Customer Reviews

Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece

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I would imagine that most people outside the ranks of royalty enthusiasts have never heard of Princess Alice of Battenberg, Princess Andrew of Greece. If anything, they know her as Prince Philip's mother. And that's a pity, because Hugo Vicker's new biography reveals that Alice Battenberg was a truly remarkable individual.Alice was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, which must have seemed her only interesting point at the time of her birth. Her father was morganatic (half-royal) and her mother a princess from a minor German state. Her first years were spent among her multitudinous family (Vickers provides footnotes and trees to help sort everyone out), in the background and unnoticed. Alice's marriage was hardly a glamorous match. Prince Andrew was a younger son of the King of Greece and while charming, not all that interesting. Alice lived quietly until the 1920s, when a revolution in Greece and her own personal troubles caused her a certain notoriety. Vickers does a good job of covering Alice's physical and emotional ailments and is most successful in describing her growing religious faith. In this Alice is similar to her two Russian Aunts, Tsarina Alexandra and Grand Duchess Elizabeth. During World War II Alice protected a Jewish family at grave risk to herself, so that she was later declared Righteous Among the Gentiles by Israel.After World War II Alice continued to live in the background, now overshadowed by her only son, Prince Philip, who became the consort of Queen Elizabeth II. She remained a loving and wise part of the Royal Family however, as memories of her from her grandchildren and other relations attest.Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece deserves a place in the library of anyone interested in royalty as well as anyone who cares to read about honorable and decent people.

Princess Alice of Greece is one of the most fascinating of all the royals, but unfortunately, the least known. Perhaps the British Royal Family has kept the lid on this biography because of embarrassment? But Hugo Vickers tells this long repressed story in Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece.

Alice was born when royalty was at its zenith, and she was surrounded by some of the most important personalities of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her great-grandmother was Queen Victoria. Her father was Louis of Battenberg, First Sea Lord and her brother was Dickie Mountbatten, Last Viceroy of India. Alice's sister Louise became Queen of Sweden, and her mother's sister was Tsarina Alexandra. Alice's youngest child and only son is Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and husband to Queen Elizabeth II.

Alice topped an idyllic childhood by marrying Prince Andrew of Greece. In a day when most marriages were arranged, this was a love match. There was no familial opposition as Alice was from a morganatic marriage and her groom the 4th son of King George I of Greece. Unfortunately, her married life was marred by sadness, heartbreak and tragedy. The Greek monarchy and the Greek government were as unstable as the weather. On numerous occasions, Alice had to flee Greece with her family for extended periods of time. She lived through two world wars where a good many of her relatives were on the German (enemy) side including her sons-in-law. Her father-in-law was assassinated by a disgruntled Greek, and dozens of Russian relatives, including aunt Tsarina Alexandra and her entire family, were murdered during the Russian Revolution. A plane crash in England in 1937 took the lives of one daughter, son-in-law, two grandchildren, and a Hessian aunt. Perhaps as a result of these many setbacks, Alice succumbed to schizophrenia and had to be institutionalized for a good many years. The story of Alice's subsequent recovery, her conversion to orthodoxy, her becoming a nun and establishing a religious order make for a fascinating saga.

Unfortunately, this book is not without some major flaws. First, Vickers writing style leaves a lot to be desired and his run-on sentences are a big distraction. One example can be found on page 77: "Presently the whole party moved to Buckingham Palace, attending a ball at the Russian Embassy and the King's Birthday Parade, in which Andrea [Andrew] rode to Horseguards Parade in the procession directly behind the King, little realizing that this would one day be the annual duty of his yet unborn son." The many footnotes (sometimes 3 or 4 per page) are very tiresome and provide more information than we really need. I have no clue how someone could read this book for a book-on-tape. Also, the author could do a better job identifying Russian Royalty. Most Russians are identified by their first name, followed by a patronymic (their father's name followed by "ovich"). For instance, the tsar's name was Nicholas Alexandrovich (Nicholas, son of Alexander). Vickers doesn't follow this rule and when he names a Grand Duke Michael, it is often difficult to know which of the dozen or so Grand Duke Michael's he is referring to.

Still, Alice is an interesting book and it was not an easy story to write, as Alice destroyed most of her papers and letters throughout her lifetime. It also includes many never before seen photos of Alice and her extended family, including a poignant photo of her processing in her nun's habit for the coronation of her daughter-in-law. So for readers interested in royalty, suffer through the poor writing and discover the real story underneath.

This really is a most enjoyable read about a fascinating woman. Princess Alice was the Mother of HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of HM Queen Elizabeth II. If you want to understand the family Prince Philip grew up in I can think of no better book. Princess Alice was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and married Prince Andrew of Greece. Prince Philip is her only living child and her youngest. This book is a must for those interested in the Battenberg family of which Princess Alice was a member. Having read about Princess Alice's Mother, Princess Victoria of Hesse-Darmstadt (eldest sister of Tsarina Alexandra) who married Prince Louis of Battenberg (later Marquis and Marchioness of Milford-Haven) this book really is worthwhile but stands very well alone. There are loads of fantastic pictures. I highly recommend it.

