Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone

Princess Alice Countess of Athlone As Viceregal consort of CanadaSpouse Alexander, Earl of AthloneIssue Lady May Abel Smith
Rupert, Viscount Trematon
Prince Maurice of TeckFull name Alice Mary Victoria Augusta Pauline DetailTitles and styles HRH Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone
HRH Princess Alice, Lady Cambridge
HRH Princess Alexander of Teck
HRH Princess Alice of Albany Royal house House of Windsor
House of Saxe-Coburg-GothaFather Prince Leopold, Duke of AlbanyMother Princess Helena of Waldeck and PyrmontBorn 25 February 1883(1883-02-25)
Windsor Castle, BerkshireBaptised 26 March 1883
St George's Chapel, WindsorDied 3 January 1981(aged 97)
Kensington Palace, LondonBurial Frogmore, Windsor

Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone (Alice Mary Victoria Augusta Pauline; née Princess Alice of Albany; 25 February 1883 – 3 January 1981) was a member of the British Royal Family, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She has the distinction of remaining the longest lived Princess of the Blood Royal of the British Royal Family and last surviving grandchild of Queen Victoria and the longest living member of the royal family to be a Princess of the blood. She also held the titles of Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duchess in Saxony from birth as well as a Princess of Teck by marriage until 1917 when she was commanded to relinquish them by the Letters Patent of George V.

1 Early life
2 Marriage and issue
3 1917
4 World War II
5 Royal duties
6 Later life
7 Titles, styles, honours and arms
8 Trivia
9 Ancestry
10 External links
11 References

Early life

Princess Alice was born on 25 February 1883 at Windsor Castle. Her father was Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, the youngest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Her mother was Princess Helena of Waldeck-Pyrmont. She had one brother, Prince Charles, Duke of Albany, 1884-1954 and later reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1900-1918). As the granddaughter of the Sovereign, through the male line, she was a Princess of the United Kingdom and a Royal Highness. As the daughter of the Duke of Albany, she was, therefore, styled Her Royal Highness Princess Alice of Albany. She was baptised in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle on 26 March 1883 and her godparents were Queen Victoria, the Empress and Crown Princess of Germany, the Princess of Waldeck-Pyrmont, the Duchess of Cambridge, the Hereditary Princess of Bentheim, the Prince of Wales, the King of the Netherlands, the Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Prince Wilhelm of Württemberg.

Marriage and issue

On 10 February 1904, Princess Alice of Albany married her second cousin once removed, Prince Alexander of Teck, the brother of Queen Mary, in St George's Chapel, Windsor. Upon marriage Princess Alice was styled HRH Princess Alexander of Teck.

Prince and Princess Alexander of Teck had three children:

Name Birth Death Notes Lady May Cambridge 23 January 1906 29 May 1994Married 1931to Henry Abel Smith; had issue Rupert Cambridge, Viscount Trematon 24 April 1907 15 April 1928Died in a car crash Prince Maurice of Teck 29 March 1910 14 September 1910

Like her grandmother Queen Victoria, Princess Alice was also a carrier of haemophilia, which she had inherited from her father who himself was a sufferer. Her eldest son Rupert inherited the disease from her and this led to his early death in a car accident.

1917

When the British royal family abandoned all Germanic titles by Letters Patent issued by King George V in June 1917, Prince Alexander of Teck adopted the surname Cambridge, became (briefly) Sir Alexander Cambridge, then the Earl of Athlone, relinquishing the title "Prince of Teck" in the Kingdom of Württemberg and the style Serene Highness. As such, the two surviving children lost their Württemberg princely titles. Princess Alice relinquished her titles of Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duchess of Saxony, whilst her brother Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who held a commission in the German army, was stripped of his British titles. Alice remained, however, a Princess of Great Britain and Ireland and a Royal Highness in her own right, as granddaughter of Queen Victoria in the male-line. From June 1917 until her death, she was styled Her Royal Highness Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone.

British Royalty House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Descendants of Prince AlbertGrandchildren Alfred of Edinburgh Marie of Edinburgh Victoria of Edinburgh Alexandra of Edinburgh Beatrice of Edinburgh Margaret of Connaught Arthur of Connaught Patricia of Connaught Alice of Albany Carl Eduard, Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha

World War II

Princess Alice c. 1942

Princess Alice accompanied her husband to Canada where he served as Governor General from 1940-1946. He had also served as Governor-General of South Africa from 1924-1931. During their time in South Africa, Lord and Lady Athlone had a coastal beach house constructed at Muizenberg, which still stands today and is one of South Africa's national monuments. The Cape Town Suburb of Athlone was named in honour of the Governor-General and, together with the beach house, is also the only physical reminder of the Athlones' residence at the Cape. At the end of World War II, the American Military Government in Bavaria, under the command of General George S. Patton, arrested and imprisoned Alice's brother, Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, (who served as a member of the Reichstag from 1937 to 1945), because of his Nazi sympathies. Alice, learning of her brother's incarceration, came to Germany with her husband to plead with his American captors for his release. They would not yield, and in 1946, he was sentenced by a de-nazification court, heavily fined and almost bankrupted.[1][2]

Royal duties

In her lifetime, Princess Alice carried out many royal duties. She attended the coronations of four monarchs: Edward VII, George V, George VI, and Elizabeth II. She was also the Colonel in Chief of two British army units and one Rhodesian army unit. In 1950, she became the first Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (then the University College of the West Indies).

