A Royal Family, Episode 5: Shaky Thrones (Documentary)

[Music] at the end of the 19th century the Danish King Christian the ninth and his Queen Luise succeeded in marrying their six children into the leading European royal families and Christian the ninth thus became known as the father-in-law of Europe today his family are found all over Europe and quite exceptionally these royal descendants have chosen to come together and talk about their family's incredible story which they know from letters and diaries and from the stories that have been passed down to them through the generations in addition the family has also made private photos and films available many of which have never been seen in public before this episode is about Christian the ninth second son Vilhelm seen here jumping up and down and his descendants in Greece Spain Romania and Yugoslavia I plucked up my courage in ASDA she want to come and stay with me in Greece I said for goodness sake do not tell my parents because they will have a fit [Music] Princeville helm and his siblings know that their father will one day be king of denmark but nobody can know that Vilhelm will become king fast villain was Dagmar and Alexandra's favorite brother and particularly liked to ease up at tense or a serious situation by putting in a sort of a radical joke or making a fun appearance behind the scenes that his sister Alexandra's wedding to the British heir to the throne in 1863 a lot of attention is paid to the seventeen-year-old villain the British Foreign Secretary has had an idea Wilhelm can be the new king of Greece Greek revolutionaries have deposed the country's King Otto and the great powers are having difficulty agreeing on a suitable replacement the Greeks were very clear that they did not want to have a king that was coming from a big power because of the influences the big powers would have and they didn't want that but then the British put forward the young Danish prince [Music] the great powers agreed and I think probably felt it's natural for him to become king because there were no strings attached in Denmark Wilhelm who was a cadet at the Naval Academy leaves home with a packed lunch as usual one of the sandwiches was sardines which had a lot of oil so the papers were doubled and they were newspapers and when he went to eat that sandwich he saw that what was printed on a newspaper was that he had been appointed to be the first king of Greece he said nobody told me on the 17th of September 1863 the seventeen-year-old print starts his long journey to Greece and now he is no longer known as Vilhelm but has had to change his name to George King George the first and so Don he went to Greece with I think one or two it Danish aides with him and and and then started life as king of Greece I don't think he wanted to do that so he left heartbroken Denmark whom he adored and everyone was convinced that he would not last he ruled 50 years and he is the longest ruler in the Greek history the reception that awaits him in Athens is overwhelming and as everyone wants to see the new king it takes many hours to complete the carriage ride from the harbour up to the palace he went through a considerable amount of agony because his bladder was bursting at that point so he discovered a little Hut on the side that he essentially want to go and have a look at but in reality he had a major crisis on he then arrived in Athens and the interesting thing is that he never had dinner that night because all the cooks had also gone out to see the new king so his first night in Athens he went to bed hungry the young king wakes up in an enormous palace which has suffered much at the hands of ransacking revolutionaries [Music] George selects a few rooms with a view of the garden and here he arranges himself as Spartan Lea as he was used to in Denmark he was terribly lonely because he arrived there not knowing anything about this country not knowing anything about who was who but he was a hard worker he learned Greek very soon he wrote in Greek perfectly well in connection with the appointment of George's king his father has insisted that Queen Victoria hand over Corfu and the other Ionian islands to Greece the British count agreed and that's how those islands then came back with the king when he turned up in Greece they were handed over this father increases the popularity of the already well-liked George George understands that Greece's future is dependent on her relationship with the great powers and this is a deciding factor in his choice of bride each was of course Russia because Russia was the great protective power of Greece and he said I'm going to marry there and he went to Russia and inspected all the Marable Grand Duchesses because there were many and he found the youngest who was 15 at the time George marries the young Grand Duchess Olga who was the Tsar's niece and after the wedding in the Winter Palace George returns home to Athens with his bride if the only things she brought with her other than her clothes was dolls and teddy bears shira's English is 15 first chord board they look everywhere for her no Queen Olga but she has to preside the ball no she wasn't fun in her apartment she wasn't found in the sitting rules my grandfather drawers got really