Nov 2021
Prince Harry, the Germans, and their Mental Health
von Anna Rosmus
Agnatically, Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales, better known as “Harry”, comes from the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg. It is not only one of Europe’s oldest royal houses, but particularly heavy on the German side. In 2018, Time magazine featured Harry as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.[1]
Harry began to accompany his parents on official visits at an early age. Before long, the tabloid press labeled him a “wild child”. Aged 17, he was spotted smoking cannabis, drinking alcohol with friends, and physically clashing with paparazzi at nightclubs.[2] In 2005, photographs from a colonial and native-themed party showed Harry wearing a German Afrika Korps uniform with a swastika armband.[3] When he referred to an Asian soldier wearing a cloth on his head as “raghead,” David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition, called that “unacceptable”, and The Daily Telegraph “racist”.[4] While an Eton tribunal did not rule on a cheating claim, it “accepted the prince had received help” preparing his A-level “expressive” project to secure his place at Sandhurst.”[5] On holiday in 2012, Captain Wales and a woman were photographed naked, reportedly playing strip billiards in Las Vegas.[6]
After Harry resigned from the army in 2015, he, his brother and the Duchess of Cambridge initiated “Heads Together,” to encourage others to open up about their mental health issues.[7] In 2017, twenty years after his mother’s death, Harry acknowledged how personal that was for him. Not only did he struggle with aggression, but he was also “very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions”.[8] “Before I even left the house, I was pouring with sweat and my heart raced. I was in a fight-or-flight mode. Panic attacks, severe anxiety. And from 28 to probably 32 was a nightmare time in my life.” Harry would start “freaking out” whenever he saw camera flashes.[9] He detailed that he “would probably drink a week’s worth in one day on a Friday or a Saturday night” to help him cope.[10] Eventually, however, the heavy load of official visits and functions also led to burnout.[11] In the documentary The Me You Can’t See, which premiered in 2021, Harry stated that he underwent four years of therapy to address his mental health issues.[12]
Except for an enormous, intentionally launched publicity not much is really new within Harry’s family. There were poor grades, drunken episodes, sexual escapades, depressions and mental breakdowns. There were also flamboyant National Socialists and other racists. Over the past few centuries, German royals on the British throne faced a lot of challenges, and they all coped with them, one way or another.
George I
After Anne (1665 – 1714), Queen of Great Britain, suffered a stroke, she was unable to speak and passed away. Her closest living Protestant blood relative was Georg Ludwig (1660 – 1727), a German. Born and raised in Hanover, as the eldest son of Ernest Augustus and Sophia of Hanover,[13] he married his first cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Celle. In bitter arguments, Georg Ludwig scolded his wife for her lack of etiquette, and treated her with coldness. Before long, the couple parted ways. George preferred his German mistress, Melusine von der Schulenburg, and Sophia Dorothea favored the Swedish Count, Philip Christoph von Königsmarck. Whereas Melusine became George’s hostess and had three daughters with him, the hapless count was killed in 1694, and tossed into the Leine river. Moreover, with her father’s consent, George I had Sophia Dorothea detained in the Celle Ahlden House,[14] where she died more than thirty years later.
As George I, he became not only the first British monarch of the House of Hanover, but he also remained ruler of the Duchy and Electorate of Braunschweig (English: Brunswick)-Lüneburg. His coronation triggered riots in over twenty towns in England.[15]
At social events, he disliked being in the public light. At the opera, he avoided the royal box, and to play cards, he travelled incognito to the homes of friends.[16] Although ridiculed by his British subjects,[17] he permitted his critics to publish without fear of harsh censorship. His mother explained “to those who regarded him as cold” and overly serious that he “could be jolly, that he took things to heart, that he felt deeply and sincerely and was more sensitive than he cared to show.”[18]
The King’s relationship with Georg August, his eldest son, was not pleasant. After a family row in 1717, he had the Prince of Wales and his wife, Caroline, temporarily confined to their apartments, and subsequently banished from St. James’s Palace.[19] The couple’s children, however, remained in the care of the King.[20] The ousted couple’s new London residence, Leicester House, became a meeting place for the King’s political opponents. When the grieving parents secretly visited the palace to see their children, without approval of the King, Caroline fainted and the Prince of Wales “cried like a child.”[21] Eventually, the King permitted the parents to visit once a week, and he later granted Caroline unconditional access.[22]
George I spent about one fifth of his reign in Germany,[23] and many British perceived him as too German. When he visited Hanover from May to November 1719, he established a regency council instead of appointing the Prince of Wales to represent him. When he died of a stroke during a trip to Hanover in 1727, he was buried there, and his 43-year old son decided not to attend the funeral.
George II
When Georg August (1683 – 1760), Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Elector of Hanover, ascended to the throne as George II, German-born composer Georg Friederich Händel was commissioned to write four new anthems for the coronation. Although born and raised in Hanover, like his father, George II claimed that he had no drop of blood that was not English.[24]
His father had not wanted Georg August to enter a loveless, arranged marriage like his own.[25] To explore Wilhelmina Charlotte Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach as a possible match in 1705, George had traveled to the Ansbach court at its summer residence, under the assumed name of “Monsieur de Busch.” Caroline became his wife and had eight children.
Nonetheless, George II was known to have mistresses, and he kept Caroline informed about them.[26] He was neither interested in reading,[27] nor in the arts or sciences. He went hunting on horseback or he played cards.[28] George II also had a reputation to be mean.[29] During an attempt to kill him at the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane, someone else was shot dead before the assailant was under control. Thereafter, George II’s public profile improved somewhat.[30]
Particularly strained, however, remained his relationship with his own eldest son, Friedrich Ludwig (Frederick Louis). Friedrich Ludwig had remained in Germany when his parents moved to England. In 1728, when he followed them, they had not seen each other for 14 years, and before long, the new Prince of Wales supported the parliamentary opposition.
George II spent twelve summers in Hanover. When he traveled there in 1729, 1732 and 1735, he asked his wife, not his son, to chair the British regency council.[31] In 1736, when he left again, a satirical note at the gates of St. James Palace read: “Lost or strayed out of this house a man who has left a wife and six children on the parish.”[32] Upon his return to England, George II fell ill with piles, and withdrew to his bedroom. When the Prince of Wales hinted that his father was dying, George II promptly attended a social event to render that gossip futile.[33] In 1737, when Frederick’s wife, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, was in labor, he excluded his parents from the birth of his daughter by tucking Augusta into a coach in the middle of the night, and driving off.[34] In the end, George II banished him and his family from the royal court, almost as his own father had done to him, although he permitted Frederick to keep custody of his children.[35]
Shortly thereafter, Caroline was dying. When she told the sobbing King to remarry, he replied, “Non, j’aurai des maîtresses!” (French for “No, I shall have mistresses!”).[36] After Caroline’s passing, George II displayed “a tenderness of which the world thought him before utterly incapable.”[37]
In 1737, George II founded the German Georg August Universität Göttingen.
In 1751, when Frederick and his sister Louisa died unexpectedly, George II lamented, “This has been a fatal year for my family. I lost my eldest son – but I am glad of it … Now [Louisa] is gone. I know I did not love my children when they were young: I hated to have them running into my room; but now I love them as well as most fathers.”[38] Nine years later, George II was hard of hearing and blind in one eye.[39] Before he died of a thoracic aortic dissection,[40] he ordered the sides of his and his wife’s coffins to be removed so that their remains could mingle.[41]
A popular perception saw George II as a “faintly ludicrous king,”[42] and for two centuries historians decried him for his boorishness, parsimony, short temper, and his mistresses. Lord Charlemont, however, argued that “His temper was warm and impetuous, but he was good-natured and sincere. Unskilled in the royal talent of dissimulation, he always was what he appeared to be. He might offend, but he never deceived.”[43]
George III
Because his eldest son had passed away, George II was succeeded by his 22-year old grandson, George William Frederick (1738 – 1820). In 1801, the Duke and Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg ascended to the throne as George III. Like both of his predecessors, he also remained monarch of the House of Hanover. Before long, he married 17-year old German Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, whom he first met on their wedding day. When told “not to meddle,” she complied. The couple had 15 children, and George III never had a mistress. Because of his simple lifestyle, satirists dubbed him “Farmer George.”
