YOUNG MARRIAGES IN ROYAL FAMILIES

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30051, 8 February 1963, Page 2

YOUNG MARRIAGES IN ROYAL FAMILIES

IB*

SUSAN VAUGHAN]

Is a girt of 16 too young to become engaged? This question has become something of an international talking point with the announcement of the engagement of Princess Anne-Marte of Denmark to Crown Prince Constantine, the 22-year-old

heir to the Greek throne. Anne-Marie is still a schoolgirl and attends the exclusive £2OO-e-year Zable* School in Denmark. Moreover, young as she is, the princess and Constantine have been courting for quite a time. They met at a Royal bail when she was only 14. .Royal families appear to take a fairly benevolent view towards young love. In the Greek Royal family in particular, there have been several very young brides. Princess Georg of Hanover, youngest sister of the Duke of Edinburgh, was engaged —as Princess Sophie of Greece-only two weeks after her sixteenth birthday, in 1930, to Prince Christopher of Hesse. He was a

major in the Luftwaffe and was killed in World War IL The first king of the present Greek dynasty, George I. married the Russian Grand Duchess Olga in 1867 when she was 16. Prince Constantine’s greatgrandmother, Victoria, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, became engaged at Balmoral in 1855 before her fifteenth birthday. Anne-Marie is waiting a while before she gets married. Royal families like a little time to arrange these things and there is some language learning to be done. Anne-Marie. who will probably be Queen at Greece one day, is learning Greek, and Constantine is learning Danish. Both speak English.