time, Prince Philip was barely 18 months old when they set sail on an English ship.
The family gradually fell apart, and Felipe, the only son and the youngest of four other sisters, lived in boarding schools.
But, without a doubt, one of the events that forever marked Alicia de Battenberg’s life was when she was analyzed with schizophrenia in 1930.
And she was shifted to Switzerland, separating from her husband and family.
There she spent two years against her own will and was even under treatment of Sigmund Freud.
As explained by the BBC, the founder of psychoanalysis considered that his nervous breakdowns] and hallucinations] “resulted from sexual frustration.
And they applied electric shock and X-rays to the ovaries to advance menopause and turn off libido.”
The princess defended her sanity, but “she was confined in the sanatorium for two years.
It was a period that would have an enormous weight in her later life, physically and emotionally.”

A life dedicated to charity

After this time, Alicia de Battenberg dedicated herself sincerely to social work and charity, especially in Athens (Greece).
During World War II, he was to try to help the Jewish refugees and even founded his Orthodox religious order, the brotherhood of Marta and María.
After the collapse of King Constantine II of Greece and the military regime in 1967, the princess moved to Buckingham Palace at the invitation of her son and Queen Elizabeth II.
In 1969, two years later, she passed away due to health complications.
She was initially buried in Windsor Castle’s royal crypt, and her remains were eventually transferred to the St. Mary Magdalene church in Jerusalem.

Prince Philip Mother, Alice, the mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth had a hazardous and complicated life

She was practically unknown to the general public until the successful Netflix series The Crown regained her figure. It dedicated one of the third season chapters to her.
Alicia de Battenberg, Prince Philip’s mother, had to face numerous obstacles during her eventful life.
Separated from the royal family for much of her life, Princess Alice is – 50 years after her death – one of the British monarchy’s most beloved members.
Alicia and her husband were forced into exile after overthrown the royal family was in 1917.
The couple had five (5) children, four of whom were women.
In 1930, the princess suffered a religious crisis.
For this reason, she went away from her family – including Felipe, who was not yet ten years old – and went to a sanatorium in Switzerland.
The princess suffered from schizophrenia and exposed to primitive medical treatments – in an x-ray her ovaries killed her libido.
The princess reportedly never met Felipe until 1937, at the funeral of her daughter – and Felipe’s sister – Cecilia, who died with her husband and two children in a plane crash.
According to The New York Times, the princess “founded the Martha and Mary monastic society after the doctors discharged her.
Its goal was to empower the sisters to care for needy children and the sick.
As Mother Superior Alicia-Isabel, she raised funds to buy two houses, one to house convalescents and the other to train nurses”.

Worked for Swedish Red Cross

When World War II started, the princess returned to Greece to work for the Swedish Red Cross.
But the war divided the family. Three of his daughters married Nazi defenders while his son Felipe joined the British Royal Navy.
In 1967, she moved to Buckingham Palace with Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth, depicted in the series.
When Alicia died in 1969, she had already given away all of her possessions.
A note states: “Dear Felipe, be brave and remember that I will never abandon you and you will always find me when you need me. My most devoted love, your old mother.
Peter Morgan says that the life story of Princess Alice surprises him.
“As we know that she was a nun, that she created her religious order.
She sold her goods, so to speak, royal jewels and souvenirs, to finance this convent in Athens.
Then he returned to Buckingham Palace. There were rumors and anecdotes that the Buckingham Palace corridor smelled of Woodbine, a tobacco-associated brand with working-class men.
“She had deafness since childhood and fell into a depression,” said Morgan, marveling at her story: “She is the most extraordinary character.”