Portal:Monarchy/Featured biography/1
Alexander (1893–1920) was
King of
Greece from 11 June 1917 until his death at the age of 27. He succeeded his father,
King Constantine I, in 1917, after the
Entente Powers of World War I and followers of
Eleftherios Venizelos pushed the king and his eldest son
Crown Prince George into exile. Venizelos, as prime minister, became the effective ruler with the support of the Entente. Though reduced to the status of a puppet king, Alexander supported Greek troops during their war against the
Ottoman Empire and
Bulgaria. Under his reign, Greece expanded, following the victory of the Entente and the early stages of the
Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922. Alexander married the commoner
Aspasia Manos in 1919, provoking a major scandal that forced the couple to leave Greece for several months. Soon after returning to Greece with his wife, Alexander was bitten by a domestic
Barbary macaque and died of
septicemia. The sudden death of the sovereign contributed to the fall of the Venizelist regime. After a
general election and a
referendum, Constantine I was restored.
Portal:Monarchy/Featured biography/2
Princess Alice of Battenberg (1885–1969) was the mother of
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (consort of
Queen Elizabeth II).
Congenitally deaf, she grew up in
Germany,
England and the
Mediterranean. After marrying
Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1903, she lived in
Greece until the exile of most of the
Greek Royal Family in 1917. On returning to Greece a few years later, her husband was blamed in part for the defeat of Greece in the
Greco–Turkish War of 1919–1922, and the family were once again forced into exile until the
restoration of the Greek monarchy in 1935. In 1930, she was diagnosed with
schizophrenia and committed to a sanatorium; thereafter, she lived separately from her husband. After her recovery, she devoted most of her remaining years to charity work in Greece. She stayed in
Athens during the
Second World War, sheltering Jewish refugees, for which she is recognised as "
Righteous Among the Nations" at
Yad Vashem. After the war, she stayed in Greece and founded an
Orthodox nursing order of nuns known as the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary. After the fall of King
Constantine II of Greece and the
imposition of military rule in Greece in 1967, she was invited by her son and daughter-in-law to live at
Buckingham Palace in
London, where she died two years later
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Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (18 June 1901 – 17 July 1918) was the youngest daughter of
Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of
Imperial Russia, and his wife,
Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. She was
murdered with her family by members of the
Cheka, the
Bolshevik secret police. The location of her burial was unknown during the decades of Communist rule, and rumors that she had escaped circulated after her death. A mass grave near
Yekaterinburg which held the remains of the Tsar, his wife, and three of their daughters was revealed in 1991, and the bodies of the remaining daughter and the
Tsarevitch Alexei were discovered in 2007. Forensic analysis and DNA testing have confirmed that the remains are those of the
imperial family, showing that Anastasia and the other grand duchesses were killed in 1918. Several women have claimed to be Anastasia, including
Anna Anderson, who died in 1984, but DNA testing in 1994 showed that she was not related to the Romanov family.
Portal:Monarchy/Featured biography/4
Catherine de' Medici (1519–1589) was
queen consort of King
Henry II of France from 1547 to 1559. Throughout Henry II's reign, he excluded Catherine from influence and instead showered favours on his mistress,
Diane de Poitiers. Henry's death in 1559 thrust Catherine into the political arena as mother of the frail fifteen-year-old King
Francis II. When he died in 1560, she became
regent on behalf of her ten-year-old son
King Charles IX and was granted sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son,
Henry III. He dispensed with her advice only in the last months of her life. Catherine's three sons reigned in an age of almost constant civil and religious war in France. The problems facing the monarchy were complex and daunting. At first, Catherine compromised and made concessions to the rebelling Protestants, or
Huguenots, as they became known. Later, she resorted in frustration and anger to hard-line policies against them. Her policies may be seen as desperate measures to keep the
Valois monarchy on the throne at all costs, and her spectacular patronage of the arts as an attempt to glorify a monarchy whose prestige was in steep decline. Without Catherine, it is unlikely that her sons would have remained in power. The years in which they reigned have been called "the age of Catherine de' Medici".
Portal:Monarchy/Featured biography/5
Constantine II of Scotland was an early
King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. His reign, like those of his predecessors, was dominated by the actions of
Viking rulers in
Britain and Ireland, particularly the
Uí Ímair. During Constantine's reign, the rulers of the southern kingdoms of
Wessex and
Mercia, later the
kingdom of England, extended their authority northwards into the disputed kingdoms of
Northumbria. At first allied with the southern rulers against the Vikings, Constantine in time came into conflict with them. King
Æthelstan secured Constantine's submission in 927 and 934, but the two again fought when Constantine, allied with the
Strathclyde Britons and the Viking king of
Dublin, invaded Æthelstan's kingdom in 937, only to be defeated at the great
battle of Brunanburh. In 943 Constantine abdicated the throne and retired to the
Céli Dé monastery of
St Andrews where he died in 952. His reign of 43 years, exceeded in Scotland only by that of King
William the Lion before the
Union of the Crowns in 1603, is believed to have played a defining part in the
gaelicisation of
Pictland in which his patronage of the Irish Céli Dé monastic reformers was a significant factor. During his reign the words "Scots" and "Scotland" (
Old English:
Scottas, Scotland) were first used to mean part of what is now
Scotland.