very nervous ways the Queen was the queen with the Queen and she was found under the staircase playing with her dolls and crying because she wanted to be a little girl and not to be a queen Olga's popularity with the Greeks reaches unknown heights when age 16 she gives birth to a son the succession is guaranteed the little prince is named Constantine after August father and many more children will arrive at 21 years of age Olga is already the mother of four children within the home George is responsible for deciding how the now six children should be brought up and he employs a German teacher to ensure that the children learn the virtues of discipline he made very very sure that every single one of his children grew up 100% Greek this was very important to him so that they would understand the the the country and and become part of it and become part of it quickly one day one of the children Nicholas somehow manages to stick a suction cup to his head so securely that nobody can remove it he eventually pulled it off for the great saloon and it left a huge ring on his forehead which wouldn't have been very important were it not for the fact that his uncle William of glücksburg was dying and he went into the room to sort of pay his respects and his elder relations who were very somber as you can imagine at the bedside seeing this idiotic child come in with little red markers were all burst into hysterical laughter Olga gives birth to Prince Christopher her seventh child in 1888 my father who was the last one of the family he had 22 years difference with his eldest brother Crown Prince Constantine the oldest brother is now ready to marry my grandfather met Sophie from Preston in Germany where he was training as a an officer with the German army Constantine and Princess Sophie marry but the marriage will be the cause of many problems in the future Sophie is the sister of the aggressive german kaiser wilhelm ii he was very unkind to his sister who married my grandfather konstantin because she became greek overdose the Kaiser immediately punishes his sister by banning her for three years from her country of birth Constantine and Sophie have three sons all of whom will at some point sit on the Greek throne whilst a daughter will become queen of Romania and a granddaughter will be queen of Yugoslavia [Music] George loves spending time with his large European family he enjoys the annual summer reunions in Denmark where he can spend time with amongst others his sister Alexandra who lives in England and Alma who is visiting from Russia Olga is also made to feel welcome by the family her sisters-in-law took her in as a sister and queen olga and queen alexandra and empress maria fedorovna dressed in the same way obviously that was also the fashion of the time and also it was not bad for a queen of the new dynasty in southern Europe to dress like the - like the Empress of Russia and the Queen of England the German Kaiser is not invited to the gatherings in Denmark and he feels left out one interesting thing about Kaiser vilem ii who was my great-grandfather from my mother's side was that he always liked to go to Corfu in their own islands in the late spring and do his holidays there now the problem was that my great-grandfather from my father's side King George the first of Greece did not like this idea at all and every year my grandfather George the first would go and receive him at the heart so one day my grandmother Olga said why do you go to receive him as you can't stand him ah yes but if I don't go to receiving he will think he is in his kingdom and not in mine so I have to be there so he knows he is in my kingdom [Music] King George's second son who is also named George but is known by the family as Gogi leaves Greece to seek happiness in France he married a French lady Marie Bonaparte she was out of the Napoleonic family and she was a student of Freud so don't say we don't cover quite a lot of ground between us in this family Marie would like to become a doctor and at that time young ladies of good families were not allowed so she said you don't want me to become a doctor you will see worse she left her family and went to Vienna to study with Freud and she became a ronin Sack analyst in the world of psychoanalysis princess Marie writes a number of books about psychoanalysis including a detailed study of women's sexuality aunt Marie's mother was the daughter of the man who built and invented the casino of Monte Carlo Monsieur blow and upon receiving her inheritance Marie becomes one of the richest women in Europe [Applause] the first Balkan War breaks out in 1912 when Greece Montenegro Serbia and Bulgaria declare war on Turkey in a combined attempt to force the Turks out of the Balkans Crown Prince Constantin is made supreme commander of the Greek army and after three weeks of fighting the Greeks take Salonika King George and Crown Prince Constantine are greeted by scenes of jubilation when they enter the northern Greek town it is George's proudest moment every afternoon at about 2:00 o'clock after lunch she would take an hour's walk he's sensitive Popeye you can't do that because this thumb has just been liberated there are a lot of foreign agents and there's a said quite security problem and he'd knitted