Later life

The Earl of Athlone died in 1957 at Kensington Palace in London. Princess Alice lived on there until 1981, when she died at age 97 years and 312 days. At her death she was the longest-lived British Princess of the Blood Royal and the last surviving grandchild of Queen Victoria. However The Queen Mother later became the longest-lived member-by-marriage of the British Royal Family until her sister-in-law Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester broke the record, living even longer beyond her 100th birthday.

Her funeral took place in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, attended by all members of the Royal Family. She is buried alongside her husband and son in the private British royal burial grounds at Frogmore, directly behind the mausoleum of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, in Windsor Great Park. Her daughter and son-in-law are also buried close by.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Styles of
Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone Reference style Her Royal HighnessSpoken style Your Royal Highness Alternative style Ma'am

Titles and styles

25 February 1883 – 10 February 1904: Her Royal Highness Princess Alice of Albany
10 February 1904 – 14 July 1917: Her Royal Highness Princess Alexander of Teck
14 July 1917 – July 1917: Her Royal Highness Princess Alice, Lady Cambridge
July 1917 – 3 January 1981: Her Royal Highness Princess Alice of Albany, Countess of Athlone

Honours

Princess Alice's coat of arms

Arms

As a granddaughter of Queen Victoria in the male line, Princess Alice was entitled to use the Royal Arms, with a 5 point label as a difference, the central point bearing a cross gules, the others hearts gules.

Until George V's warrant of 1917, her arms, like all those of Prince Albert's British royal descendants, bore an inescutcheon for Saxony.[3]

Trivia

She was godmother to Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

In 1953 when visiting Eastbourne, she was conveyed around in a Rolls Royce owned by suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams.[4]

She was the last grandchild of Queen Victoria to pass away, doing so in January 1981, almost 115 years after Queen Victoria's first grandchild, Prince Sigismund of Prussia, passed away in June 1866.

Ancestry

v • d • eAncestors of Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone 16. Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld 8. Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha 17. Princess Augusta Reuss of Ebersdorf 4. Albert, Prince Consort 18. Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg 9. Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg 19. Duchess Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin 2. Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany 20. George III of the United Kingdom 10. Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn 21. Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz 5. Victoria of the United Kingdom 22. Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld(= 16) 11. Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld 23. Princess Augusta Reuss of Ebersdorf(= 17) 1. Princess Alice of Albany 24. George I, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont 12. George II, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont 25. Princess Auguste of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen 6. George Victor, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont 26. Victor II, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym 13. Princess Emma of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym 27. Princess Amelie of Nassau-Weilburg 3. Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont 28. Frederick William, Duke of Nassau 14. William, Duke of Nassau 29. Louise Isabelle of Kirchberg 7. Princess Helena of Nassau 30. Prince Paul of Württemberg 15. Princess Pauline of Württemberg 31. Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Hildburghausen

v • d • e British princessesThe generations indicate descent from George Iwho formalised the use of the titles prince and princess for members of the British Royal Family. Where a princess may have been or is descended from George I more than once her most senior descent, by which she bore or bears her title, is used. 1st Generation

Sophia, Queen in Prussia

2nd Generation

Anne, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange · The Princess Amelia Sophia · The Princess Caroline Elizabeth · Mary, Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel · Louise, Queen of Denmark-Norway

3rd Generation

Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick · Princess Elizabeth · Princess Louisa · Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark-Norway

4th Generation

Charlotte, Queen of Württemberg · The Princess Augusta Sophia · Elizabeth, Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg · Sophia of Gloucester · Caroline of Gloucester · The Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester · The Princess Sophia · The Princess Amelia

5th Generation

Charlotte Augusta of Wales · Frederica of Cumberland · Charlotte of Clarence · Victoria of the United Kingdom · Elizabeth of Clarence · Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz · Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck

6th Generation

Victoria, German Empress and Queen of Prussia · Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine · Helena, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein · Frederica, Baroness Alfons von Pawel-Rammingen · The Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll · Marie of Cumberland · Beatrice, Princess Henry of Battenberg

7th Generation