Sisters of the Duke of Edinburgh

[fandesacs2003]

I found this site about royal women. It has nice pics and good articles about DoE mother and 2 ho his sisters.
https://www.historyofroyalwomen.com/

 

[Alison H]

Until the Orthodox Balkan countries gained independence and had their own monarchies, there weren't any other Orthodox royals for the Romanovs to marry anyway, and, after Peter the Great, they preferred foreign royal brides to Russian noblewomen.

 

[Kataryn]

That was Berthold of Baden whose mother was Princess Marie Louise of Hannover. Christoph's grandmother was the Empress Friedrich

Sorry, I mixed him up with Georg Wilhelm of Hanover, whose paternal grandmother was Thyra of Denmark.

 

[Marc23]

So what did she think of the marriage of her second daughter to a mere Count from a mediatized Family?

Well, she wasn't happy that he was a mediatized Count, but again he was the son of a Bavrian Princess who was immensely rich also with castles, fabrics, forests and mines in his property.

He was also good connected being a nephew of Queen Elisabeth of Belgium and former Crown Princess of Maria Gabriella of Bavaria.

Btw, the Toerring family was offered a Princely title on the occasion of marriage of his parents, Sophie and Hans Veit, but his family declined stating that they were proud being what they are and that that's enough.

 

[Marc23]

Until the Orthodox Balkan countries gained independence and had their own monarchies, there weren't any other Orthodox royals for the Romanovs to marry anyway, and, after Peter the Great, they preferred foreign royal brides to Russian noblewomen.

True, here is what Prince Nikolai Romanov (1922-2014) said about marriage rules of the Russian Imperial family and the impossibility of marrying a Russian noblewoman:

"Russia, with its very Germanic notion of dynastic propriety, found itself accepting all the Almanach de Gotha rulings.
And so if some unfortunate Russian Grand Duke wanted to marry a Princess Obolensky, descendant of the Grand Dukes of Kiev, who reigned in Russia, at the time his Romanov ancestors were probably still lurking in the woods, draped in pelts or wading through the marshes of East Prussia or Pomerania, he would have had to change his plans.
That marriage would have been impossible, but an Austrian lady, say a daughter of an Illustrious Highness, Count von Harrach zu Rohrau und Thannhausen, lord of the county of Rohrau, Freiherr zu Prugg und Pürrhenstein, lord of Starkenbach, Jilenice, Sadowa & Storckow, would have been acceptable!"

 

[Stefan]

T
That marriage would have been impossible, but an Austrian lady, say a daughter of an Illustrious Highness, Count von Harrach zu Rohrau und Thannhausen, lord of the county of Rohrau, Freiherr zu Prugg und Pürrhenstein, lord of Starkenbach, Jilenice, Sadowa & Storckow, would have been acceptable!"

But it was the same in Austria where marriages to members of mediatized Families where also not wanted. Only 2 took place during the time of the Monarchy.

 

[Marc23]

But it was the same in Austria where marriages to members of mediatized Families where also not wanted. Only 2 took place during the time of the Monarchy.

Which 2 marriages?

 

[Prinsara]

So about the sisters of the late Duke...

I was watching a clip of one of his great-nieces earlier, though I forget which one.

It does sound like Philip understandably kept in touch with everyone, and it seems that that part of the family admired him, too.

 

[Somebody]

So about the sisters of the late Duke...

I was watching a clip of one of his great-nieces earlier, though I forget which one.

It does sound like Philip understandably kept in touch with everyone, and it seems that that part of the family admired him, too.

It was princess Xenia, the younger sister of the Fürst of Hohenlohe-Langenburg who was present today. I don't think I had seen anything from her for several years but remember her wedding quite well.

'Uncle Philip' was the last one of his generation. The youngest of his sisters died 20 years ago; so he was the 'glue' that kept the wider family (that of their grandmothers!) - so the second cousins - together. Although the last large family meeting was 10 years ago... at the duke's 90th birthday.

 

[Stefan]

Which 2 marriages?

Archduke Friedrich to Princess Isabella of Croy and Archduke Maximilian to Princess Franziska zu Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst

 

[andrew]

.

This is a picture taken on-board of Britannia during the festivities of HM's and prince Philip 's golden wedding anniversary. You can recognize some of Philip' s nephews and nieces. I think the brown haired lady in the front row is princess Xenia.

 

[Stefan]

This is a picture taken on-board of Britania during the festivities of HM's and prince Philip 's golden wedding anniversary. You can recognize some of Philip' s nephews and nieces. I think the brown haired lady in the front row is princess Xenia.

