She wore a nun’s habit to her son’s coronation.
Think about that for a second. While the rest of the world’s elite dripped in diamonds and ermine at Westminster Abbey in 1953, the mother of Prince Philip stood out by blending into the background of a convent. Her name was Princess Alice of Battenberg. Most people only know her because of The Crown, but honestly, the TV show barely scratched the surface of her chaotic, tragic, and ultimately saintly life. She wasn't just a royal "eccentric." She was a woman who survived exile, spent years in an asylum, and saved lives during the Holocaust.
Why the Mother of Prince Philip Was Hidden Away
Life started out with a different kind of challenge. Alice was born deaf at Windsor Castle in 1885, right in front of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. But she didn't let it stop her. She learned to lip-read in multiple languages—English, German, French, and eventually Greek. It’s pretty wild when you think about the discipline that requires. She married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1903, and for a while, they were the "it" couple of European royalty. Then everything broke.
Wars. Coups. Exile.
The Greek royal family was kicked out of the country more times than most people move houses. By the time she became the mother of Prince Philip (her fifth child and only son) in 1921, the family was living on borrowed time and borrowed money in a house in Saint-Cloud, near Paris. The stress did something to her. By 1930, she was suffering from what doctors then called "paranoid schizophrenia."
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The treatment? It was barbaric.
She was taken away from her children—Philip was only eight—and committed to a sanatorium in Switzerland. Her family didn't even tell her they were taking her there. They just took her on a "car ride." While she was locked up, she was treated by none other than Sigmund Freud. He believed her "delusions" were the result of sexual frustration and recommended X-raying her ovaries to "kill her libido." It was a horrific period of medical history that essentially robbed Philip of his mother during his most formative years.
The Heroism of Princess Alice During the War
By the late 1930s, Alice had managed to claw her way back to some form of independence. She moved back to Athens, living a Spartan life while her sisters-in-law and cousins stayed in palaces. When World War II hit, she stayed. She didn't flee to safety like the rest of the Greek royals. Instead, she worked in soup kitchens. She organized nursing circuits.
And then she did something incredibly dangerous.
She hid a Jewish family. Rachel Cohen and two of her children were sought by the Gestapo in Athens. Alice hid them in her small apartment for over a year. When the Gestapo came knocking to question her, she used her deafness to her advantage. She pretended she couldn't understand what they were saying until they got frustrated and left. She was literally risking her life every single day. Because of this, she was eventually recognized by Yad Vashem as "Righteous Among the Nations." It’s the highest honor Israel gives to non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust.
Philip didn't even know the full extent of this until much later. He once remarked that he didn't think she ever thought of her actions as special. To her, it was just what a person was supposed to do.
A Relationship Defined by Distance
Philip grew up as a bit of a nomad. With his mother in an asylum and his father living a playboy lifestyle in Monte Carlo, he was bounced around between British relatives. The Mountbattens basically raised him. When Alice finally reappeared in his life, they were almost strangers.
You can see the tension in historical accounts. He loved her, but he was also embarrassed by her. Imagine being the husband of the Queen of England and your mother is wandering around London in a grey nun's habit, smoking Woodbine cigarettes and asking for donations for her nursing order, the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary. She founded the order in Greece, but let's be real—she was a terrible fundraiser. She spent every penny she had on others and ended up with nothing.
The Final Years at Buckingham Palace
By 1967, Greece was falling into another military coup. Philip and the Queen stepped in and insisted Alice come to London. She moved into Buckingham Palace, and honestly, it’s where she finally found some peace.
She lived in a small suite of rooms. She was still a chain-smoker. She was still deaf. But she and Philip finally had time to be mother and son. She would sit with him and talk for hours. She died there in 1969. When she passed, she owned almost nothing. Just some clothes and a few personal letters. She had given everything else away.
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She had one final request that caused a massive diplomatic headache: she wanted to be buried in Jerusalem.
It took nearly 20 years to make it happen because of the complicated politics of the region, but in 1988, her remains were moved to the Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives. Philip traveled there to visit her grave, finally honoring the woman who had been through literal hell and came out the other side as a saint.
Understanding the Legacy
If you want to understand the mother of Prince Philip, you have to look past the "madness" labels. She was a woman of incredible conviction.
- Resilience is a Choice: She lost her country, her sanity, and her family, yet she rebuilt a life of service.
- Quiet Bravery: You don't need a platform to be a hero. Hiding the Cohens was a private act with massive consequences.
- Family is Complicated: Even the most prestigious families in the world have trauma, abandonment, and reconciliation.
If you’re researching the history of the House of Windsor or the Mountbattens, stop looking at the crowns and start looking at the outliers. Princess Alice was the ultimate outlier. She proved that being royal didn't mean being pampered—it meant, in her eyes, a duty to the suffering.
To truly honor her history, look into the work of Yad Vashem or the archives of the Greek Orthodox Church. Their records provide the most unvarnished view of her humanitarian work during the Nazi occupation. You might also find the correspondence between Prince Philip and his mother in the Royal Archives (though much remains private) to see how their bond was mended in the twilight of her life. Her story isn't just a royal footnote; it's a case study in surviving the 20th century with your soul intact.
Check the historical records at the Mountbatten Archive at the University of Southampton if you want the deep-cut primary sources on her early life and the Battenberg family’s sudden shift in fortune during the First World War. Understanding Alice is the only way to truly understand the man Prince Philip became.