Prince Philip has been married to Queen Elizabeth II for almost 72 years. The couple went on to have four children, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Philip’s life before he joined the British Royal Family was far than blissful, being exiled from Greece as an infant, losing touch with his parents and later losing his sister and her family in an air crash. But how exactly did Philip’s royal cousin come to die in exile?

Prince Philip was born into both the Danish and Greek royal families.

Given the close ties between the royal families over the years, this means Prince Philip is related to a number of other royals, including his wife the Queen.

One such relative was the Queen Mother Helen of Romania, who was born Helen of Greece and Denmark, who was the cousin of Prince Philip.

Helen of Greece and Denmark was the queen mother of Romania during the reign of her son King Michael, from 1940 to 1947.

She was renowned for her concerted humanitarian efforts to save the lives of Romanian Jews during the Second World War, which led her to being awarded by the State of Israel with the honorific of Righteous Among the Nations in 1933.

She was born in May 1896 to King Constantine I of Greece and Sophia of Prussia, after which she spent her childhood in Greece, Great Britain and Germany.

When WWI broke out, her father was overthrown by the Allies and exiled to Switzerland along with most members of the royal family.

In 1920, she met Carol, Crown Prince of Romania who asked for her hand in marriage.

But the Romanian prince had a reputation as a hedonist and his life was marked by several scandals – particularly by many affairs.

Helen married him nonetheless, however, moved to Romania and gave birth to their only son Prince Michael.

Her husband fell in love with Magda Lupescu in 1924 and stopped having multiple affairs, a year later abandoning Helen to live openly with his mistress.

Helen tried to persuade Prince Carol to return, but eventually the couple divorced in 1928.

She became the Queen Mother of Romania in 1927 and her son ascended to the throne under the regency of his under Prince Nicholas.

But the political climate in Romania was complicated and Prince Carol took advantage of this uncertainty, returning to Bucharest in 1930 and proclaiming himself king.

With his return to the throne, Carol forced Helen into exile, only allowing her to see son two months per year.

Helen then moved to Germany to care for her mother who had cancer and after she died in 1932 she moved to Italy.

After just one month in Italy, Carol imposed a new separation agreement, which banned Helen from returning to Romania, finally forcing her into permanent exile.

After the war, the king was forced to accept a communist government and two years later Carol was forced to abdicate.

Helen died in exile in Lausanne, Switzerland on November 1982, aged 86 and was buried without pomp in the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery.

Source: Read Full Article