God bless Youtube’s aggregator which alerts me to the most remarkable array of videos, including this one on Prince Philip’s mother. What a painful life she led, her deafness being the least of her problems. This great-grand-daughter of Queen Victoria was born in 1885, and ultimately married a Greco-Russian prince who took over the throne of Greece. She had three daughters, and later a son, but was shortly thereafter diagnosed with a mental illness, probably schizophrenia. The odd thing about how it manifested itself was in religious delusions, which sound pretty bizarre (but I’m holding out for exaggeration on the part of her horrified family). She was committed against her will, and given experimental therapies in accordance with Freudian theories of the age (Freud even visited her).
The video is worth the time, and culminates with her reunion with her son after many decades of separation. In that time, she had converted to the Orthodox church, lived extreme poverty, and performed tremendous acts of charity. She has been named “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem for sheltering Jews at great risk to herself, and began a religious order of her own. Although her 84 years encompassed a vicarious life around Europe, this German princess began and ended her life in Buckingham Palace. (I cheered to see her boldness at the coronation of Elizabeth, utterly out of place following the queen, calmly walking alone in her habit.) After decades of wrangling, she was finally buried in the Holy Land, where her grandson William payed tribute in June, 2018.
Addendum: She was not the only Orthodox in the family. Her Aunt Alexandria was famously the wife of Tsar Nicholas of Russia which required her conversion, and her Aunt Elisabeth, granddaughter of Victoria was also Orthodox, became a nun after the assassination of her husband, and has been declared a martyr for her death at the hands of the Bolsheviks.
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