nobody was gonna stop him having his one hour walk so he took his walk George looks forward to celebrating his golden jubilee in a few months time but this walk turns out to be his last he was killed by somebody in Salonika by a man they thought it was an anarchist but it is only a madman who just got up when he passed next to a cafe and shot him in the back I met a Russian princess she told me that she was in the room in the palace in Athens when an aide walked in and said Your Majesty your husband the King has been assassinated and I asked her how does my grandmother react and in a typical heavy Russian accent oh my dear boy she just got up and threw up Greece has more than doubled in size during King George's 50-year reign and the size of the population has increased dramatically too yet from this point the role of king of Greece becomes a very insecure imposition George is buried and his son will now rule Greece as King Constantine the first [Music] as conquering commander Constantine is adored by the Greek people then the First World War started and there were intrigues and they accused him of being programmed because he had married the princess of Prussia and then he became the most hated person in Greece both the Germans and the Allies are putting pressure on Constantine to enter the war on their respective sides and by declaring Greek neutrality he manages to disappoint and upset all sides in the war in 1917 the Allies demand that Constantine abdicate and go into exile he may choose his successor but is told it can't be his eldest son George who is also seen as pro-german there were three boys and I think it's one of the rare occasions in history where all three became King the first choice is the second son 24 year old Prince Alexander who has been driven to despair by the situation the whole family had been kicked out but Alexander he was lonely surrounded by enemies of his family [Music] Alexander is nothing but a puppet King and Greece now enters the war on the Allied side [Music] after the first world war Alexander marries the 21 year old commoner as pasilla menos I was very good she was not royal it was about time you had some blood to mix in and make things a bit more shall we say human as Percy and becomes pregnant but after less than a year of happy marriage a tragic accident befores Alexander he went for a walk in the garden of the property where he lived and his favorite dog was attacked by a monkey and in separating the fight the monkey bit him and blood poisoning ensued there was nobody who had the courage to cut the Kings leg off there was no penicillin in those days and he died of gangrene really Alexander is buried in Athens his daughter Alexandra who was born after her father's death will later marry the king of Yugoslavia through the process of a referendum the Greeks decide that Alexander's father Constantine the first should return to the throne constantine returns to a country that is at war with turkey and 18 months later the Turks destroy his army and over a quarter of a million Greeks lose their lives when Smyrna is obliterated because of the defeat and the burn and disaster of Smyrna again the public opinion turn against him saying he is responsible for that so they kicked him out for the second time Constantine's brother Prince Andrew as well as five ministers are also held responsible and are imprisoned the ministers are all executed but with a death threat hanging over him Andrew manages to flee the country together with his wife and a little boy Filippo's many years later the boy will become known as Prince Philip consort to queen elizabeth ii of Great Britain Constantin is a broken man and he dies in Italy just months after being forced into exile for a second time his despairing Sophie moves into a villa near Florence a villa which for many years to come will function as the exiled families only fixed point of reference [Music] Constantine's son George is now proclaimed the new king yet in the first instance George is only able to call himself King George the second for a period of a year then he too is sent into exile and Greece has proclaimed a republic in the 11 years that Greece is a republic the country witnesses a total of 23 governments 13 coos and one dictator [Music] [Applause] in 1935 the Greek people vote to re-establish the monarchy [Applause] and george ii returns home to athens as george has no air his younger brother Paul is now Crown Prince in 1936 Paul proposes to Kaiser Wilhelm's granddaughter Frederika of Hanover like her husband-to-be Frederika is also a descendant of the father-in-law of Europe [Music] [Applause] the couple Marian Athens and the pair who were second cousins very quickly achieve a high degree of popularity the following years see the arrival of their three children Sofia Constantine and Irene [Music] my father became a king on the 1st of April 1947 when is Ella brother King George a second died at the funeral the mourners will have to follow the coffin for many miles and the family has its doubts as to whether the six year old constantine will be able to last the distance my father took me for a very long walk which lasted for 2-3 hours over the hills just to see if I could actually walk with him in the funeral and during