You’ve probably seen her on The Crown. A grey-haired nun with a cigarette, looking a bit out of place among the gilded halls of Buckingham Palace. That was Princess Alice of Battenberg. But honestly, a TV show can't really capture how wild her life actually was. She wasn't just Prince Philip’s mom or Queen Elizabeth’s mother-in-law. She was a woman who dealt with profound deafness from birth, survived a forced exile, was diagnosed with schizophrenia by Sigmund Freud himself, and ended up being honored as "Righteous Among the Nations" for saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust.
It’s a lot to process.
Most people think of royals as these static, boring figures in portraits. Alice was the opposite. She was born in Windsor Castle in 1885, the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Imagine being born into that kind of extreme privilege but being unable to hear a word anyone said. Her mother, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, noticed she was slow to talk and had her ears checked. The diagnosis was congenital deafness. Back then, that usually meant a life of isolation.
But Alice was tough.
She didn't just learn to read lips; she learned to do it in multiple languages. English, German, French—she could follow a conversation in all of them just by watching your mouth. Later, she mastered Greek. It’s honestly kind of incredible when you think about the lack of speech therapy available in the late 19th century. She refused to be a "disabled royal" tucked away in a back room. Instead, she married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1903 and dove straight into the chaotic, often violent world of Mediterranean politics.
The Mental Health Crisis and the Freud Connection
Life wasn't kind to her for long. By the 1920s, the Greek royal family was in shambles. Coups, wars, and exile became the norm. Alice was living in Paris, and the stress started to break her. She became intensely religious—which isn't a crime—but she also began claiming she was receiving divine messages and had healing powers.
This is where the story gets dark.
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In 1930, she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Her family, likely terrified and not knowing what else to do, had her committed to a sanatorium in Switzerland. This wasn't a modern "wellness retreat." It was a forced institutionalization. She was basically snatched away from her five children, including a young Prince Philip.
And guess who was consulted on her case? Sigmund Freud.
Freud’s "expert" opinion was that her religious delusions were the result of "sexual frustration." His recommendation? X-raying her ovaries to "cool her libido" and bring on early menopause. It was barbaric. There’s no other word for it. Alice protested. She insisted she was sane. But she remained locked away for years while her daughters married German princes and her son was sent off to boarding school in England.
She eventually managed to leave the asylum in 1932 and spent years drifting around Europe as a bit of a nomad. She stayed in cheap hotels, carried her life in a few bags, and didn't see her family for ages. It’s a heartbreaking stretch of her life that people often gloss over. She was a princess, but she was basically homeless and alone.
A Secret Hero in Occupied Athens
By the time World War II kicked off, Alice had moved back to Athens. This is the part of her life that really defines her legacy. While most of the Greek royals fled the country as the Nazis moved in, Alice stayed. She was living in a small flat, working in soup kitchens, and using her royal status as a shield to help people.
She wasn't just "charitable." She was brave.
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In 1943, the Gestapo started rounding up the Jewish population of Athens. Alice knew the Cohen family. Haimaki Cohen had been a member of the Greek Parliament and had been helpful to the royal family years prior. When the Nazis came, Alice hid Haimaki’s widow, Rachel, and two of her children in her own apartment.
Think about the risk.
Her own sons-in-law were high-ranking German officers. The Gestapo was literally right down the street. When they became suspicious and came to question her, she used her deafness to her advantage. She’d pretend she couldn't understand what they were saying or give completely unrelated answers until they got frustrated and left. She kept the Cohens safe until Athens was liberated.
She never bragged about it. She didn't tell her son Philip. The world didn't really find out until the 1990s, years after she died. When she was eventually honored at Yad Vashem, her son remarked that he didn't think she ever thought of her action as "special." She just thought it was what a decent human being was supposed to do.
The Nun Who Smoked Like a Chimney
The later years of Princess Alice of Battenberg were just as eccentric. She founded a nursing order of Greek Orthodox nuns called the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary. She started wearing a grey habit every day. She gave away almost all her possessions.
When she attended Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953, she showed up in her nun’s robes. Imagine the photos—everyone in tiaras and velvet, and there’s Alice in a simple habit.
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She finally moved into Buckingham Palace in 1967 because her health was failing and Greece was going through another military coup. She spent her final years living in a suite of rooms, wandering the halls, and chain-smoking. She was sharp, witty, and deeply devoted to her family, even if she had been absent for much of their childhoods.
She died in 1969. She didn't leave anything behind because she had already given it all away. Her only wish was to be buried in Jerusalem, near her aunt, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. It took nearly 20 years for the diplomatic hurdles to be cleared, but in 1988, her remains were finally moved to the Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives.
Lessons from a Life of Extremes
Alice of Battenberg’s life is a masterclass in resilience. If you look at the facts of her biography, she should have been a footnote—a "mad" princess who got lost in the shuffle of history. Instead, she’s become a symbol of moral courage.
There are a few specific things we can take away from her story:
- Adaptability is a superpower. She lived through two World Wars, multiple exiles, and a total loss of status, yet she kept finding ways to be useful.
- Silence isn't weakness. Her deafness forced her to observe the world differently. She used that "disability" as a tool to navigate some of the most dangerous people in history.
- True charity is quiet. She didn't seek PR for her bravery. She helped the Cohens because it was right, not because she wanted a medal.
If you want to dig deeper into her life, look for the biography by Hugo Vickers. He’s basically the foremost expert on her and actually interviewed people who knew her personally. It clears up a lot of the dramatized "facts" you see in television shows.
If you’re ever in Jerusalem, visit the Mount of Olives. Her grave is there, simple and quiet. It’s a fitting spot for a woman who spent her life surrounded by the noise of history but lived it mostly in her own meaningful silence.
To truly understand the British Royal Family today, you have to understand Alice. She gave them a sense of duty that wasn't about ribbons and bows, but about actual, boots-on-the-ground service. She was the most unconventional royal in the Windsor tree, and honestly, probably the most impressive one.