FATE’S IRONY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 41, 18 February 1932, Page 2

FATE’S IRONY

A woman who lives in London and claims to be descended from Constantine the Great, the Byzantine Emperor, whose fabulous wealth has become half legend and half history, has had a receiving order made against her (states an English journal). She is Princess Eugenie Paleologue, of Wetherby Terrace, Earl’s Court, who is 82, and claims to be the “Hereditary Empress of Constantinople and Hereditary Princess of the Aegean Isles.” She has also made claim to the throne of Greece. It is stated that there are documents to prove Princess Eugenie’s direct descent in an unbroken lino from the Emperor Andronicus and the last Constantine, who was murdered by the Mohammedan conquerors in 1453. The only reason that her father, Prince Theodore, was not chosen King of Greece in 1863 was the absence of one document, which left a broken link in the line of descent. The missing document was found at Malta after his death. Princess Eugenie might have been a monarch had that document been found earlier. Now she is served with a receiving order under the Bankruptcy Act.