Thanks. Never seen this pic before. There is Hereditary Prince Bernhard of Baden next to Crown Prince Frederik and i believe his brother Michael next to hin. His other brother, Prince Leopold is the fourth standing between Kardam of Bulgaria and Margarita of Romania.

 

[Duc_et_Pair]

This is a picture taken on-board of Britannia during the festivities of HM's and prince Philip 's golden wedding anniversary. You can recognize some of Philip' s nephews and nieces. I think the brown haired lady in the front row is princess Xenia.

I see Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, Prince Frederik of Denmark, Princess Margareta of Romania and her husband Prince Radu. Very interesting picture.

 

[Marc23]

I think the brown haired lady in the front row is princess Xenia.

To me, it doesn't look like Xenia.

The brown haired lady looks more like Prince Philip's other grand-niece Countess Irina von Schönburg-Glauchau, nee Princees of Hesse, Sophie's granddaughter.

 

[Prinsara]

There was a brief glimpse of one of Philip's nephews as a young man in the movies of "Elizabeth at 90" and it seemed he looked almost exactly like Philip. I wonder if the resemblance held?

 

[Somebody]

She speaks really good English and it's nice when a family member can say such warm statements about a relative.

It was really nice to hear princess Xenia speak about how appreciative they are as a family that they invited three representatives to join the limited number of mourners for the funeral.

I was a bit surprised how she described the German nieces and nephews as 'a huge number'; when there were 'only' 16. That's a sizable number but nowhere near 'huge'.

The more striking part imho is that all of these cousins (including of course Philip's 4 children) are/were princes and princesses! There is only one consort left in Europe that can say the same - and that one happens to be from the same family: queen Sophia of Spain; but in her case, it is only her brother's children and not children from 5 different marriages/royal families.

 

[Frelinghighness]

Do we know what language Phillip spoke with his sisters? They lived in Paris until his parent spit I think. His mother was a German princess

 

[An Ard Ri]

Do we know what language Phillip spoke with his sisters? They lived in Paris until his parent spit I think. His mother was a German princess

Princess Alice was born at Windsor castle and spoke both English and German and later learnt French and Greek.

I assume both English and German was their language?

 

[Marc23]

Do we know what language Phillip spoke with his sisters? They lived in Paris until his parent spit I think. His mother was a German princess

I think German.

Prince Philipp of Hohenlohe-Langenburg shared some fond memories with his great-uncle Philip from the time he attended family events in Germany. "It was such a joy having a conversation with him. His memory was extraordinary. He could remember playing hide-and-seek in the castle when he was a boy, and he always enjoyed talking to the local people. He could switch from German to English and back, whether he was talking about Winston Churchill or the local wildlife," recounted the Prince while speaking to royal author Robert Hardman.

He indicates that Philip spoke German with locals in Germany. The family lived in exile in Germany, it was also their mother tongue and I assume they spoke German among themselves and English when abroad.

 

[Tatiana Maria]

Do we know what language Phillip spoke with his sisters? They lived in Paris until his parent spit I think. His mother was a German princess

From an interview with Prince Philip:

'If anything, I've thought of myself as Scandinavian. Particularly, Danish. We spoke English at home,' Prince Philip recalls today. 'The others learned Greek. I could understand a certain amount of it. But then the (conversation) would go into French. Then it went into German, on occasion, because we had German cousins. If you couldn't think of a word in one language, you tended to go off in another.' For Princess Alice, who had been almost completely deaf since catching German measles at the age of four, conversations in whatever tongue had to be translated into sign language.​

 

[Prinsara]

From an interview with Prince Philip:

'If anything, I've thought of myself as Scandinavian. Particularly, Danish. We spoke English at home,' Prince Philip recalls today. 'The others learned Greek. I could understand a certain amount of it. But then the (conversation) would go into French. Then it went into German, on occasion, because we had German cousins. If you couldn't think of a word in one language, you tended to go off in another.' For Princess Alice, who had been almost completely deaf since catching German measles at the age of four, conversations in whatever tongue had to be translated into sign language.​

As said in another thread, though, the part about Princess Alice is contradicted by a host of facts. Her deafness was congenital and she lip read, not signed.

 

[JR76]

As said in another thread, though, the part about Princess Alice is contradicted by a host of facts. Her deafness was congenital and she lip read, not signed.

Being able to lipread doesn't exclude that you can also sign. Many hearing impared can do both but do so in different contexts. Pamela Hicks has told that her aunt was often quite lonely at large gatherings because she couldn't hear what people were saying and, I imagine, because few were talking directly to her making it possible for her to read lips.
The part about the cause of Alice's deafness is indeed quite strange but is it possible that it wasn't publicly known at the time?