Later in life, the King suffered from bouts of physical and mental illness. In 1788, he became so deranged that he could not even deliver the customary speech from the throne, and was a threat to his own life. When Princess Amelia, his youngest daughter, passed away in 1810, her nurse described “scenes of distress and crying every day” as “melancholy beyond description.”[44] Episodes of acute mania led to speculations about porphyria[45] and bipolar disorder.[46] When cataracts left George III virtually blind, and rheumatism plagued him, he felt that was triggered by Amelia’s death.[47] One year later, George III was not only permanently insane, but he lived secluded at Windsor Castle.[48] His eldest son, George Augustus Frederick, with whom he had a terrible relationship, became Prince Regent. Increasingly deaf and demented, by Christmas 1819 George III talked incessant nonsense for 58 hours. During the final few weeks of his life, he was also unable to walk.[49]
George IV
While George Augustus Frederick’s (1762 – 1830) charm and cultured style earned him the title “first gentleman of England”, his extravagances ranged from heavy drinking to multiple mistresses.
His father expected not only a more frugal behavior from his heir apparent, he was also irritated by his preponderance of rather radical politicians.[50] Since the Prince of Wales was 21 years old, he was so infatuated with Maria Fitzherbert, a Roman Catholic, twice widowed commoner, and six years his senior,[51] that he secretly married her in 1785, – in spite of the Act of Settlement 1701 barring the spouse of a Catholic from succeeding to the throne, and the Royal Marriages Act 1772 prohibiting his marriage without the King’s consent. In addition, George Augustus Frederick was rumored to have fathered several illegitimate children. Plunged into ever increasing debt, his father refused to bail him out, unless he married his German cousin, Princess Caroline Amelia Elizabeth of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel.[52] In 1795, he obliged.[53] At the ceremony, he was drunk.[54] Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey, one of his mistresses, became Caroline’s Lady of the Bedchamber.[55] Utterly unsuited for one another, the couple formally separated after the birth of Princess Charlotte. In 1804, the Prince received custody of her.[56] His poor relationship with both parents and his immensely popular wife resulted in contempt of his subjects.
In 1820, George Augustus Frederick ascended to the throne as George IV. At the age of 57, he was obese and possibly addicted to laudanum.[57] After an unsuccessful attempt to divorce Caroline,[58] he excluded her from his lavish coronation.[59] His ministers perceived him as selfish and irresponsible.
Impeded by increasing physical and mental decay, George IV withdrew from public life. A senior aide noted in his diary: “A more contemptible, cowardly, selfish, unfeeling dog does not exist …. There have been good and wise kings but not many of them … and this I believe to be one of the worst.”[60] George IV died from the rupture of a blood vessel in his stomach.[61] Because his daughter, Charlotte, had died in 1817, and his younger brother Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, passed away childless in 1827, Prince William, Duke of Clarence, inherited the throne.
William IV
William Henry (1765 – 1837), the third son of George III, was 64 years old. He had a checkered past.
After joining the Royal Navy, William once was arrested after a drunken brawl in Gibraltar. When his identity became known,[62] he was hastily released. During the American War of Independence, when William was in New York, George Washington had approved a plot to kidnap him.[63] In the House of Lords, William opposed the abolition of slavery.
When William met the Irish actress Dorothea Jordan, he already had an illegitimate son. With her, he had ten more. Significantly indebted, however, William attempted to marry a wealthy heiress.[64] Among his limited options was the German Princess Adelaide Amelia Louise Theresa Caroline of Saxe-Meiningen. William wrote to his eldest son, “She is doomed, poor dear innocent young creature, to be my wife.”[65] During their first year of marriage, the couple lived in Germany.
Whereas Adelaide was deeply religious and took the crowning at Westminster Abbey very seriously, William loathed the ceremony, and acted like “a character in a comic opera”.[66] He reigned as William IV, and was nicknamed the “Sailor King.”[67] Although Buckingham Palace was undergoing major renovations, William IV tried to give the palace away; at first to the Army as barracks, and then to Parliament after the Houses of Parliament burned down in 1834.[68] In spite of his tactlessness and buffoonery, at a dinner he told the American ambassador that he regretted not being “born a free, independent American, so much did he respect that nation, which had given birth to George Washington, the greatest man that ever lived.”[69]
When a Belgian throne was created, William favored Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the German widower of his niece, Charlotte, as a candidate.[70] William IV also was rather fond of his niece, Princess Victoria of Kent. Guests at his final birthday banquet included the Princess and her mother. Expressing his hope to survive a few more months until the heiress presumptive was 18, and the Duchess of Kent would never be regent, he called the latter “surrounded by evil advisers and … incompetent to act with propriety in the situation in which she would be placed.”[71]
When he passed away without surviving legitimate children, she succeeded him in the United Kingdom. Because under Salic Law, however, a woman could not rule Hanover, the personal union of Britain and Hanover, which had persisted since 1714, ended. That Crown went to Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland, George III’s fifth son.
Princess Alexandrina Victoria (1819 – 1901) was the only child of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn and his German wife, Princess Marie Louise Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Edward was the fourth son of George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.[72] All four of his godparents were Germans: the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Duke Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Hereditary Princess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Landgravine of Hesse-Kassel. Initially, the Kents lived in Germany, too. One month before their daughter was born, however, they relocated to Kensington Palace. Edward died before Victoria was one year old, and his widow did not speak English.
Largely isolated, the so-called “Kensington System” rendered Victoria dependent.[73] Although warmly welcomed on trips to various parts of England and Wales, she disliked these incessant public appearances to expose her to the people. They made her as tired as sick.[74] Later on, she associated her childhood with being “rather melancholy.”[75]
At the age of 18, Victoria inherited the British throne. She, too, was a monarch of the House of Hanover. Before long, her mother was assigned remote quarters in Buckingham Palace. Victoria often refused to see her.[76]
In 1840, Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a first cousin from Germany. He, too, grew up bereaved. After his father’s infidelities, his mother, Louise Dorothea Pauline Charlotte Fredericka Auguste of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, had been exiled to Lichtenberg. She then had secretly married her former lover, Alexander von Hanstein, later Count of Pölzig and Beiersdorf, and passed away at the age of 30.
Although Victoria had haemophilia, and may have repeatedly suffered from postnatal depression,[77] she gave birth to nine children. Since 1840, various people tried to assassinate her while she was riding in a carriage.
When Albert died, at the age of 42,[78] comfort eating increased Victoria’s weight. She withdrew not only from public view, but she wore black for the rest of her life. Victoria’s ties to German aristocrats, however, persisted. Her correspondence reflected a consistent respect and fondness for the Battenberg family.
Victoria’s eldest daughter, Princess Royal Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa, married Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, who died three months later. Their son Wilhelm became Germany’s final Emperor. Victoria’s youngest child, Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore, married the German Prince Henry Maurice von Battenberg,[79] a morganatic descendant of the Grand Ducal House of Hesse, and her granddaughter, Princess Victoria Alberta Elizabeth Mathilde Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, married his brother, Prince Ludwig Alexander (Louis) of Battenberg,[80] who became the maternal grandfather of Prince Philip, later known as Duke of Edinburgh.
When the “grandmother of Europe” passed away in 1901, Albert Edward “Bertie,” her eldest son, and Kaiser Wilhelm II, her eldest grandson, were present.[81]
Edward VII
Albert Edward (1841 – 1910) succeeded Victoria as Edward VII.