the funeral I still remember in my mind I wanted to see if men could cry so I was looking into the crowd to see if men could cry and I was very very impressed to see men weeping King Paul is now the third brother to sit on the throne and the Greeks are delighted with their new king [Music] [Applause] King Paul sends his uncle gaggy and Aunt Marie to represent him at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in London princess marie who during the Nazi occupation of Austria had smuggled her teacher Freud out of the country is now in attendance as the official Greek representative she hated that kind of poem she was bored to death so she seated in the stores with Chara decorrelation ality she couldn't care less so she turned to her neighbor and said would you like me to psychoanalyze you during the coronation so the gentleman a bit amazing why not so she started asked in question and he started talking and talking they didn't see one thing of the coronation of course the gentleman next to her was Francois Matteo future president of France [Music] Greece's economy is in a poor state so Queen fredericka organizes a luxury cruise to encourage tourism and by inviting Europe's nobility she hopes to ensure that Greece will receive a lot of media coverage we were about 300 cousins anchors on that boat it was great fun it was also hoped that some marriages or engagements would come out of that beautiful arraign tourism blossoms in the 50s but the cruise does not lead to many marriages although the meeting between federica's eldest daughter 16 year old Sofia and her contemporary Don Juan Carlos of Spain will however end in marriage many years later [Music] 20 year-old sailing enthusiasts crown prince Constantine is very keen to represent his country at the forthcoming Olympic Games he is therefore encouraged to contact the Danish Huntsman Paul Elston I said who's he you know the ignorant so at that time was quite considerable and I was told that he's the greatest thing in the world he's had three gold medals in the land so I said okay Alaska L storm says that he would like to help Constantine in the Olympic Trials which take place three months before the actual games on the first race I came to the first mark 400 metres in front of the second boat I'd never done that in my life of any way we came third in the India regatta and I was very proud and he explained to me that I was a very bad sail he said you have to sail for six to eight hours every single day Islam pushes Constantine until he's ready to drop and at the games themselves which are held in Rome the crown prince and his crew managed to climb to the top of the podium [Music] not since a Greek one the standing long jump discipline fifty years ago as the country managed to win a gold medal and the celebrations go on for days a few years later constantine becomes interested in the Danish kings youngest daughter fifteen-year-old Anne Marie I actually saw a picture of her in a magazine and and I said that's it first of all I want to go to Denmark and meet her and her mom my father said well how you gonna do that I said well I'll I'll write a letter to the king and say that I'm going to be in Denmark for a sailing meeting with mr. Paul Ellison which was feasible and I don't know if I have a tall pole pole that I used him as an excuse to go and see this girl [Music] the meeting takes place and some months later they see each other again at a family wedding we spent whatever it was four or five days in in Athens for the wedding which was a wonderful occasion and I think probably there it was that the sort of we fell in love they meet again shortly after and 22 year old Konstantin uses the occasion to propose to fifteen-year-old Ann Marie I said for goodness sake do not tell my parents because they will have a fit which he couldn't understand but I persuaded him and I think he realized that they probably would have had a fit so it wasn't until in fact six months after we had got engaged unofficially that we did tell my parents the biggest shock was for my father look I asked him if I could marry his daughter and a poor man got such a shock that he got up he never said a word to me he just got up took me by the hand and put me in a room will and locked me in there with no lights so I had to sort of grope around to find the light and then I found the light and opened it and I found out it was it was in his toilet and I couldn't I said what I was doing there and he had gone off to find his wife to tell him that this fellow wants to marry our daughter what do we do with him this results in the engagement being made official and everything looks set for the future but then King Paul suddenly dies and the shocked 23 year old Constantine must now be sworn in as Greece's new king later the same year anne-marie finally reaches 18 and the couple can now marry like his bride and both his parents Constantine is also a descendant of the father-in-law of Europe the wedding in Greece was spectacular they I I was the first reigning king to get married in Greece it was a huge wedding from every point to from the participation of the people from the point of view of all the heads of state who came there from all over the world it was a beautiful day the whole atmosphere