 

[Prinsara]

Being able to lipread doesn't exclude that you can also sign. Many hearing impared can do both but do so in different contexts. Pamela Hicks has told that her aunt was often quite lonely at large gatherings because she couldn't hear what people were saying and, I imagine, because few were talking directly to her making it possible for her to read lips.
The part about the cause of Alice's deafness is indeed quite strange but is it possible that it wasn't publicly known at the time?

Yes, people can, but it's mentioned extensively in Alice's biography (which postdated this interview) that she lip-read and all the ways she did so, but never once that she signed anything. (For one thing, signing requires the other person to know what you're doing and understand sign language, and Alice didn't seem to move among very many people who would. For another, given the enormous amount of energy she put into lip-reading and dealing with the rest of her life, when would she have been able to pick up signing? As far as her authorized biography is concerned, she never learned it and she didn't know how.) The book also mentions a conversation she and her husband Andrea had when the room was dark, but not how it happened.

Edit: Vickers also mentions in the biography how Alice was strictly raised by her mother VMH to not let people know that she was deaf and not let them make any allowances for her, so her total reliance on lip reading makes sense.

 

[Frelinghighness]

Thank you for this. English and French as I suspected and then some German. My husbands aunt was also born deaf in 1917 and she lip read in English and French and could follow if you switched. It was also to not call attention to the disability

 

[fandesacs2003]

I watched yesterday a documentary about Princess Alice , containing asking some rare vidéos , especially of Era around Philip's marriage and then.
It shows her arriving at the airport in London for her son's wedding, and then, and somme short when Philip is talking to her, or some staff members.
Philip talks to her and she seems lip reading and understand normally and this match the information we know. He would not talk to her normally If he knew she did not understand.
As for the period of her youth, around 1890, when she was found deaf, was the sign language already developed? Out of some specialist, was it known among normal people, even if royals?
And a last point. She was able to read lips in 4 language, but which language did she speak? For a person who never heard, like she was, how did she learn to talk?
Someone had to spent time to teach her.. I can presume her mother did it for German and English, but what about French and Greek? This happened after her 20s and out of her home. Was it her husband? Did she hire a specialist? For Greek it is possible, but French? She was broken and in exile.

 

[Prinsara]

I watched yesterday a documentary about Princess Alice , containing asking some rare vidéos , especially of Era around Philip's marriage and then.
It shows her arriving at the airport in London for her son's wedding, and then, and somme short when Philip is talking to her, or some staff members.
Philip talks to her and she seems lip reading and understand normally and this match the information we know. He would not talk to her normally If he knew she did not understand.
As for the period of her youth, around 1890, when she was found deaf, was the sign language already developed? Out of some specialist, was it known among normal people, even if royals?
And a last point. She was able to read lips in 4 language, but which language did she speak? For a person who never heard, like she was, how did she learn to talk?
Someone had to spent time to teach her.. I can presume her mother did it for German and English, but what about French and Greek? This happened after her 20s and out of her home. Was it her husband? Did she hire a specialist? For Greek it is possible, but French? She was broken and in exile.

I replied to this in Alice's thread here.

 

[valeas]

I am new and have just read this interesting thread.

So much has been said about royal bonds and relations, concerning Prince Philip's sisters.
Times and moods were very different from today's. One fact struck me a little, Margaritas's husband Gottfried was once engaged with Gloria Vanderbilt who was although connected romantically to the then Prince of Wales.
So M. was not his first choice and though Gloria had been expected to bring a fortune to Gottfried's little town but huge castle after the break-up of the engagement he was lucky enough to find Margareta.
And somebody mentioned M. was not ready to convert for a catholic prince before Gottfried's proposal, but finally did when she married Gottfried as his house is protestant which is a much bigger thing than converting from orthodox to catholic church.
They had a love match finally.

 

[Alison H]

Times and moods were very different from today's. One fact struck me a little, Margaritas's husband Gottfried was once engaged with Gloria Vanderbilt who was although connected romantically to the then Prince of Wales.

When she wasn't allegedly having an affair with the Marchioness of Milford Haven, Philip and Margarita's aunt! She seems to have had a very busy life ...

 

[Denville]

When she wasn't allegedly having an affair with the Marchioness of Milford Haven, Philip and Margarita's aunt! She seems to have had a very busy life ...

i thought that it was Thelma V\anderbilt who was the mistress of the Prince of Wales, (later Edward VIII), not Gloria

 

[Osipi]

It was Thelma Furness that was involved with David (Edward VIII). She was sister to Gloria Vanderbilt and great aunt to Anderson Cooper (CNN). Thelma also introduced Wallis Simpson to David. We know how that ended.