Britain’s Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and their children Prince Charles and Princess Anne, London, 1951. (AP Photo/Worth)
When Prince Charles said that Greece is in his blood upon his first official visit to the country, he was not talking metaphorically as both his father and grandfather were born in Greece.
The grandfather of the Prince of Wales, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, was born at Tatoi Palace, in the outskirts of Athens in 1882. His father, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was born in Corfu, at Mon Repos Palace in 1921.
Prince Charles has visited Greece several times, but always privately. He has visited Mount Athos a few times, while he often enjoys his summer vacations in the Greek seas. Last summer, for instance, he took a mini cruise in the Ionian with his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
Charles’ grandparents and Greece
Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (1882-1944) was the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of Greece and Olga Constantinovna of Russia. He was the grandfather of Charles.
Prince Andrew was an officer in the Greek army and served in the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). In 1913, his father was assassinated and Andrew’s elder brother, Constantine, became king. Constantine’s neutrality policy during World War I led to his abdication, and most members of the royal family, including Andrew, were exiled.
On the royals’ return a few years later, Andrew fought again in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), but the war went badly for Greece, and Andrew was blamed, in part, for the loss of Greek territory.
The court martial was about to sentence him to death for the losses but General Theodoros Pangalos intervened and saved him, on the grounds of his “great inexperience of commanding upper ranks”. He was exiled for the second time in 1922, and spent most of the rest of his life in France.
