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Princess Alice equals Queen Mother's record
By Caroline Davies (Filed: 19/08/2003)
Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, is about to overtake the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother this week by becoming the oldest member of the Royal Family in history.
The dowager Duchess, who lives at Kensington Palace, will tomorrow equal the age to which the Queen Mother lived, 101 years and 238 days.
Princess Alice pictured in July 2001
Although frail and sometimes forgetful, Princess Alice continues to carry out royal engagements - albeit very few - but is rarely seen in public.
Her last official photograph was taken just before her 100th birthday when she posed with members of her family including her two bridesmaids - the Queen and Princess Margaret.
Recently she took over as Colonel in Chief of the Royal Anglians, an appointment that surprised many given her great age. And the duties she has performed in recent years have been restricted to granting audiences in her apartment for members of the organisations with which she remains associated.
As the only member of the Royal Family alive during the First World War, she has retained strong links with the Somme Association, and one of her most recent engagements was to hold an audience for its officials in May, where they found her to be "bright, alert and interested in what we are doing".
The following month she also received the retiring chairman of the Queen's Nursing Institute.
But these days Princess Alice is most frequently spotted being wheeled around the gardens of Kensington Palace, where she lives with her son, the present Duke of Gloucester and his family.
The widow of Prince Henry, the late Duke of Gloucester and third son of George V, Princess Alice is often dubbed the most reluctant of Royals. She only accepted Prince Henry's marriage proposal at the age of 34, having devoted much of her young life to travel.
Like Prince William, she fell in love with Kenya and, like him also, she began learning Swahili. She also travelled in India. The third daughter of eight children of the 7th Duke of Buccleuch, the young Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott was seen as the perfect addition to George V's family, despite her self-confessed "horror" of society life.
But first she was determined to experience a life away from the house parties, and financed her travels by painting watercolours and selling them through a Bond Street gallery. She recorded her adventures in detail in her autobiography published some years ago.
Once the Duke had ensnared her, however, she settled down to royal life and produced two sons, Prince William, born in December 1941 and then, after two miscarriages, Prince Richard, the present Duke of Gloucester.
Soon after the latter's birth the Duke replaced Lord Gowrie as Governor General of Australia, and the family decamped there for two years. On their return they settled at her beloved Barnwell Manor, the Northamptonshire home bought for her by the Duke in 1938. It was to remain her home until the 1990s when, due to her infirmity, she moved to Kensington Palace.
She has been touched by the deepest of tragedies during her long life. In 1972 her elder son, Prince William, was killed taking part in an airshow in Staffordshire.
"I was completely stunned and have never been the same since," she wrote in her autobiography, "though I have tried to persuade myself that it was better to have known and lost him than never to have had him at all".
Two years later, her husband the Duke, who had become too ill for public duties since collapsing at the wheel of their car on the way back from Sir Winston Churchill's funeral in 1965, died too. Her younger son became Duke of Gloucester.
Princess Alice has always believed her life of public duty was pre-ordained, and cited an incident when she almost drowned at the age of 14 and made a covenant with God to make use of her life if He spared it.
"So when, through a set of unforeseen circumstances I one day found myself allotted a life of public duty in service of my country, a very secret pledge was honoured," she wrote.
She still holds several honorary appointments and ranks in the Armed Services, as well as being associated with many medical and health charities.
By Caroline Davies (Filed: 19/08/2003)
Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, is about to overtake the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother this week by becoming the oldest member of the Royal Family in history.
The dowager Duchess, who lives at Kensington Palace, will tomorrow equal the age to which the Queen Mother lived, 101 years and 238 days.
Princess Alice pictured in July 2001
Although frail and sometimes forgetful, Princess Alice continues to carry out royal engagements - albeit very few - but is rarely seen in public.
Her last official photograph was taken just before her 100th birthday when she posed with members of her family including her two bridesmaids - the Queen and Princess Margaret.
Recently she took over as Colonel in Chief of the Royal Anglians, an appointment that surprised many given her great age. And the duties she has performed in recent years have been restricted to granting audiences in her apartment for members of the organisations with which she remains associated.
As the only member of the Royal Family alive during the First World War, she has retained strong links with the Somme Association, and one of her most recent engagements was to hold an audience for its officials in May, where they found her to be "bright, alert and interested in what we are doing".
The following month she also received the retiring chairman of the Queen's Nursing Institute.
But these days Princess Alice is most frequently spotted being wheeled around the gardens of Kensington Palace, where she lives with her son, the present Duke of Gloucester and his family.
The widow of Prince Henry, the late Duke of Gloucester and third son of George V, Princess Alice is often dubbed the most reluctant of Royals. She only accepted Prince Henry's marriage proposal at the age of 34, having devoted much of her young life to travel.
Like Prince William, she fell in love with Kenya and, like him also, she began learning Swahili. She also travelled in India. The third daughter of eight children of the 7th Duke of Buccleuch, the young Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott was seen as the perfect addition to George V's family, despite her self-confessed "horror" of society life.
But first she was determined to experience a life away from the house parties, and financed her travels by painting watercolours and selling them through a Bond Street gallery. She recorded her adventures in detail in her autobiography published some years ago.
Once the Duke had ensnared her, however, she settled down to royal life and produced two sons, Prince William, born in December 1941 and then, after two miscarriages, Prince Richard, the present Duke of Gloucester.
Soon after the latter's birth the Duke replaced Lord Gowrie as Governor General of Australia, and the family decamped there for two years. On their return they settled at her beloved Barnwell Manor, the Northamptonshire home bought for her by the Duke in 1938. It was to remain her home until the 1990s when, due to her infirmity, she moved to Kensington Palace.
She has been touched by the deepest of tragedies during her long life. In 1972 her elder son, Prince William, was killed taking part in an airshow in Staffordshire.
"I was completely stunned and have never been the same since," she wrote in her autobiography, "though I have tried to persuade myself that it was better to have known and lost him than never to have had him at all".
Two years later, her husband the Duke, who had become too ill for public duties since collapsing at the wheel of their car on the way back from Sir Winston Churchill's funeral in 1965, died too. Her younger son became Duke of Gloucester.
Princess Alice has always believed her life of public duty was pre-ordained, and cited an incident when she almost drowned at the age of 14 and made a covenant with God to make use of her life if He spared it.
"So when, through a set of unforeseen circumstances I one day found myself allotted a life of public duty in service of my country, a very secret pledge was honoured," she wrote.
She still holds several honorary appointments and ranks in the Armed Services, as well as being associated with many medical and health charities.
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It is an unbelieveable milestone. She has experienced so much it's probably great just to sit down and talk with her. Well again Congrats to Princess Alice. 