As a son of Prince Albert, he also was Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke of Saxony. The fashionable Prince of Wales had never learned to speak English without a German accent.[82] Outbursts of temper and playing an illegal card game were mere flaws. Gossip that he had an affair with an Irish actress[83] had not only reached gentlemen’s clubs, but also the foreign press.[84] His father was so irate that he openly confronted him.
At the age of 21, “Bertie” married Princess Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia. She was a daughter of the German Princess Luise Wilhelmine Friederike Caroline Auguste Julie von Hessen-Kassel and Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, who later became King of Denmark. Nonetheless, throughout his marriage, Edward VII had a significant variety of mistresses. Among those was Alice Keppel, great-grandmother of Camilla Parker Bowles. Alexandra, a wildly popular queen, knew about her and others.
Heir apparent to the British throne for almost 60 years, “Bertie” travelled extensively. On a four-month tour through Canada and the United States, Edward VII spent three days with President James Buchanan at the White House, and in spite of widespread anti-Semitism at home, he openly socialized with Jews.[85] After habitually smoking twenty cigarettes and twelve cigars a day, the “Uncle of Europe”[86] suffered from bronchitis, and died after several heart attacks. As a final gesture, Alexandra allowed Keppel to visit him at his deathbed.[87]
George V
In 1910, George Frederick Ernest Albert (1865 – 1936), “Bertie’s” second son, ascended to the throne as George V. Neither he nor his older brother had impressed intellectually.[88] At the age of twelve, George joined the navy. In Japan, he got a blue and red dragon tattoo.[89]
When the newly minted Duke of York fell in love with his cousin, Princess Marie Alexandra Victoria of Edinburgh,[90] who had been a bridesmaid at the wedding of her aunt, Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg,[91] two women opposed the marriage. Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia did not want her daughter to live in England, and Alexandra, the Princess of Wales, felt that Marie’s family favored the Germans too much.
The Duke of York then married Princess Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes of Teck, whose father, Herzog Franz Paul Karl Ludwig Alexander of Teck, belonged to a cadet branch of the German House of Württemberg. Among the bridesmaids was congenitally deaf Princess Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie of Battenberg. Although born in the Tapestry Room of Windsor Castle,[92] Alice had been christened in Germany,[93] and spent much of her childhood in Darmstadt, Jugenheim, and Malta, where her father, Louis of Battenberg, was occasionally stationed. Alice was not only slow talking, she also had a speech impediment.
George V had five sons and a daughter. They were brought up by nannies, although the first one was dismissed for insolence, and the second for abusing the children. Prince Henry called George V a “terrible father.”[94] Biographer Harold Nicolson summarized: “He may be all right as a young midshipman and a wise old king, but when he was Duke of York … he did nothing at all but kill animals and stick in stamps.” (During ten days in Nepal, for instance, he shot 21 tigers, eight rhinoceroses and a bear,[95] and in six hours at Hall Barn more than one thousand pheasants.[96])
When touring British India, however, George V was dismayed by its racial discrimination, and he objected to the anti-Catholic wording of his Accession Declaration.
World War I laid bare some deeply personal conflicts. On August 4, 1914 George V noted in his diary, “I held a council at 10.45 to declare war with Germany. It is a terrible catastrophe but it is not our fault.”[97] For him, it was a somewhat precarious situation. Not only were most of Europe’s monarchs close relatives, but for many British Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II symbolized the horrors of war. The King and his own children were Prince or Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as well as Duke resp. Duchess of Saxony. Other close relatives, such as Queen Mary, his wife, descended of the German Dukes of Württemberg.
His cousin, née Prince Ludwig Alexander of Battenberg, was married to the German Princess Victoria Alberta Elizabeth Mathilde Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, the eldest daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Alice, Queen Victoria’s second daughter. Although appointed First Sea Lord in 1912, Battenberg was forced to retire from the British Navy. Ten years earlier,[98] in London for King Edward VII’s coronation, Battenberg’s deaf daughter Alice met Prince Andrew “Andrea,” the fourth son of King George I of Greece, née Prince William of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and Olga Constantinovna of Russia.[99] After marrying him,[100] Alice had followed him to Greece, and had five children with him.
When the empire of Tsar Nicholas II tumbled in 1917, anti-German sentiments in England had become sufficiently intense that his cousin, George V, was afraid that asylum for the Romanovs might be seen as inappropriate;[101] after all, Alexandra Feodorovna, née Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, the tsar’s wife, was from Germany. By June, when Greek King Constantine I, abdicated, Alice and other members of the royal family left for exile in Switzerland.[102]
At the request of King George V, Alice’s father relinquished the title Prince of Battenberg, and anglicized the name to Louis Mountbatten. Queen Mary’s brother, Prince Adolphus Charles Alexander Albert Edward George Philip Louis Ladislaus of Teck, became Duke Adolphus Cambridge. His brother, Prince Alexander Augustus Frederick William Alfred George of Teck, became Sir Alexander Cambridge.[103] On July 17, George V issued a proclamation that changed the name of his own family from House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor.[104] He also removed the Garter flags of his German relatives from St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.[105]
Alice’s German uncle, Ernst Ludwig Karl Albrecht Wilhelm, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, served at Kaiser Wilhelm’s headquarters. At the end of the war, the Kaiser abdicated, and the Grand Duke was deposed.[106] Royal relatives such as Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, and Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who fought on Germany’s side, had their British peerages suspended.
In March 1919, however, when the former Kaiser Karl Franz Joseph Ludwig Hubert Georg Otto Maria I and his family left Austria without explicit abdication, George V dispatched a lieutenant-colonel to escort them to Switzerland.[107] When Alice’s husband was arrested and banished, two years after an attempted return to Greece, a Royal Navy ship rescued him and his family.[108]
The political turmoil took its personal toll as well. Alice’s mental health declined. After converting to the Greek Orthodox Church in October 1928,[109] Alice began to claim to receive divine messages, and to have healing powers.[110] By 1930, she claimed to be in contact with Christ as well as Buddha, and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, not only by Thomas Ross, a psychiatrist who specialized in shell-shock, but also by Sir Maurice Craig, who treated King George VI before he obtained speech therapy.[111] After Ernst Simmel confirmed the diagnosis at his sanatorium in Tegel, Berlin, Alice was forcibly committed to the Ludwig Binswanger sanatorium in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland,[112] a well-respected institution that included other celebrities. Binswanger and Simmel consulted Sigmund Freud, who believed that her delusions were the result of sexual frustration. After two years, and a brief stay at a clinic in Merano, northern Italy, Alice began an incognito life, cutting ties with most of her family. As she and Prince Andrew were drifting apart, all four of their daughters married German princes.
Sophie, their youngest, was merely 16 years old when she married Christoph Ernst August, Prince of Hesse in December 1930. He was a nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and her second cousin, once removed. At the April 10, 1935 Berlin wedding of Hermann Wilhelm Goering, Sophie was prominently seated to face Hitler, the bride and groom.[113]
On April 20, 1931, Adolf Hitler’s 42nd birthday, Sophie’s sister, Margarita, married Gottfried Hermann Alfred Paul Maximilian Viktor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg,[114] a second cousin once removed. He was a son of of Ernst II, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and Princess Alexandra Louise Olga Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
In February 1931, Sophie’s sister, Cecilie, married Georg Donatus Wilhelm Nikolaus Eduard Heinrich Karl, Grand Duke of Hesse. He was the son of Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, and his second wife, Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich, and thus a first cousin once-removed.
