How the Crown turned a tragedy into a brutal scandal. Prince Philip’s favorite sister died in a catastrophic plane crash that wiped out much of her family. Yet screenwriters wrongly suggested that the schoolboy was somehow to blame
Of all the fictionalizations and inaccuracies in The Crown, none has caused more offense than the claim that a young Prince Philip was somehow to blame for the death of his favorite sister, Cecilie.
Princess Cecilie, the third of the five children of Princess Alice of Battenberg and Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, died in a plane in November 1937.. She had been eight months pregnant.
Cecilie also witnessed the Balkan Wars, in which the Turks were eventually driven out of Europe, and the First World War, which led to her family’s exile to Switzerland and then France.
Prince Philip was the youngest child and the only boy.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s favorite sister, Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark, was tragically killed while eight months pregnant in a plane crash in Ostend
Prince Philip of Greece, later Duke of Edinburgh, pictured alongside relatives marching as mourners at the funeral of his sister, Princess Cecilie, in November 1937
Cecile, pictured in July 1922, was born in June 1911 and was the third of Princess Alice of Battenberg and Prince Andrew of the five children of Greece and Denmark
In 1931, Cecilie married Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and Rhine, her cousin once removed, and was swept up by the fascist currents of pre-war Germany.
She joined the Nazi Party together with her husband in May 1937.
The princess was pregnant with her fourth child when she boarded a plane in Darmstadt, near Frankfurt, on November 16 that same year, bound for London, where she was to attend the wedding of her brother-in-law Prince Ludwig and Margaret. Campbell-Geddes.
But the plane crashed after hitting a factory chimney in the fog near Ostend.
The fatal accident killed Cecile, her husband, her mother-in-law, as well as their sons, aged four and six, their maid of honor and the best man for the wedding.
The pilot and two crew members also died,
While searching through the rubble, firefighters also found the body of a newborn baby, who appeared to have been delivered prematurely when the plane crashed.
The child was found lying next to his mother, leading to the conclusion that the pilot had attempted to land because Cecile unexpectedly went into labor.
Their youngest daughter and Prince Philip’s niece, Joanna of Hesse and by Rhine, who was just over a year old at the time, were deemed too young for the journey and were left at home.
She was the only surviving member of her immediate family and was later adopted by her uncle Prince Ludwig and his wife Princess Margaret. However, she unfortunately contracted meningitis and died in June 1939, three months before her third birthday.
Princess Cecilie with her husband, Prince Georg Donatus and their children, Prince Ludwig, Prince Alexander and baby Princess Johanna
The wedding gathers for a photo at the wedding of Princess Cecilie of Greece to Hereditary Grand Duke Georg Donatus of Hesse in the Schlosskirche, Darmstadt in February 1931
Princess Cecilie of Greece (1911-1937), third child of Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece, sister of the Duke of Edinburgh and wife of Hereditary Grand Duke Georg Donatus of Hesse and Rhine, whom she married in 1931.
Due to the tragedy, wedding plans for November 20 were scrapped and the following day, Prince Ludwig and Margaret married in a private ceremony.
The couple then collected the bodies of the princess and her family in Belgium and returned to Darmstadt.
Prince Philip, then 16, was close to his sister, Princess Cecilie, and recalled being told to go to the headmaster’s study in Godonstoun, where he was told the tragic news.
Years later he said it was one of the worst moments of his life. He wrote: ‘I remember well the deep shock with which I heard the news of the accident and death of my sister and her family.’
Cecile was buried with her husband and her three sons in Darmstadt at the Rosenhöhe, the traditional cemetery of the Hesse family.
Photos from the funeral show the young Prince Philip surrounded by grieving relatives, many wearing distinctive Nazi uniforms.
One is dressed in the uniform of the Brown Shirts, while the other wears full SS regalia.
The street in Darmstadt, near Frankfurt, was packed with crowds, many giving the “Heil Hitler” salute.
The Crown’s depiction of the aftermath of her death was criticized for wrongly suggesting that Philip had been blamed for her death by his father.
Prince Philip was reportedly upset by the “shockingly vicious” episode in which his father angrily blamed him for his sister’s death in a plane crash, according to two royal biographers.
Princess Theodora, Princess Sophie, Princess Margarita and Princess Cecilie, daughters of Prince Andrew of Greece, pictured together in 1915
The four sisters of Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, pictured together in July 1922
The authors said Philip was hurt by the way Princess Cecilie’s death was depicted in the drama and called on Netflix to apologize and add a disclaimer to the credits (making it clear that the drama.
Hugo Vickers, a royal biographer who has dissected The Crown’s untruths, described the portrayal of Cecilie’s death as “disgraceful”, adding that Philip had been “very appalled” by it.
‘How disgraceful it was [of The Crown] to make Prince Philip a caricatured person – he never did any work in the series. The portrayal was cruel and deeply unfair. The least Netflix could do was warn viewers with a disclaimer.”