Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark (; 18 April 1905 – 24 April 1981) was by birth a Greek and Danish princess as well as Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg by marriage. An elder sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (husband of Queen Elizabeth II), she was, for a time, linked to the Nazi regime.
The eldest daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, Margarita spent a happy childhood between Athens and Corfu. In her youth, however, she witnessed the Balkan Wars (1912–1913), followed by the First World War (1914–1918) and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). For the young princess and her relatives, these conflicts had dramatic consequences and led to their exile in Switzerland (between 1917 and 1920), then in France and the United Kingdom (from 1922 to 1936). During their exile, Margarita and her family depended on the generosity of their foreign relatives, in particular Princess George of Greece and Denmark (who offered them accommodation in Saint-Cloud) and Lady Louis Mountbatten (who supported them financially).
At the end of the 1920s, Margarita's mother was struck by a mental health crisis which led to her confinement in a Swiss psychiatric hospital. Shortly after, in 1931, Margarita married Prince Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. The couple then moved to Weikersheim Castle, where they raised a family made up of four sons (Princes Kraft, Georg Andreas, Rupprecht and Albrecht) and a daughter (Princess Beatrix). Members of the Nazi party from 1937, Gottfried and Margarita used their family connections to promote a rapprochement of Nazism within the United Kingdom, though without success. During the 1930s, the couple also made several trips abroad. In particular, she visited New York in 1934 to testify in favor of Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, Gottfried's former fiancée, in the case between her and her in-laws for the custody of her daughter, also named Gloria.
Affected by the Second World War, which divided her relatives into two factions, Margarita spent time in Langenburg during the conflict. The defeat of Germany and its occupation by the Allies brought new upheavals in the life of Margarita and Gottfried. Though preserved from Soviets, who caused the death of several of their cousins, the couple were ostracized by the British royal family at the time of the marriage of Prince Philip, Margarita's only brother, to Princess Elizabeth of the United Kingdom in 1947. Over the years, the couple were nevertheless reintegrated into the life of the European elite, as illustrated by their invitation and presence at the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, and the princess's presence at the wedding of Juan Carlos, Prince of Asturias, and Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark in 1962.
Widowed in 1960, Margarita witnessed the fire breakout at Langenburg Castle in 1963. Her last years were marked by the marriages of three of her sons, but also by the deaths of several of her relatives, including her son Rupprecht, who committed suicide in 1978. The princess died in 1981 and her body was buried in the Hohenlohe-Langenburg family mausoleum. Margarita was the paternal aunt of the Prince of Wales, who later became King Charles III.
Biography
Childhood
In Greece and abroad
The eldest daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, Margarita was born at the Royal Palace in Athens on 18 April 1905. Through her mother, Margarita was the eldest great-great grandchild of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Contrary to the custom of the time, her father attended her birth because her grandmother, Queen Olga, believed that "it is only justice that men see the suffering they cause to their wives, and from which they completely escape". Baptized on 11 May in the presence of her maternal grandparents, Margarita grew up surrounded by her father's animals, and within a united household, which rapidly expanded with the arrival of her sisters Theodora (1906–1969), Cecilie (1911–1937), and Sophie (1914–2001). With their mother, Margarita and her sisters communicated in English, but they also used French, German, and Greek in the presence of their relatives and governesses. The princesses were formally educated in English and Greek.