"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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Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972. Used books may not include companion materials, some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, and may not include cd-rom or access codes. Customer service is our top priority!
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Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972. Used books may not include companion materials, some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, and may not include cd-rom or access codes. Customer service is our top priority!
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Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972. Used books may not include companion materials, some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, and may not include cd-rom or access codes. Customer service is our top priority!
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Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972. Used books may not include companion materials, some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, and may not include cd-rom or access codes. Customer service is our top priority!
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Foxing to the page edges/pages. Minor shelf wear. Previous owners name inside the front page/cover. Sun damage has caused slight fading to the colours of the cover Good condition is defined as: a copy that has been read but remains in clean condition. All of the pages are intact and the cover is intact and the spine may show signs of wear. The book may have minor markings which are not specifically mentioned. Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day.
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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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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.
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.