In August 1931, Sophie’s sister, Theodora, married Berthold Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst August Heinrich Karl, the Margrave of Baden. He was the son of bisexual[115] Maximilian Alexander Friedrich Wilhelm of Baden and Princess Marie Louise of Hanover and Cumberland, and thus her paternal second-cousin. In 1933, Theodora brought Prince Philip, her 12-year-old brother, to Schloss Salem at Lake Constance, where her father-in-law had helped to establish a boarding school.[116] Before long, however, Philip was passed on to his uncles, George and Louis Mountbatten, and his grandmother, née Princess Victoria Alberta Elizabeth Mathilde Marie of Hesse and by Rhine.[117] Philip joined the Royal Navy.
In 1924, Princess Marie Alexandra Thyra Viktoria Luise Carola Hilda of Baden, sister of Berthold of Baden, had married her fourth cousin, Wolfgang Moritz of Hesse-Kassel-Rumpenheim. In 1933, Wolfgang joined the SA and the NSDAP.[118]
In 1925, the bisexual Prince Philipp of Hesse[119] married Princess Mafalda Maria Elisabetta Anna Romana of Savoy, a daughter of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. In 1930, he joined the NSDAP[120] and shortly thereafter the SA, where he was promoted to Obergruppenführer in 1938.[121] In 1933, his long-term friend,[122] Hermann Goering appointed him Oberpräsident (Governor) of the Hesse-Nassau Province. His mother, Margarethe Beatrice Feodora of Prussia,[123] a sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II, invited Adolf Hitler to tea, and flew the swastika at Schloss Kronberg.[124]
Although many British subjects began to perceive the aging King George V as mellowed and less aloof, his relationship with his eldest son deteriorated further. Not only was he disappointed in Edward’s failure to settle down, but appalled by his multiple affairs with married women.[125] Heavy smoking and a chronic bronchitis took its toll as well. After blood poisoning in 1928, his son Edward took over many of George V’s duties. Following the King’s death in 1936, German composer Paul Hindemith went to a BBC studio, and wrote Trauermusik (Mourning Music). It was performed that same evening in a live broadcast.[126]
Edward VIII
Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David (1894 – 1972), his eldest son, followed George V on the throne.
Private tutors had taught him German.[127] Compassion was not necessarily one of his strengths. When his youngest brother died after an epileptic seizure,[128] Edward called it “little more than a regrettable nuisance.”[129] Edward also felt that white people were superior;[130] and on a visit to Australia, he wrote of indigenous locals, “they are the most revolting form of living creatures I’ve ever seen!! They are the lowest known form of human beings & are the nearest thing to monkeys.”[131]
When Edward was dating Bessie Wallis Simpson, who grew up in Baltimore, MD, she had already divorced her first husband, but was still married to her second one. The affair created sufficient concerns that members of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch followed the couple to examine their relationship. According to an undated report, the owner of an antique shop felt “that the lady seemed to have POW [Prince of Wales] completely under her thumb.”[132]
Edward was not only impatient regarding court protocol, but he also disregarded constitutional conventions. Because it was obvious how little attention Edward paid to state papers, government ministers hesitated to send confidential material to Fort Belvedere. They were afraid that Simpson and/or others might read them, revealing government secrets.[133]
In August and September, Simpson and the King cruised the Eastern Mediterranean. Edward VIII knew, however, that marrying Simpson would have been incompatible with his status as head of the Church of England. In early December 1936, when news of their romance broke in the United Kingdom, Simpson was chauffeured to Southern France to outrun the press, and Edward VII abdicated. In a worldwide radio broadcast, he stated, “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.”
“Bertie,” his younger brother, who inherited the throne, made him the Duke of Windsor. He purchased Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle, Edward’s personal property, and he began to personally pay him an allowance. Nonetheless, after Edward married Wallis in 1937, he made daily calls to his brother, for more money and for his wife to be addressed “Royal Highness,” until the new King ordered staff to no longer put those through.[134]
Miffed or simply undeterred, the newlyweds toured National Socialist Germany, and met Adolf Hitler at his alpine Berghof. The Duke showed Nazi salutes.[135] Although he once assumed to return to Britain after a brief exile in France, King George VI, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth drew a line. Should Edward return to Britain without an invitation, his allowance would be cut off.[136] In September 1939, after German troops invaded Poland, and the British Empire and Commonwealth (not Ireland) declared war on National Socialist Germany, Louis Mountbatten brought the Duke and Duchess briefly back.
When Germany invaded northern France in May 1940, the Windsors left, and asked the Germans to guard their property. They obliged. After a few weeks in Biarritz, they headed for Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde’s Spain. In July, they moved to Portugal, until Edward was appointed Governor of the Bahamas. Apparently, the Duke’s racial attitude had not changed very much. About the editor of the Nassau Daily Tribune, he commented: “It must be remembered that [Étienne] Dupuch is more than half Negro, and due to the peculiar mentality of this Race, they seem unable to rise to prominence without losing their equilibrium.”[137] In letters to her aunt, his wife referred to locals as “lazy, thriving niggers.”[138]
After World War II ended, the exiled couple returned to France. In 1951, A King’s Story, the Duke’s ghost-written memoir, displayed more than his disagreement with liberal politics.[139] Traveling back and forth between Paris and New York, the Duke and Duchess became part of a café society. Until a 1965 agreement was reached with Queen Elizabeth, both planned to be buried at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where Wallis’s father was interred.[140] Having increasingly suffered from dementia, Wallis died in 1986, 14 years after her last husband. She was buried by his side, at Frogmore in Windsor.[141]
George VI
Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George “Bertie” of York (1895 – 1952) was not expected to inherit the throne, and lived in the shadow of his elder brother. He suffered not only from a brittle health but he was also described as “easily frightened and somewhat prone to tears.”[142] Although naturally left-handed, he had to write with his other hand. He had chronic stomach problems and knock knees, for which he wore painfully corrective splints.[143]
In spite of three months in the Mediterranean as a midshipman, “Bertie” still got seasick.[144] During World War I, he served in the Royal Navy. Three weeks after the War began, however, he was evacuated from a ship to have his appendix removed. Next, a duodenal ulcer required surgery.[145] During the final months of the war, he served in the Royal Air Force.
After ending his infatuation with Lady Loughborough, a married Australian socialite, the newly minted Duke of York began to pursue Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon. Having rejected “Bertie’s” proposal twice, she married him after all, and had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret. With speech therapy, Albert learned to better manage his stammer. The day before his brother’s abdication, Albert went to London to see his mother, Queen Mary. He confided in his diary, “When I told her what had happened, I broke down and sobbed like a child.”[146] Across Britain, gossip spread that “Bertie” was neither physically nor psychologically capable of handling the kingship. And yet, he ascended to the throne as George VI, and rose to multiple challenges.
After visiting the New York World’s Fair in 1939, the King and Queen joined President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House as well as at his private estate in Hyde Park, NY.[147] Their new bond was helping the United Kingdom during the ensuing war.
Had close ties to German relatives put a significant damper on the reign of George V and others during World War I, the Third Reich magnified those issues for George VI.
On May 1, 1937, Georg Donatus and Cecilie of Hesse also joined the National Socialist Party.[148] A few months later, when Cecilie, her husband, and their sons were killed in a plane crash, the 16-year old Prince Philip returned to Darmstadt. Photos of the funeral procession show him walking behind his sister’s coffin, flanked by officers in full SS regalia.
Also present was their mother, Alice. In 1938, she returned to Athens. Until the occupation of Athens by Axis forces in April 1941, Alice’s cousin, Prince Victor Sergej Heinrich Bruno Karl Prinz of Erbach-Schönberg, a son of Princess Marie Karoline of Battenberg, a writer and translator, served at Germany’s embassy in Greece. His mentally unstable brother, Maximilian, had died at the age of fourteen.[149] Helping to organize soup kitchens and shelters for orphaned or lost children, Alice worked for the Red Cross.
Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and his mother, the former Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1937.[150] A year later, Gottfried participated in the Anschluss of Austria.[151]
Prince Christoph Ernst August of Hesse was a director in the Ministry of Air Forces, Commander of the Air Reserves, and he held the rank of Oberführer in the SS.[152] On January 30, 1939 his brother, Prince Philipp of Hesse, received the Goldenes Parteiabzeichen der NSDAP.[153] Philipp became Hitler’s art-dealer, rivaling Goering in his frenzy to acquire significant Italian paintings for the planned Linz museum. And as governor of Hesse-Nassau, Philipp was complicit in the Aktion T4 euthanasia program.[154] In 1943, however, when King Victor Emmanuel, his father-in-law, ordered Benito Mussolini’s arrest, and publicly announced an armistice with the Allies, Philipp was imprisoned in the Flossenbuerg concentration camp. His wife, Princess Mafalda was taken to Buchenwald, where she died.
In 1943, after the Allied invasion of Italy, Prince Christoph of Hesse, an SS officer, was on his way back to Germany when his plane crashed.
Nonetheless, during the Blitz, Buckingham Palace was bombed while George VI and his wife were there, and in 1942, the King’s younger brother was killed on active duty. British bombing raids targeted Hesse palaces. In 1944, when Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke mentioned that every time he met Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, he thought the latter went after his job, George VI quipped: “You should worry, when I meet him, I always think he’s after mine!”[155] During the Victory in Europe celebrations in 1945, an appreciative crowd in front of Buckingham Palace chanted “We want the King!”
 On April 10-11, 1945, Coburg fell to the 11th Armored Division and the 71st Infantry Division. Captain William Marland meets German officials at the home of the Duke of Coburg to accept the surrender of the town. |
Behind the scenes, however, multiple issues began to reach a broader public. As Allied troops advanced through Germany, a wide variety of records were captured, interrogations intensified, and arrests were made. Among those caught early on were high-profile aristocrats.
 Questioned in Frankfurt on April 11, 1945: August Wilhelm von Hohenzollern, Prince of Prussia (1887-1949), the youngest son of Emperor Wilhelm II. The SA-Obergruppenführer, nicknamed Little Brown-Shirt Auwi, was arrested at his aunt Margarete’s castle in Kronberg, and sentenced to two-and a half years of Arbeitslager (work camp) |
In May 1945, U.S. troops in Marburg, Germany, captured documents indicating the Duke of Windsor’s sympathies for National Socialist ideology.[156]. The Marburg Files were published in the late 1950s.
 Wolfgang Moritz of Hesse-Kassel-Rumpenheim on June 14, 1945: In 1933, Hermann Goering had arranged for his position as County Executive. For his services in Finland, the major received the Freedom Cross 3rd Class. |
In 1947, after the South African government instructed George VI to shake hands only with whites,[157] he called his South African bodyguards “the Gestapo.”[158] At that point, his health declined further. His habitual smoking,[159] however, may have significantly contributed to his lung cancer, arteriosclerosis and Buerger’s disease. When George VI died of a coronary thrombosis, at the age of 56, his grieving widow blamed it – at least in part – on the stress that came with his unexpected reign.
Elizabeth II
When Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor (*1926), the first child of George VI, returned from Kenya in 1952, she was 25 years old, and suddenly Queen.
Elizabeth had learned to meet extraordinary expectations. At the age of two, Winston Churchill observed, “She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant.”[160] Although a video from 1933 shows her practicing a “Heil Hitler!” salute,[161] in “Children’s Hour,” her first recorded radio broadcast from 1940, the 14-year-old heir presumptive addressed other children who had been evacuated from cities: “We are trying to do all we can to help our gallant sailors, soldiers, and airmen, and we are trying, too, to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war. We know, every one of us, that in the end all will be well.”[162] In the Auxiliary Territorial Service, Elizabeth was trained as a driver and mechanic,[163] and while touring South Africa, she pledged, “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”[164]
In July 1939, at the age of 13, Elizabeth was smitten by Prince Philip,[165] a second cousin once removed. Naturally, their relationship was not without controversy. Elizabeth’s mother allegedly referred to him as “The Hun.”[166] Not only did he come from Germany, but his mother had been institutionalized.
During the American occupation after World War II, military authorities used Friedrichshof Castle in Kronberg, Hesse, as an officer’s club. Afraid of theft, family jewels, valued at over £2,000,000, were hastily buried in a sub-cellar. In early 1946, when Prince Philip’s widowed sister, Sophie, was planning to marry Prince Georg Wilhelm Ernst August Friedrich Axel of Hanover, her second cousin,[167] Princess Margaret, Landgravine of Hesse, wanted to use some of her jewels. They were gone.
In 1944, Prince Philip’s absentee father passed away. When Philip got engaged to Princess Elizabeth, he used some of his mother’s remaining jewels for the engagement ring.[168] Before their 1947 marriage, the Lieutenant not only converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, but he also adopted the English surname Mountbatten, and became the Duke of Edinburgh. His mother, Alice, attended their wedding. Due to anti-German sentiments in Britain, however, none of his sisters were invited.[169] The former King Edward VIII was not invited either.[170]
Intermittently, Philip was stationed at Malta from 1949 – 1951. When he and Elizabeth resided there, they lived at the limestone villa of Philip’s maternal uncle, Lord Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, formerly Prince Louis of Battenberg. Their children, Prince Charles and Princess Anne, remained in England. After the death of George VI in 1952, Queen Elizabeth and her husband moved into Buckingham Palace. Although Philip complained that “I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children,”[171] the Queen declared that the royal house would keep the name of Windsor, as Winston Churchill and Queen Mary, her grandmother, had suggested.
Race appears to have been a touchy subject. Archived papers show that Queen Elizabeth II’s chief financial manager told civil servants in 1968 that it was not palace practice to hire “coloured immigrants or foreigners” for clerical posts and other office jobs.[172] German relatives fared somewhat better. Philip’s sister Margarita, for example, attended the 1953 coronation of Elizabeth II. In June 1961, Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg attended a reception in honor of US President John F. Kennedy at Buckingham Palace.[173] At that point, Philip also felt more free to attend German family events. An AP photo from April 4, 1962 showed Princess Margarita of Hesse greeting him and Prince Charles at the Frankfurt airport, for a family visit. Two years later, Philip’s youngest sister, Sophie, served not only as godmother of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, but she became a frequent visitor. And after the imposition of Greek military rule in 1967, the Queen invited her mother-in-law to join the family at Buckingham Palace. Alice passed away in 1969.[174] Largely shrouded in silence, however, remained the early deaths of Philip’s German nephews, Rupprecht Sigismund Philipp Ernst of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and his twin, Albrecht Wolfgang Christoph.
During the 1981 Trooping the Color, a 17-year-old fired six shots at the Queen from close range. A few months later, another 17-year-old fired at her. In 1982, she found an intruder in her bedroom, and the end of the 1980s, she Queen was targeted by satire.[175]
Charles
Louis Mountbatten once advised Prince Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor:
“In a case like yours, the man should sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down, but for a wife he should choose a suitable, attractive, and sweet-charactered girl before she has met anyone else she might fall for … It is disturbing for women to have experiences if they have to remain on a pedestal after marriage.”[176]
One of the women Charles dated was Elizabeth Sarah Lavinia Spencer. According to The Scotsman, Sarah suffered from anorexia.[177] Her gangly, younger sister was named Frances after their mother, and Diana after a distant relative, once a prospective Princess of Wales.[178] Diana Spencer was seven years old when her parents divorced.[179] Her relationship with Raine, her stepmother, was rough. Diana called her stepmother a “bully” and “pushed her down the stairs”.[180] Later on, she described her childhood not only as “very unhappy,” but also “very unstable.”[181] Academically, Diana did not excel either. She left school, and worked a string of low-paying jobs that included cleaning for her older sister.