Alice,Princess Andrew of Greece is the story of a fascinating,
not well known royal.
Born into the Battenburg Family of Germany,Queen Victoria
witnessed the birth of her great-grandaughter.Alice,was discovered to be deaf,but her mother taught her to read lips.
The deafness did not appear to handicap her.In her girlhood
she was extremely intelligent,and considered one of the young
beautiful princesses of her time.
In 1903 she married Prince Andrea of Greece(hence becoming
Princess Andrew.)The women in Europe,unlike England,took the
name of their husband when they married.
Alice was devoted to her godmother,Ella,Grand Duchess of
Russia.She imitated her charitable works and was a nurse
during the Balkan Wars(1913),that preceeded World War I.
It was here she first manifested her mania.Not sleeping for
three days and singlehandedly building Operating Theaters
in the midst of the War.
The Princess had four daughters and one son,the current
Prince Phillip of England.
In the 1920's she was unable to care for her chidren.Due
to the death's of many close relatives,Tsarina Alix of
Russia,Aunt Ella,it is believed her illness became worse
and she lost touch with reality.
The biography drags a little here,but I think it is because
she was in treatment seven years.
In her later years she believed she was an Orthodox Nun.
Without,a country,the present Queen Elizabeth allowed her
to live quietly in England.
If you read this book,first consult the geneology lists in
the back of the book.Apparently,the Queen and Prince Philip
are fourth cousins,both descendants of Queen Victoria.
Despite her illness,Alice is a Princess who gave much to
others,and deserves to be remembered.History will not
forget this woman,who helped during the Holocaust and
saved lives.She along with Oskar Schlinder is remembered
in Israel as one of the Righteous.

I was hesitant to order this book as biographies tend to be dry but Hugo Vickers has written a most sensitive and honest account of HRH Alice's life. He had the cooperation of her son Prince Philip who graciously allowed family photos to be published. This is a very good book about a lady who overcame personal problems and, at the same time, always tried to improve the lives of those less fortunate. A remarkable lady.

When reviewing this book, it is necessary to keep in mind that it was suggested to the author by the family. The palace doors were open to him and he interviewed multiple HRHs and other relatives. Family photos are part of the volume. Princess Alice herself left no diaries, correspondence to her, or memoirs. The author had to piece together family and friend interviews and her own letters sent to others. With information necessarily spotty, perhaps due to the interviewees as much as the distance in the past, some aspects of her life such as her spirituality are perhaps described less well than one would have wished. For those interested in European royalty and its multiple familial alliances it is a fascinating description of an era that lasted from late Victorian through modern times. For the wealth of information, I thought it fairly well written, less ponderous than the British biographies that list every event, in order, every year.

Anyone that reads this book can not help but be touched by the life of Princess Alice. Why read fiction when real life can provide such drama and emotion. Even if you are not intrested in the history that Alice lived through, her life is as good as any writer can provide in fiction.

Princess Alice is a woman that history appears to have forgotten which is a great shame. Like anyone she had her faults but she was ultimatly a woman that overcame psycological problems that were as much a result of her times than her doing. Her clear love of her son is evident, devotion to an adopted country and an estranged husband is outstanding and her wit was an equal of Churchill. I did not want to read the last chapter as it naturaly ended with the conclusion of her life. I had become so touched by her life that when i finaly read the last chapter i was in tears as if the loss was personal to me.

This book was well written & interesting, for the most part. There were some sections that I felt like I was plodding through because it was SO very dry, but all in all, this is a book that gives a long hard look at Alice's life. It made me understand where HRH Prince Philip gets his sense of humor (from his father, I think). Also, the way the children were brought up (especially Philip) was interesting to read. I think that, had Alice lived during the present time, her illness and treatment would have been different.

I found the family trees in the back of the book useful. It was hard to keep track of everyone's real name and then their titles and nicknames and then if they were married. I should have had a notebook next to me while I read this book.

I always knew that Queen Victoria's progeny were all over Europe, but this book really struck that fact home with me.

I would recommend this book to anyone.

Grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, daughter of Prince Henry of Battenberg (the British First Sea Lord booted from office at the start of World War One for his alleged "German-ness"), sister of Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, mother of the Duke of Edinburgh, grandmother of the Prince of Wales, and relative of countless other royals including Tsars of Russia and Kings of Greece, Romania, and Sweden, Princess Andrew's life is one that any student of royalty will relish delving into.

Expert royal biographer Hugo Vickers has done a fine job relating the fact of her interesting, and more than a little tragic, life. Where I'm afraid this book is somewhat lacking is in analyzing and interpreting those facts, and in giving the reader an overall assessment of her life and impact. For example, his coverage of her years of illness and confinement in various sanatoria is quite thorough. But he never quite stepped back and gave us an objective discussion of what was afflicting her and whether the way she was treated for it was appropriate. Similarly, while readers who know something about Prince Philip and the British royal family may be able to draw some conclusions about Alice's effectiveness as a mother, Vickers never explicitly states any conclusions he may have drawn about how Alice's character, or her years of estrangement from her children, may have affected Philip's own parenting skills or colored his own relations with his children (certainly a subject numerous other writers have found worthy of attention). There are other examples I could cite.

On the whole, this biography will probably be most useful to readers who are already relatively familiar with the royal caste of characters (if you will) of Alice's era. While Vickers helpfully includes family trees in the back of his book, the text is so full of the inevitable royal nicknames (Dicky, Tiny, Wooly, Ernie, Dolla, Big George, Drino, Onor, and so on), keeping all the players straight can be a bit of a challenge. It's a fascinating look at the life and times of a most interesting woman, even if the big-picture context is sometimes obscured by the mountain of research.

Princess Andrew of Greece (Alice) was both royal matriarch and mystic...a veritable enigma within a sprawling family whose interests rarely delved into the spiritual as did her own. Unfortunately, the Vickers' writing style is slow, plodding, and makes Alice's life a chronicle difficult to read. On a positive note there are many never-before-seen photographs, many from the Duke of Edinburgh's own photograph collections. One of the most striking is Alice at the coronation of her daughter-in-law Elizabeth...wearing the full habit of an Orthodox nun. Still, the writing is not a pleasure to tackle, so be warned.