King Constantine II died on this day last year. Prince William’s godfather was the last monarch to rule Greece before being forced into exile

Last year on this day, the last king of Greece died at the age of 82.

King Constantine of Greece was cousin of the late Duke of Edinburgh and godfather of Prince William.

Constantine, the only son of King Paul and Queen Frederica of Greece, lived much of his life in exile in London after a decade of political turmoil and a 1974 referendum that rejected the monarchy.

He was the brother of Queen Sofia of Spain, wife of former King Juan Carlos.

The end came after months of illness and several hospital admissions. He died after suffering a stroke at the private Hygeia Hospital in Athens.

Constantine II was a young monarch who was only 23 years old when he came to the throne in 1964.

He was an enormously popular figure and had already achieved fame as an Olympic gold medalist in sailing.

By the following year, he had squandered much of that support thanks to his involvement in the machinations that toppled Prime Minister George Papandreou’s popularly elected Center Union government.

This episode, still widely known in Greece as the ‘defection’ – which involved the defection from the ruling party of several politicians – destabilized the constitutional order and led to a military coup in 1967.

Constantine eventually clashed with the military rulers and was forced into exile with his wife Princess Anne-Marie, the youngest daughter of King Frederick IX of Denmark and his family.

The dictatorship abolished the monarchy in 1973, while a referendum after democracy was restored in 1974 dashed hopes of Constantine’s return.

In the following decades he was reduced to only fleeting visits to Greece, each time causing a political and media storm, and in his last years he was able to settle back in his home country, when his opposition to his presence no longer made the currency a token of vigilance. republicanism.

He would not return to Greece for decades, where he was deeply unpopular due to his decision to swear in the colonels who seized power in April 1967.

He worked with them briefly before staging a failed counter-coup, which led to his exile.

The military junta abolished the monarchy in 1973. In a referendum after the fall of the junta in 1974, Greece rejected the monarchy again.

After the referendum, his relationship with Greece was problematic.

In 1981, he was allowed to return for only a few hours to bury his mother, Queen Frederika, at the family estate in Tatoi, about 20 kilometers north of Athens.

In the 1990s, Constantine was stripped of his Greek citizenship and the state seized Tatoi and a palace on the island of Corfu, where Prince Philip had been born in 1921.

Throughout his life, Constantine maintained a close relationship with other European monarchs.

Constantine’s father, King Paul, was a cousin of Prince Philip and father-in-law of Juan Carlos I of Spain.

Constantine was also godfather to Prince William.

For many years he had a palatial home in Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London.

Diana, Princess of Wales, was a frequent visitor to the home in the 1990s and reportedly dropped off Prince William and Prince Harry there for playdates and family vacations in Europe.

Constantine died on January 10 in the Greek capital of a stroke, at the age of 82.

His widow, Queen Anne-Marie of Greece, paid a moving tribute at the funeral.

The 77-year-old widow had tears in her eyes as she wore the same cross pendant she had worn at her 1964 wedding.

Last weekend, members of the royal family from across Europe – including Queen Margrethe of Denmark and King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain – flew to the Greek capital to attend the funeral.

Princess Anne – the Greek king’s second cousin – appeared stoic as she entered Athens Cathedral with her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence.

Among the other European royals in attendance were King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, as well as Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands.

The public funeral was followed by a 18-mile procession to the Tatoi Palace, from where a separate private ceremony took place in which Constantine was buried with other members of the Greek royal family.