When the heir apparent got engaged to Diana, paparazzi began to follow her. After falling down a staircase at Sandringham in 1982, twelve weeks into her first pregnancy, she confessed that she had intentionally thrown herself down because she felt “so inadequate.”[182] A few months later, she suffered from postpartum depression.[183] External problems aggravated the situation. In 1983, Christopher John Lewis, who had fired at the Queen in 1981, tried to escape a psychiatric facility to assassinate Charles, who was visiting New Zealand with Diana and William.[184] On Australia Day in 1994, fired twice at Charles.[185]
The couple’s extramarital affairs made headlines. When Diana confirmed mental health problems, she talked about a “rampant bulimia,” as well as mutilating her arms and legs.[186] As a result, some biographers felt that she had Borderline Personality Disorder.[187] By going public about her marital problems and bulimia, she gained empathy from others, who were unhappy in their own relationships and from those with psychological disorders.
Diana also publicly doubted whether Charles “could adapt to” being king.[188] According to Sarah Bradford, Diana looked down on the House of Windsor, whom she called “jumped-up foreign princelings” or simply “the Germans.”[189]
The couple divorced in 1996. In “Diana: the myth, 10 years on,” Peter Conrad wrote,
she was shedding official encumbrances by auctioning off dresses worn on stuffy ceremonial occasions. The decision to de-acquisition the frocks was telling: royalty for Diana was about costume, not constitutional duty. … No longer relying on rank and its haughty distance, she had begun to perform for our amusement, like every other celebrity.
She shimmied and writhed as [Mario] Testino directed and wistfully pouted to simulate sadness. … Diana, mercurially moody, had turned into a series of happenings, reinventing herself every time she changed hairstyles or lovers.”
Whereas Diana’s sudden death highlighted her vulnerabilities, Charles carried on. In 1998, he brought both of his sons to Canada, where they participated in the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.[190] In 2005, Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles. On December 31, 2008, John Swaine described him in the The Daily Telegraph as the “hardest-working member of the royal family.” That year alone, Charles carried out 560 official engagements. He is also patron of over 400 charities and other organizations.
Financially, both of his sons were well cared for. The Times reported that on their respective 21st birthdays, the brothers shared a payment of £4.9 million from trust funds established by the Queen’s mother, and another £8 million would follow on their respective 40th birthdays.[191] On their respective 30th birthdays, Harry and his brother William also inherited the bulk of their mother’s wealth, which in 2014 amounted to £10 million each.[192]
Megxit
In November 2017, the Prince of Wales announced Harry’s engagement to American divorcée, Rachel Meghan Markle. Her Caucasian father, Thomas Markle Sr., worked as a director of photography and lighting. Her mother is an African American. When Meghan’s parents divorced, she was six years old.[193] Although she interned at the American embassy in Buenos Aires, contemplating a political career,[194] she did not score high enough in the Foreign Service Officer Test to proceed with the US State Department.[195] Instead, Meghan pursued acting.
While Deutsche Welle looked into Meghan’s “German roots,” she was planning to become a British citizen.[196] A biracial member joining the royal family prompted many positive comments.[108] Not only do Commonwealth populations have blended ancestry,[109] but also some 13 per cent of the United Kingdom, and the Sovereign Grant report listed 8.5 per cent of palace employees as such.
Prior to the 2018 wedding, Meghan joined the Church of England. The Queen awarded Harry the titles Duke of (English) Sussex, Earl of (Scottish) Dumbarton and Baron (of Irish) Kilkeel. That made Meghan Duchess of Sussex, Countess of Dumbarton and Baroness Kilkeel. Time magazine listed her among the 100 Most Influential People in the World.[197]
The bride came not without controversy, however. Her estranged father and his children from a previous marriage caused quite a raucous.[198] When the publicity-hungry retiré declined to walk his daughter down the aisle, Prince Charles stepped in. He also paid the couple a generous allowance.
Palace staffers, however, complained about being bullied.[199] Because of a bigger carbon footprint, environmentalists criticized the couple for using private jets to take personal trips abroad, instead of commercial planes. The Telegraph chided Meghan for wearing earrings from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, after he was accused of complicity in the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi.[200]
Quoting Viscountess Julie Montagu, Stephanie Nolasco headlined, “Meghan Markle couldn’t ‘switch off that American dream.’”[201] Before long, Harry and Meghan announced to “step back” as senior members of the royal family. At that time, 95% of their income originated in the £2.3 million that Prince Charles allotted them annually from his own Duchy of Cornwall income.[202] According to the Clarence House review, during the previous financial year Charles provided the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with £5.6 million.[203] In 2020, The Daily Telegraph estimated Harry’s personal wealth at £30 million.[204]
Meghan began to talk about royal life and public pressure. When Oprah Winfrey interviewed Harry and his wife for a CBS special, broadcast on March 7, 2021, the Duchess even mentioned contemplating suicide and a perceived lack of protection. The Prince reminisced that his father at one point “stopped taking my calls.” On May 3, 2021, Ashley Fetters and Heather Kelly headlined their Washington Post article, “Meghan and Harry are becoming your typical American mega-celebrities.” According to news, however, Harry is afraid of a limited personal shelf-life. For ghost-written memoirs with a focus on Diana, he scored a 20-million dollar advance. A Baltimore lawyer already purchased Princess Diana’s bicycle for $80,000.[205]
Royal attempts to make amends
In 1992, during a reconciliatory state visit to Germany, commemorating the Allied Dresden air raids, demonstrators booed, and one tossed eggs towards the Queen. Two years later, when Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial institution, recognized Prince Philip’s mother as a “Righteous Among the Nations,” he and his sister attended. Alice, née Battenberg, had sheltered Rachel Cohen, a Jewish widow, and two of her five children.[206]
In 2013, Prince Charles travelled to Germany to spend time with his father’s family. He went to Langenburg Castle, where he spoke at a symposium organized by Phillipp Gottfried Alexander of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a grand-nephew of the Duke of Edinburgh. He also met Bernhard, Hereditary Prince of Baden, grandson of the duke’s sister Theodora.
One year later, Prince Philip’s cousin, Donatus, Landgrave of Hesse, attended the Royal Windsor Horse Show in Home Park. When the Queen and her husband went to Germany for a state visit in 2015, Donatus gave a formal dinner for them in Frankfurt. In 2016, he arrived in Windsor to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday. Three years later, at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in Home Park, photos showed her chatting with him. In 2017, ahead of his 70th Windsor wedding anniversary, Philip was spotted riding in a carriage with Maximilian, Margrave of Baden, his 87-year-old nephew.
At Philip’s funeral, on April 17, 2021, some were surprised to see three of his German relatives, representing cousins, nieces, nephews and others grieving their loss – Prince Donatus, Landgrave of Hesse, Bernhard, Hereditary Prince of Baden, and Prince Philipp of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. The latter told the Daily Mail: “It really is an incredible honour, and we are all extremely touched and privileged to be included.” In an April 9 article of The Telegraph, Justin Huggler summarized, “For decades Prince Philip had to keep his relationship with his German relatives out of the public eye, but in his final years he was able to be seen in public with his cousins, with whom he had privately always been close.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, media reminded the public that Hitler’s National Socialist Party included 14 Hesses and nine Coburgs. On June 12, 2021 Lanford Beard explained in People, “Why the Queen Chose [Edward,] the Duke of Kent” as her sole Trooping the Colour companion. On July 19, 2015 VANESSA ALLEN wrote in THE DAILY MAIL, “An explosive Channel 4 documentary is set to reveal details of how Prince Philip’s sister met and admired Adolf Hitler, whom she described as a ‘charming and seemingly modest man’.”
