"In 1953, at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Alice was dressed from head to foot in a long grey dress and a grey clock, and a nun's veil. Amidst all the jewels, and velvet and coronets, and the fine uniforms, she exuded an unworldly simplicity. As one who witnessed her process alone up the long aisle of the abbey put it, "she looked as though she were walking into eternity". Seated with the royal family, she was a part of them, yet somehow distanced from them. In as much as she is remembered at all today, it ...
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"In 1953, at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Alice was dressed from head to foot in a long grey dress and a grey clock, and a nun's veil. Amidst all the jewels, and velvet and coronets, and the fine uniforms, she exuded an unworldly simplicity. As one who witnessed her process alone up the long aisle of the abbey put it, "she looked as though she were walking into eternity". Seated with the royal family, she was a part of them, yet somehow distanced from them. In as much as she is remembered at all today, it is as this shadowy figure in grey nun's clothes..." Princess Alice, mother of Prince Philip, was something of a mystery figure even within her own family. She was born deaf, at Windsor Castle, in the presence of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, and brought up in England, Darmstadt and Malta. In 1903 she married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, and from then on her life was overshadowed by wars, revolutions and enforced periods of exile. By the time she was 35, virtually every point of stability was overthrown. Though the British royal family remained in the ascendant, her German family ceased to be ruling princes, her two aunts who had married Russian royalty came to savage ends, and soon afterwards Alice's own husband was nearly executed as a political scapegoat. The middle years of her life, which should have followed a conventional and fulfilling path, did the opposite. She suffered from a serious religious crisis and at the age of 45 was removed from her family and placed in a sanatorium in Switzerland, where she was pronounced a "schizophrenic paranoid". As her stay in the clinic became prolonged, there was a time when it seemed that she might never walk free again. How she achieved her recovery is just one of the remarkable aspects of her story.
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Seller's Description:
PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
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Fine. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 512 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
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Seller's Description:
New. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 512 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Book is in good condition. Minimal signs of wear. It May have markings or highlights but kept to only a few pages. May not come with supplemental materials if applicable.
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Fair. This copy has clearly been enjoyed-expect noticeable shelf wear and some minor creases to the cover. Binding is strong and all pages are legible. May contain previous library markings or stamps.
I think it was the cover. There is Princess Andrew looking every inch a fairy tale princess. It was so easy to pick up the book. Alice, the mother of Prince Philip of Britain, was the kind of woman who took huge bites out of life. Though you learn a great deal about her, and a certain amount about Phillip's distressing boyhood, the nature of their relationship remains cloudy. Romantic her life definitely was not. She was born with a substantial hearing loss, suffered hospitalization for mental illness halfway through her life, and was a partner in one of those disastrous royal marriages. You are ready to throttle the mental health people who treated her, but you come away with enormous admiration for this plucky, intelligent, independent woman--an eccentric doubtless, but one whose life was forceful and full of meaning for the many people to whose relief and comfort she put it to work.