was magic in the years immediately following the wedding the young good-looking couple are the world's most talked about her most photographed royal pair but problems quickly begin to mount up when George Papandreou the leader of the democratically elected government wishes to replace the Minister of Defence in order to clean up the officer corps Constantine refuses to allow him to do so poppin trail resigns and there follow a number of politically turbulent years before things go seriously wrong the 21st of April of 1967 in certainly in my mind was the the worst day of my life I mean you know the you suddenly wake up with a telephone call from my private secretary who who told me that they were machine-gunning his house down I said are you talking about and he said listen and I could hear the bullets going flying through his his house and he said they're wearing uniforms so I didn't know if this was a communist uprising what it was and then we my wife and I we put on the radio like every other Greek to find out what the hell was going on and they found out that I had made the cool I haven't sitting there not knowing what they what's going on and somebody was announcing that I had made in the in the name not I but in the name of the king we are taking over so I said well very shortly after that my house was surrounded by tanks and my husband sent somebody down from the police force to find out what was going on and this person didn't come back he sent others several during that time they didn't come back so we realized that that was it was nothing we could do about it the next morning Constantine drives to the military headquarters he is forced to accept that a group of Colonels have carried out a coup d'etat I didn't see him until late at night and he looked a complete wreck and was desperate about the whole situation but but life had to go on and then my son was born Pablos was born a month later so that at least was some joy I had to find a solution then restore democracy to my country and I tried to do that within about eight months of the coup and I tried to leave the armed forces in overthrowing the Colonel's it didn't succeed and so I had to leave the country with my family and we went into exile in Rome we took nothing with us because when we left the house we left in the morning and we were expecting to be away from the house for a few days we went to the north of Greece and so we just had a few things with us clothes whatever we would have for a trip but nothing else and everything else was left there because we were convinced we were going to be coming back again the family spend the next six years in exile in Rome until the monarchy is officially abolished by referendum in 1974 then anne-marie and Constantine moved to England when they move into a property outside London and it's here that the last of the family's five children are born in our families unfortunately there are many people in exile but for King cause a time a particularly sorry because he's by far the more Greek of all of us I grew up there started there so there was a head of state of the country I love my country I miss my country I'm homesick Constantine and Annemarie eldest son is Crown Prince Pavlos who in 1995 marries marie-chantal with more than 200 Royals in attendance [Music] Konstantin sister Princess Sofia marries the Spanish Don Juan Carlos in 1960 my sister well she American Juan Carlos was at that time was not even proclaim Prince of Spain Juan Carlos's grandfather had been dethroned when Spain was declared a republic in 1930 yet General Franco who now rules the country as dictator wishes to re-establish the monarchy therefore in 1969 Franco decrees that on his death Juan Carlos should succeed him as head of state [Music] this happens in 1975 and Juan Carlos and Sofia are installed as king and queen of Spain Juan Carlos was so intelligent and was he knew how to navigate among all these rocks and these dangers and they thanks to him the transition from a dictatorship to a democracy went on very smoothly and when a group of rebel Spanish officers stormed the country's parliament in 1981 and attempt to enlist the support of Juan Carlos the King flatly refuses democracy has come to stay and the attempted coup is stamped out in less than a day today Juan Carlos and Sofia have three grown-up children Alina Cristina and Crown Prince Philippe Philippe who is the great great great grandson of the father and lore of Europe will one day succeed his father as king of Spain [Music] back in 1920 King Constantine the first of Greece needs to find a suitable match for his daughter princess Helen and the choice falls on the Romanian Crown Prince by deserting from his regiment and marrying a commoner without his parents permission Crown Prince Carol has already shown himself to be the black sheep of the family yet his father has demanded that his son's marriage be annulled and now Carol is available again Helen and Carol are married in 1921 and nine months after the wedding their son Michael is born a son who will be king at an unusually young age Carol of Romania was extremely intelligent I think rather wicked very difficult had a very bad reputation among royalties was we're very unfaithful to his wife within a year of