Penny Mountbatten’s marriage to Lord Ivar Mountbatten ended over a decade ago. On August 4, 2021, when she announced in The Telegraph, “Why, like Melinda Gates, I kept my husband’s name after our divorce,” she felt free to include, “Ivar is now happily married to James, but he still calls me his wife because he’ll never have another.” Three days later, Jon Ungoed-Thomas headlined in The Telegraph, “Margaret Thatcher insisted Lord Mountbatten’s diaries be made public.”[207]
With bombshells like these, shifts along the Queen’s immediate Homefront might not surprise either. Whereas Victoria Ward announced, “Prince Andrew quietly removed as patron of almost 50 organisations,”[208] Nate Day headlined, “Queen Elizabeth II ‘cautiously’ inviting Sarah Ferguson to royal events.”[209]
O May 25, 2021 Guy Kelly headlined his article in The Telegraph, “With his scruffy country gent style, the Prince of Wales has never looked more at home.” In the text, he noted, “It’s Farmer Charlie, and he’s even caught in the process of hedge-laying” on his mother’s Sandringham Estate. Two days later, Victoria Ward announced in The Telegraph, “The Prince was in high spirits yesterday as he pulled a pint of bitter at the Prince of Wales pub in Clapham Old Town, south London, which has recently reopened after lockdown.” And in California, infants Archie Mountbatten-Windsor and Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor carry on more than the family’s German heritage.
[1] John, Elton. “Prince Harry.” In: Time, 2018.
[2] Majendie, Paul. “Prince Harry: Wild child turned war hero.” In: Reuters, Feb. 29, 2008.
[3] “Harry says sorry for Nazi costume.” In: BBC News. London, Jan. 13, 2005.
[4] Harrison, David and Swaine, Jon. “Prince Harry’s ‘Paki’ comments ‘completely unacceptable,’ says David Cameron.” In: The Daily Telegraph, Jan. 11, 2009.
[5] Maley, Jacqueline. “£45,000 damages for teacher who accused Prince Harry of cheating.” In: The Guardian, Feb. 14, 2006.
[6] “Naked Prince Harry photos published online.” In: BBC News, Aug. 22, 2012.
[7] Samuelson, Kate. “How Princes William and Harry Are Carrying on Causes Close to Princess Diana’s Heart.” In: Time magazine, Aug. 25, 2017.
[8] Furness, Hannah. “Prince Harry: I sought counselling after 20 years of not thinking about the death of my mother, Diana, and two years of total chaos in my life.” In: The Telegraph – via www.telegraph.co.uk, Apr. 16, 2017.
[9] Ballhaus, Louisa. “Prince William & Kate Middleton Seem Eager to Prove Prince Harry Wrong About Royal Duty.” In: SheKnows, May 27, 2021.
[10] Mizoguchi, Karen and Perry, Simon. “Prince Harry on How Meghan Markle Inspired His Therapy: ‘I Was Going to Lose This Woman’.” In: People, May 20, 2021.
[11] Mizoguchi, Karen and Perry, Simon. “Prince Harry on How Meghan Markle Inspired His Therapy: ‘I Was Going to Lose This Woman’.” In: People, May 20, 2021.
[12] Mizoguchi, Karen and Perry, Simon. “Prince Harry on How Meghan Markle Inspired His Therapy: ‘I Was Going to Lose This Woman’.” In: People, May 20, 2021.
[13] Through her mother, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, Sophia was the granddaughter of King James I of England. (For details see: Weir, Alison. Britain’s Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy, Revised edition. New York: Random House, 1996, pp. 272–276.)
[14] Although denied access to her children and father, prevented from remarrying, and allowed only to walk unaccompanied within the mansion’s courtyard, Sophia Dorothea had an income, servants, and if supervised, she could ride in a carriage. For details see: Hatton, Ragnhild. George I: Elector and King. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978 pp. 60–64.
[15] Monod, Paul Kleber. Jacobitism and the English People, 1688–1788. Cambridge University Press 1993, pp. 173–178.
[16] Plumb, John Harold. The First Four Georges. London: Batsford, 1956.
[17] Hatton, p. 291.
[18] Hatton, p. 29.
[19] Trench, Charles Chevenix: George II. London: Allen Lane, 1975, p. 77.
[20] Trench, p. 78.
[21] Van der Kiste, John. George II and Queen Caroline. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1997, p. 66.
[22] Van der Kiste, pp. 66–67.
[23] Gibbs, G. C. “George I (1660–1727).” In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press 2004.
[24] Trench, p. 55.
[25] Van der Kiste, John. George II and Queen Caroline. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing 1997, p. 17.
[26] Thompson, Andrew C. George II: King and Elector. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011, p. 92.
[27] Trench, p. 153.
[28] Trench, pp.140, 152.
[29] Thompson, pp. 7, 64.
[30] Van der Kiste, p. 61.
[31] Thompson, pp. 85–86.
[32] Trench, pp. 182–184.
[33] Van der Kiste, p. 153.
[34] Van der Kiste, pp. 155–157.
[35] Van der Kiste, p. 158.
[36] Trench, p. 199.
[37] Van der Kiste, p. 165.
[38] Horace Walpole’s memoirs, vol. I, p. 152, quoted in Thompson, p. 213 and Trench, p. 250.
[39] Thompson, p. 275.
[40] Nicholls, Frank. “Observations concerning the body of His Late Majesty.” In: 1761, Philosophical Transactions London, volume 52, pp. 265–274.
[41] Thompson, p. 290.
[42] Best, Nicholas. The Kings and Queens of England. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995, p. 71.
[43] Charlemont quoted in Trench, p. 299.
[44] Hibbert, Christopher. George III: A Personal History. London: Penguin Books, 1999, p. 394
[45] Röhl, John C. G.; Warren, Martin; Hunt, David. Purple Secret: Genes, “Madness” and the Royal Houses of Europe. London: Bantam Press, 1998 .
[46] “What was the truth about the madness of George III?” In: BBC News Apr. 15, 2013.
[47] Hibbert, p. 396.
[48] Hibbert, pp. 399–402.
[49] Hibbert, p. 408.
[50] Smith, E.A. George IV. Yale University Press, 1999, p. 48.
[51] Smith, E. A., p. 33.
[52] The somewhat undereducated, and socially extremely isolated princess had suffered from her parents’ poor marriage. Her mother resented Baroness Luise von Hertefeld, her husband’s official mistress, and Caroline was tired of being a “shuttlecock” between her parents, being scolded whenever she was civil to one of them. For details see: Fraser, Flora. The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline. New York: Anchor Books, 2009.
[53] Legally, his marriage remained void, for the King’s consent was neither requested nor granted. (See: Smith, E. A., pp. 36–38.)
[54] Plowden, Alison. Caroline and Charlotte: Regency Scandals 1795–1821. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 2005, p. 26.
[55] Plowden, pp. 20–22.
[56] Princess Charlotte married the German Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and she died after giving birth to a stillborn son.
[57] Hibbert, Christopher. “George IV (1762–1830).” In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
[58] After Caroline left Britain for Italy in 1814, gossip was everywhere. Caroline was accused of adultery with Bartolomeo Pergami, an Italian low-born man whom she had initially hired as a servant.
[59] Caroline fell ill that day and died three weeks thereafter. She thought, she had been poisoned. (See: Innes, Arthur Donald. A History of England and the British Empire, Vol. 4. The MacMillan Company, 1915, p. 82.)
[60] Baker, Kenneth. “George IV: a Sketch.” In: History Today. 2005, vol. 55 (issue 10): pp. 30–36.
[61] Smith, E.A., p. 275.
[62] Ziegler, Philip. King William IV. London: Collins, 1971, p. 33.
[63] George Washington writing to Colonel Ogden on March 28, 1782, quoted in Ziegler, p. 39.
[64] Ziegler, pp. 99–100.
[65] Letter to George FitzClarence from March 21, 1818, quoted in Ziegler, p. 122.
[66] Allen, W. Gore. King William IV. London: Cresset Press, 1960, p. 131.
