Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark

Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark (Μαργαρίτα; 18 April 1905 – 24 April 1981) was by birth a Greek and Danish princess as well as Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg by marriage.

An elder sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (husband of Queen Elizabeth II), she was, for a time, linked to the Nazi regime.

The eldest daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, Margarita spent a happy childhood between Athens and Corfu.

The eldest daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, Margarita was born at the Royal Palace in Athens on 18 April 1905.

Through her mother, Margarita was the eldest great-great grandchild of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Contrary to the custom of the time, her father attended her birth because her grandmother, Queen Olga, believed that "it is only justice that men see the suffering they cause to their wives, and from which they completely escape".

With their daughters, they stayed in the United Kingdom, Germany, Malta and Russia, where they reunited with their numerous relatives including Edward VII of the United Kingdom, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, Alexandra Feodorovna, Prince and Princess Louis of Battenberg (Alice's parents), etc. From 1905, Margarita was thus introduced to her young maternal uncle and aunt, Louis and Louise, to whom she and her sister Theodora subsequently became very close.

Baptized on 11 May in the presence of her maternal grandparents, Margarita grew up surrounded by her father's animals, and within a united household, which rapidly expanded with the arrival of her sisters Theodora (1906–1969), Cecilie (1911–1937), and Sophie (1914–2001).

With their mother, Margarita and her sisters communicated in English, but they also used French, German, and Greek in the presence of their relatives and governesses.

The princesses were formally educated in English and Greek.

Margarita's early childhood was marked by the instability that the Kingdom of Greece experienced at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Tired of attacks from the press and the opposition, Andrew and Alice found refuge in travel and made many stays outside the borders of their home country.

In 1909, the Goudi coup occurred, a military putsch organized against the government of King George I of Greece, Margarita's grandfather.

Shortly after this event, Prince Andrew and his brothers were forced to resign from the army.

Concerned about the political situation of their country, Andrew and Alice once again found refuge abroad and stayed in the United Kingdom, France and Hesse.

After considering a life in exile for a while, the couple returned to live in Greece, where their third daughter was born.

In her youth, however, she witnessed the Balkan Wars (1912–1913), followed by the First World War (1914–1918) and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922).

Between 1912 and 1913, Greece engaged in the Balkan Wars, which put the country in opposition to the Ottoman Empire and to Bulgaria.

Called to join the army again, Prince Andrew served under Crown Prince Constantine while Princess Alice worked as a nurse for wounded soldiers.

Too young to follow their parents, Margarita and her sisters spent the duration of the conflict in Athens, with the exception of a brief stay in Thessaloniki in December 1912.

Greece came out of the Balkan Wars with an expanded territory, but the conflict also led to the demise of George I, who was assassinated in March 1913.

The death of the King of the Hellenes caused significant changes in the life of Margarita and her relatives.

In his will, the sovereign bequeathed the Corfiote palace of Mon Repos to Andrew.

After years of living in close proximity to the monarch, in the palaces of Athens and Tatoi, Andrew and his family therefore finally had their own residence.

For the young princess and her relatives, these conflicts had dramatic consequences and led to their exile in Switzerland (between 1917 and 1920), then in France and the United Kingdom (from 1922 to 1936).

During their exile, Margarita and her family depended on the generosity of their foreign relatives, in particular Princess George of Greece and Denmark (who offered them accommodation in Saint-Cloud) and Lady Louis Mountbatten (who supported them financially).

At the end of the 1920s, Margarita's mother was struck by a mental health crisis which led to her confinement in a Swiss psychiatric hospital.

During the 1930s, the couple also made several trips abroad.

Shortly after, in 1931, Margarita married Prince Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

The couple then moved to Weikersheim Castle, where they raised a family made up of four sons (Princes Kraft, Georg Andreas, Rupprecht and Albrecht) and a daughter (Princess Beatrix).

In particular, she visited New York in 1934 to testify in favor of Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, Gottfried's former fiancée, in the case between her and her in-laws for the custody of her daughter, also named Gloria.

Affected by the Second World War, which divided her relatives into two factions, Margarita spent time in Langenburg during the conflict.

The defeat of Germany and its occupation by the Allies brought new upheavals in the life of Margarita and Gottfried.

Members of the Nazi party from 1937, Gottfried and Margarita used their family connections to promote a rapprochement of Nazism within the United Kingdom, though without success.

Though preserved from Soviets, who caused the death of several of their cousins, the couple were ostracized by the British royal family at the time of the marriage of Prince Philip, Margarita's only brother, to Princess Elizabeth of the United Kingdom in 1947.

Over the years, the couple were nevertheless reintegrated into the life of the European elite, as illustrated by their invitation and presence at the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, and the princess's presence at the wedding of Juan Carlos, Prince of Asturias, and Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark in 1962.

Widowed in 1960, Margarita witnessed the fire breakout at Langenburg Castle in 1963.

Her last years were marked by the marriages of three of her sons, but also by the deaths of several of her relatives, including her son Rupprecht, who died by suicide in 1978.

The princess died in 1981 and her body was buried in the Hohenlohe-Langenburg family mausoleum.

Margarita was the paternal aunt of the Prince of Wales, who later became King Charles III.