Prince Philip Of Greece Is Not A Greek

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1947, Page 8

Prince Philip Of Greece Is Not A Greek

|'|-ineess !•'!iz.;i 1)H li, 20-year-old heiress presumptive to tlx* Brilisli Tliroin 1 . is going to be married one of these days. and gossip in London lias been linking her name in that respect to that ol 2u-year-old Prince Philip of Greece.

How Philip, who is. not a Greek, happens to be a prince of Greece is a story in which the hand of Great Britain is revealed (says a writer in an American journal). Dm in." the Greek war of independence in 1827 a republic was set up and Count John Capo d’lstra was elected president. He was assassinated, however, in 1831, and the British, with the support of France and Russia, engineered a convention in London, declared Greece an independent kingdom, and pioclaimed Prince Otho, son of King Louis 1 of Bavaria, its king. Weak Ruler Otho proved to be a weak and irresolute ruler. When a revolution broke out in 1862-the national assembly of Greece deposed him. In the following year, under the protecting power of Great Britain, Prince William George of SchleswigHolstein - Sonderburg - Gluecksburg, son of King, Christian IX of Denmark, was placed upon the throne of Gieece as King George 1. This King George I -married Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, niece of Tsar Alexander 11. Of this onion five sons and one daughter were born. The eldest son, Constantine, became King of Greece on March 18, 1913, when his father was assassinated at Salonika. The fourth son of King George I was Prince Andrew, who in 1903 married Princess Victoria Alice Elizabeth of Battenberg (now Mountbatten), daughter of Prince Louis of Battenberg, the British admiral of the fleet who became the first marquess of Milford Haven. Four princesses and one prince were born to Prince Andrew and Princess Victoria Alice from 1905 to 1921, the youngest of the five being Prince Philip, whom gossip names as the future husband of Princess Elizabeth.

Prince William George, who became King George of Greece in 1863, was a younger brother of Princess Alexandra of Denmark, who became the wife of the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII ol Great Britain. Her second son became King George V of Great Britain, and his second son. Prince Albert, now is King George VI, father of Princess Elizabeth. Question of Relationship From the foregoing it can be noted that both Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip of Greece- are direct descendants of King Christian IX of Denmark, the former a great-great-granddaughter and the latter a great-grandson. By this reckoning they are second cousins once removed. Not only are Elizabeth and Philip direct descendants of King Christian IX, but they also are direct descendants of Queen Victoria of Great Britain. Elizabeth is descended from Queen Victoria through King Edward VII, King George V, and her father, King George VI. ■ One of the sisters of King Edward VII was Princess Alice, who in 1862 was married to Prince Louis, who later became Louis IV, grand duke of Hess and the Rhine. The eldest daughter of this union was Princess Victoria Elizabeth, who in 1884 became the wife of the aforementioned Prince Louis of Battenberg. Their eldest daughter was Princess Victoria Alice Elizabeth, who became the wife of Prince Andrew of Greece and the mother of Prince Plii lip.

According to this family ti;ee, Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth both thus are great-great-grand-children of Queen Victoria, their relationship in this being that of third cousins.