If you’ve watched The Crown, you probably remember the scene where an elderly nun wanders through Buckingham Palace, smoking like a chimney and baffling the press. That was Alice. But the TV version barely scratches the surface of how intense her life actually was. Princess Alice of Greece wasn't just Prince Philip’s mom or Queen Elizabeth’s mother-in-law. She was a woman who was born deaf, survived exile twice, was diagnosed with schizophrenia by Sigmund Freud, and ended up being honored as "Righteous Among the Nations" for hiding a Jewish family from the Nazis.
Most royals live in a bubble. Alice popped hers repeatedly.
Born at Windsor Castle in 1885 as Princess Alice of Battenberg, she was the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. From the jump, things were different for her. Her mother noticed she was slow to talk and eventually realized Alice was deaf. Instead of being sidelined, Alice learned to lip-read in English, German, French, and eventually Greek. Seriously. She could follow conversations in four languages just by watching people’s mouths. That’s a level of focus most of us can't even fathom today with our phones constantly buzzing.
The Greek Nightmare and the First Break
She married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1903. It sounds like a fairy tale, but Greece in the early 20th century was a political meat grinder. By the time her son Philip—the future Duke of Edinburgh—was born on a kitchen table in Corfu, the family was basically living on borrowed time. When the Greek monarchy fell in 1922, they had to flee. Philip was famously smuggled out in an orange crate.
Imagine being a royal one day and a penniless refugee the next. That kind of stress does things to a person.
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By 1930, Alice began claiming she was receiving divine messages. She said she had healing powers. Her family didn't know how to handle it, so they did what people did back then: they shipped her off to an asylum in Switzerland. This is where the story gets dark. Her case was actually consulted on by Sigmund Freud.
Freud, being Freud, decided her religious visions were the result of "sexual frustration." His "cure" was to blast her ovaries with X-rays to kill her libido and bring on early menopause. It was brutal. It was unscientific. And it didn't work. Alice spent years in and out of clinics, eventually drifting away from her husband and her five children, including a young Philip who was left to be raised by uncles in England.
What Really Happened During the Holocaust
A lot of people think Alice just "got better" and became a nun. The reality is more complex. She eventually made her way back to Athens, living alone in a small apartment while the rest of the world caught fire during World War II.
In 1943, the Nazis occupied Athens. They began rounding up the city’s Jewish population. This is where Princess Alice of Greece became a literal hero. She knew the Cohen family; Haimaki Cohen had been an advisor to the Greek King years earlier. When the Gestapo started hunting Haimaki's widow, Rachel, and her children, Alice didn't hesitate. She hid them in her own home.
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The apartment was right across from the Gestapo headquarters. Think about the nerves that requires.
When the Nazis grew suspicious and came to interview her, Alice used her deafness to her advantage. She pretended she couldn't understand what they were saying. She played the "eccentric old lady" card so well that the soldiers eventually just gave up and left. She kept the Cohens safe until Athens was liberated. She didn't do it for PR. She didn't even tell her family about it for years. She did it because it was the right thing to do.
The Nun in the Palace
By the time Elizabeth and Philip got married in 1947, Alice was a different person. She had founded the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, a nursing order of nuns. She showed up to the royal wedding in a grey habit. No tiaras. No silk. Just a simple robe.
She lived out her final years at Buckingham Palace at the invitation of the Queen. By all accounts, she was the only person who could tell Philip to shut up and have him actually listen. She was chain-smoking Woodbines, wandering the hallways, and giving away every cent of her pension to the poor. When she died in 1969, she owned basically nothing.
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Her life is a masterclass in resilience. She was a woman who was broken by the system—by the medical establishment, by war, by exile—and she managed to put herself back together in a way that served other people instead of herself.
Why Alice Matters in 2026
We live in an era of "personal branding." Everything is curated. Alice was the opposite. She was messy, she was "difficult," and she was profoundly brave. Understanding her life helps us see the British Royal Family not as a static institution, but as a group of people who have survived some genuinely traumatic history.
If you want to dive deeper into the history of the Battenberg/Mountbatten line, there are a few things you should check out:
- Visit Yad Vashem: If you're ever in Jerusalem, you can see the tree planted in her honor in the Garden of the Righteous. She is buried nearby at the Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives, per her own request.
- Read the Hugo Vickers Biography: Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece is the definitive source. Vickers actually interviewed people who knew her and had access to her letters. It’s way more accurate than any TV dramatization.
- Look at the National Portrait Gallery Archives: They have some stunning early photos of her that show the transition from the "most beautiful princess in Europe" to the stoic woman in the nun’s habit.
The most important takeaway from Alice’s life isn't that she was a princess. It’s that she chose to be a human being when the world was at its most inhumane. That’s a legacy that actually earns the title "Royal."
Next Steps for History Buffs:
To truly grasp the impact of Princess Alice of Greece, your next step should be researching the "Righteous Among the Nations" database at Yad Vashem. It provides the full testimony of the Cohen family, which details exactly how Alice managed to keep them hidden for months under the noses of the SS. Afterward, look into the 1994 ceremony where Prince Philip traveled to Israel to accept the honor on her behalf; his speech there is one of the most candid moments of his entire life.