The Tragedy of Princess Alice: Queen Elizabeth's Mother in Law

She was born at Windsor Castle under the gaze of Queen Victoria, yet she died with almost nothing to her name, having given away her wealth to the destitute. Princess Alice of Battenberg—the mother of Prince Philip and mother-in-law to Queen Elizabeth II—lived one of the most astonishing, tragic, and heroic lives of the modern royal era. In this comprehensive two-hour documentary, we explore the profoundly silent world of the Deaf Princess. From mastering four languages by reading lips to surviving a forced committal at a Swiss sanatorium, Alice’s story is one of relentless endurance. Her defining triumph came during the darkest days of World War II in occupied Athens, where she weaponized her royal status and her deafness to hide a Jewish family from the Gestapo—an act of extreme defiance that later earned her the title of Righteous Among the Nations. Discover the unbelievable journey of the Royal Nun who survived exile, revolution, and the collapse of empires to witness her son marry the future Queen of England. 0:00 — Prince Philip's Mother 1:16 — Born at Windsor Castle 7:54 — Deafness & Lip-Reading 14:18 — Marriage to Prince Andrew of Greece 23:19 — Nursing in the Balkan Wars 33:34 — The First World War & the Romanovs 38:38 — Exile & the Orange Box 41:58 — Religious Crisis & Diagnosis 47:38 — The Bellevue Sanatorium 1:05:41 — Release & the Boardinghouse Years 1:10:21 — The 1937 Ostend Plane Crash 1:15:04 — Occupation & Famine in Athens 1:26:43 — Hiding the Cohen Family 1:37:17 — Widowhood & the Battle of Athens 1:43:25 — The Marriage of Prince Philip & Queen Elizabeth 1:50:34 — The Sisterhood of Martha and Mary 1:56:53 — Buckingham Palace & Jerusalem 2:03:06 — Thank You & Members Sources Primary: Hugo Vickers, Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece (Hamish Hamilton, 2000) Supporting: Philip Eade, Young Prince Philip: His Turbulent Early Life (HarperPress, 2011) Richard Hough, Louis and Victoria: The First Mountbattens (Hutchinson, 1974) Richard Hough (ed.), Advice to a Granddaughter: Letters from Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse (Heinemann, 1975) Jonathan Petropoulos, Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press, 2006) John Van der Kiste, Kings of the Hellenes: The Greek Kings 1863–1974 (Sutton, 1994) Theo Aronson, Grandmama of Europe: The Crowned Descendants of Queen Victoria (Cassell, 1973) Yad Vashem, Righteous Among the Nations — file on Princess Alice of Greece (the Cohen family rescue)