his marriage to Helen Carol has already fallen for another woman she is Magda Lupescu the daughter of a Romanian craftsman and when the relationship becomes public knowledge carol is forced to renounce his position as heir to the throne and go into exile the elves are thrown announces and all that the next one has to take over so the next one happens to be me 1924-25 all of us are three four years old Michael's grandfather dies after just two years as heir and the now six year old Michael is proclaimed the new king of Romania and just like his young contemporaries the king loves going to the circus [Music] the little boy is exceptionally close to his mother Helen my relationship with her was not simply a relation from mother to son it was also a friendship goes further even the normal relationship I don't know what we would have done with all the things that follows often yet life as a single mother is not easy for Helen also she was very unhappy from a certain stage very often I saw crying and I didn't go into any details of that but I knew there was something that was very wrong and things don't get any easier for Helen when the government which misses having an adult head of state suddenly recalls Carol and makes him King in 1939 year-old Michael is once more face-to-face with his father I've only been a snail that you can say so oh the gun a commercial immediately provide another man and then from that moment on things forgive him from there to us as Carol is still obsessed with his mistress and when she also arrives in Romania helen chooses to leave the country Michael is now raised by a group of officers and is only allowed to see his mother twice a year these meetings take place in Italy where she lives until the situation changes drastically in 1940 Carroll who has established an absolute monarchy is now very unpopular and he looks to a general antonescu for support yet Antonescu immediately exploits his new position to depose Carroll instead nineteen year old Michael is now proclaimed king for the second time [Music] Carroll spends the next few years traveling Central and South America he has taken his mistress Madame Lupescu and the entire family fortune jewels included with him the media follow them intensely the Second World War has broken out and when Hitler declares war on the Soviet Union he is immediately joined in his declaration by The Dictator antonescu King Michael knows nothing of this decision woke me up there that the wall of the clouds saying that the BBC radio said that we attacked Russia with a joke no I knew nothing about it Michael not the Prime Minister then so what about this has everyone enjoy Tennyson well he said that I thought you said in the newspapers for sir thank you Michael is strongly against the alliance with Germany but he is unable to do anything about it until 1944 when antonescu is lured into an ambush one day Michael and cousin Ellen decided to get rid of the dictatorship so they arrested him and they did know where to lock him in the palace and so they locked him in the strong room of the palace among the silver [Applause] [Music] the Antonescu regime collapses 60,000 German soldiers are taken prisoner and the Russian army moves in Romania spends the rest of the war on the Allied side [Music] after the war michael falls in love with his Danish French relative Princess Anne of Bob on pom michael wants to marry but can I get a clear answer from an it was difficult because he was a king and I'd been brought up sort of recently I didn't think I could keep that all in a way - it's a horrible responsibility so I already said I'm thinking about it the Russians have established a communist government in Romania and in 1947 King Michael is forced to give up the throne and go into exile he is only allowed to take a few personal effects with him Anne has accepted Michael's proposal and his uncle King Paul of Greece arranges the wedding both the bride and groom are descendants of the father-in-law of Europe the couple choose to live in England fast where they have to work for their living there we have a little local vegetable garden somewhere the chicken who worked on it from my solar products it's here that Ann gives birth to the first of the couple's five daughters and the girls have a mixed upbringing sometimes we maybe were invited to Windsor Castle Buckingham Palace which is what you would call a princess's upbringing and then we went back and we had to wash up and we had to clean the dishes and we had to her you know just do the normal things every day so it was an interesting life it was always two sides to it the family's economy does not improve on the death of Michael's father Carol for even though he had taken a multi-million dollar fortune with him when he left Romania he has left nothing to Michael [Music] Madden Lupescu however continues to live a life of luxury [Music] after the fall of the dictator Ceausescu Michael and Anne are allowed to visit Romania for a few days for the first time in 1992 and it becomes a real triumphal procession the cause and cause of people the more we came close the tongue the thicker the crowds became who are people climbing up into the trees there were nine hundred twelve million people in the station because even