[67] On June 29, 1837, a staff member of The Times, UK wrote on p. 5 under “Will of his late Majesty William IV,” “ever since the accession of our sailor King…”.
[68] Somerset, Anne. The Life and Times of William IV. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980, p. 110–122.
[69] Ziegler, p. 292.
[70] Ziegler, p. 227.
[71] Somerset, p. 209.
[72] Edward was the first member of the royal family to live in North America for more than a short visit (1791–1800).
[73] Hibbert, pp. 27–28.
[74] Hibbert, pp. 35–40.
[75] Hibbert, Christopher (ed.). Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals, London: John Murray, 1984, p. 19.
[76] Longford, Elizabeth. Victoria R.I. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964, p. 72.
[77] Matthew, H. C. G. and Reynolds, K. D. “Victoria (1819–1901).” In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004.
[78] Although contemporary diagnosis was typhoid fever, later writers pointed out that Albert’s being ill for at least two years might indicate Crohn’s disease, kidney failure, or abdominal cancer instead.
[79] In 1214, a branch of the Wittgenstein family began calling themselves “Counts of Battenberg.” Today, Battenberg, a small town in today’s Waldeck-Frankenberg district of Hesse, Germany, is possibly best known for the Battenberg (Anglicized Mountbatten) family.
[80] Through a morganatic marriage to Countess Julia Hauke, named Princess of Battenberg by Grand Duke of Hesse Louis III in 1858, Louis was the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine. His daughter Louise became Queen of Sweden, his son George Marquess of Milford Haven, and his son Louis Earl Mountbatten of Burma.
[81] Longford, p. 561.
[82] Ensor, R. C. K. England, 1870–1914. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936, p. 343.
[83] Hibbert, p. 274.
[84] Hobhouse, Hermione. Prince Albert: His Life and Work. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1983, p. 152; Weintraub, Stanley. Albert: Uncrowned King. London: John Murray, 1997, p. 406.
[85] Allfrey, Anthony. King Edward VII and His Jewish Court. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991.
[86] See: Edward VII. Official website of the British Monarchy, Jan. 11, 2016.
[87] Battiscombe, Georgina. Queen Alexandra. London: Constable, 1969, p. 271.
[88] Clay, Catrine. King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War. London: John Murray, 2006, p. 39.
[89] Rose, Kenneth. King George V. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983, p. 13.
[90] As daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, Marie had lived in Kent and the British Crown Colony of Malta, where she had a German governess. When the childless Ernest II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha passed away, and the Prince of Wales renounced his rights to this duchy, Alfred inherited it, and relocated to Coburg with his family.
[91] Prince and Princess Henry of Battenberg with their bridesmaids and others on their wedding day. London: National Portrait Gallery.
[92] Vickers, Hugo. “Alice, Princess (1885–1969).” In: National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 19.
[93] Her six godparents included Queen Victoria, her maternal great-grandmother, and five German relatives; Alice’s three surviving grandparents: Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse, Prince Alexander Ludwig Georg Friedrich Emil of Hesse and by Rhine, and his wife, Julia, the former Countess Therese Salomea of Hauke; Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, the former Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine – her maternal aunt, and Princess Marie Karoline of Erbach-Schönberg, her paternal aunt.
[94] Vickers, Hugo. The Quest for Queen Mary. London: Zuleika, 2018, ch. 18.
[95] Rose, p. 136.
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[97] Nicolson, Sir Harold. King George the Fifth: His Life and Reign, London: Constable and Co, 1952, p. 247.
[98] Vickers, Hugo. Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2000, p. 52.
[99] Olga was the eldest daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg, fifth daughter of Joseph Georg Friedrich Ernst Karl, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg and Duchess Amelia of Württemberg.
[100] Their Darmstadt wedding served as one of the great gatherings of Queen Victoria’s descendants. Following a civil ceremony, a Lutheran service was held in the Evangelical Castle Church, and a Greek Orthodox one in the Russian Chapel on Mathildenhöhe. For details about this chapel, a personal possession of Alexandra Feodorovna, Alice’s maternal aunt (nee Alix of Hesse), and her husband, Nicholas II of Russia, see: Seide, Georg. Die Russische Orthodoxe Kirche der Hl. Maria Magdalena auf der Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt. Munich: Russische Orthodoxe Kirche im Ausland, 1997, p. 2.
[101] Nicolson, p. 301.
[102] Van der Kiste, John. Kings of the Hellenes. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Alan Sutton Publishing, England, 1994, pp. 96 ff.
[103] Rose, pp. 174–175.
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[105] Rose, p. 173.
[106] Vickers (2000), pp. 137–138.
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[110] Vickers (2000), p. 200.
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[112] Vickers (2000), p. 209.
[113] Captured by the 101st Airborne Division in May, 1945, the Prussian Consul of State originally presented the guestbook to Goering as a wedding gift. Photos are available at the US Library of Congress.
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[123] In 1926, Princess Margaret Beatrice Feodora of Prussia, a first cousin of King George V, and her husband, Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse, had assumed the titles of Landgrave and Landgravine of Hesse.
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[137] Ziegler (1991), p. 448.
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[144] Judd, Denis. King George VI. London: Michael Joseph, 1982, p. 186.
[145] Bradford, Sarah. King George VI. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989, pp. 55–76.
[146] Wheeler-Bennett, p. 286.
[147] The Times, June 12, 1939, p. 12 col. A.
[148] Petropoulos, Jonathan. Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany. Oxford University Press, 2006, 382.
[149] See: Marie of Erbach-Schönberg. Memoirs of Princess Marie of Erbach-Schönberg, Princess of Battenberg, 1852–1923, Lorsch/Hessen: Buchdruckerei B. Lais, 1958.
[150] Klee, Ernst. Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 2007, p. 261.
[151] Petropoulos 2006, p. 93.
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[154] In February 1941, Philipp placed the Hadamar Clinic in the hands of the Reich Interior Ministry. As a result, almost 15,000 – mostly mentally ill – people were killed there.
[155] Reagan, Geoffrey. The Guiness Book of Military Anecdotes. Abbeville Press, 1992, p. 25.
[156] Miller, Julie. “The Crown: Edward’s Alleged Nazi Sympathies, Explored.” In: Vanity Fair, Dec. 9, 2017.
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[158] Rhodes, p. 294.
[159] Judd, Denis. King George VI. London: Michael Joseph, 1982, p. 240.
[160] Brandreth, Gyles: Philip and Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage. London: Century, 2004, p. 105.
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[162] BBC, Oct. 13, 1940.
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[167] Georg was a younger son of Ernest Augustus III, Duke of Brunswick, and Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, the daughter of Wilhelm II.
[168] Vickers (2000), p. 326.
[169] Hoey, Brian. Her Majesty: Fifty Regal Years. London: Harper Collins 2002, p. 59.
[170] Bradford, Sarah. Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Our Times. London: Penguin, 2012, p. 61.
[171] Bradford, p. 80.
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[173] Vickers 2000, p. 370.
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[177] “Life of luxury stripped sparse by tragedy.” In: The Scotsman. Edinburgh June 4, 2004.
[178] After Lady Diana Spencer was orphaned at the age of six, she joined the household of her wealthy grandmother, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, who tried but failed to arrange a marriage between “dear little Di” and King George II’s eldest son.
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[190] “Royal Visit 2001” See: Past Royal Tours.
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[201] Fox News from July 23, 2021.
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[206] Approximately 60,000 out of 75,000 Greek Jews were deported to concentration camps, where all but 2,000 perished. See: Bowman, Stephen. “Jews.” In: Clogg, Richard (ed.). Minorities in Greece, London: Hurst & Co., 2002, pp. 64–80.
[207] The Mountbatten papers are part of 4,500 boxes which include Lord Palmerston’s papers and 1,200 letters from Queen Victoria.
[208] The Telegraph May 15, 2021.
[209] Fox News Aug. 10, 2021.