though Michael on an have the Romanian citizenship restored in 1996 they live today in Switzerland their oldest daughter margarita and her husband the Romanian born Prince rattle also live in Switzerland back in 1934 King Alexander the first of Yugoslavia is the victim of an assassination [Music] as his son Peter is only 11 years old the throne is temporarily taken over by his uncle but when in 1941 the uncle enters into a pact with Hitler a group of officers carry out a coup and proclaim the now 17 year old Peter as king instead yet after only a few weeks on the throne Peter is forced to flee when the Germans start an bombardment of Yugoslavia the Greek Princess Alexandra whose father died after being bitten by a monkey is now a 20 year old debutante in London here she is presented to King Peter of Yugoslavia who was 2 years her junior are now living in London Alexandra and Peter fall madly in love and marry in 1944 the following year alexandra gives birth to the couple's only child they produced a son who's the present Pretender to the throne Alexander and in order that he could succeed he had to be born on Yugoslavian soil so by special law Churchill made Hotel Claridge's in London for one day Hugo's life territory so I was actually born in London in you Slav territory very official quite an extraordinary event Alexandre and Peter are very popular figures in London society they are young and beautiful and as Peter has a considerable fortune in Yugoslavia they are wealthy too we really didn't have a home initially we stayed at Claridge's and then there were moves to to Switzerland and France Peter is restless and will not remain in one place too long so the little family is constantly moving from hotel to hotel most of the balkans is now under communist control and the Yugoslavian monarchy has officially been abolished the young couple lose everything they own they are now both stateless and homeless and a tragic future awaits them Alexandra worships her husband but Peters growing frustration with his destiny increasingly puts pressure on the marriage one moment they they wanted to separate and then amo and they came together this finally becomes too much for their nine-year-old son Alexander he writes a letter to his father I organized a meeting between them in STAAD and they got back together that was a 1954 Christmas 1954 I remember that vividly and they were extremely happy yet this happiness does not last long Peter leaves his family and moves to America he died in in America unfortunately he was abusing alcohol at the time he was extremely depressed it was a tragic case Alexandra never gets over the break with Peter and on a number of occasions she attempts to take her own life there was an unfortunate attempt in 63 and she took some sleeping tablets and she was very depressed and I was visiting some friends and had to break into the house and I found her on the floor luckily Alexandra's life is saved and she lives for a further 30 years in 1989 Crown Prince Alexander begins working from his home in London to re-establish democracy in Yugoslavia and in this connection he gets to know Costa Rica the country's future president the friendship develops and with great popular support alexander visits his homeland for the first time in 1991 the family's properties are returned after the fall of Milosevic and Crown Prince Alexander is finally allowed to return home with his family in 2001 I think it's thanks very much to this effort since 89 since the collapse the Berlin Wall since the collapse of Moscow as one might put it that the work were these fine people that we're actually here the negotiations in coming here took place in a very calm way and now I have the responsibility of these two palaces which were built by my grandfather after having returned to Yugoslavia the crown prince and his wife Crown Princess Caterina spend the majority of their time on charitable works old King George the first other living descendants include his grandson Prince Michael of Greece who was a historian and writer he lives in Paris with his wife Marina who is an artist and Duke Amedeo of Oster his amongst George the First's great-grandchildren he has a house outside Florence where he lives with his wife Duchess Silvia in the next episode we will follow the two youngest children of the father-in-law of Europe princess Sura and Prince Valdemar Valdemar marries a very special French princess and every time she would listen at the bell of Fi even if it was during an official function she would leave the table take off her Chiara put her cask of a fireman or rush to the place of the fire to try to help delighted [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Scandinavian Royalty

Views: 769,258

Keywords: queen margrethe ii, crown prince frederik, prince joachim, grand duchess olga of russia, queen alexandra, queen victoria, king christian ix, queen lovisa, queen elizabeth ii, prince michael of kent, grand duchess josephine-charlotte, royal, royalty, royal family, danish royal family, queen sonja, crown prince haakon, norwegian royal family, swedish royal family, british royal family, russian imperial family

Id: uZRlBj5ckfE

Length: 52min 33sec (3153 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 15 2017