Princess Margarita of Greece, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg

by Scott Mehl  © Unofficial Royalty 2017

Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.; Photo –  Private Collection

Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark was born on April 18, 1905, at the Royal Palace in Athens, Greece. She was the eldest child of Prince Andreas of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg and was the first great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Margarita had four younger siblings:

 

1930-1931 saw the marriages of Margarita and her three sisters. Although she was the eldest, Margarita was the third to marry. Her groom was Gottfried, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. He was the son of Ernst II, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a grandson of Queen Victoria’s half-sister Princess Feodora of Leiningen and Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Margarita and Gottfried were second cousins once removed through their mutual descent from Queen Victoria, and third cousins through Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia. They married in Langenburg in Baden-Württemberg, Germany on April 20, 1931, and had five children:

  • Prince Kraft, titular Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1935 – 2004), married (1) Princess Charlotte of Croÿ, had two daughters and one son, divorced  (2) Irma Pospesch, no children
  • Princess Beatrix of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1936 – 1997), unmarried
  • Prince Georg Andreas of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (born 1938), married Princess Luise of Schönburg-Waldenburg, had two daughters
  • Prince Rupprecht of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1944 – 1978), unmarried, twin of Albrecht
  • Prince Albrecht of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1944 – 1992), married Maria-Hildegard Fischer, had one son

In 1934, Margarita and her husband traveled to New York to testify in the famous custody battle for the young Gloria Vanderbilt. In the past, Gottfried had been in a romantic relationship with her mother Mrs. Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt and during the custody hearing, a housemaid made some rather salacious allegations about the relationship between the two. Margarita also testified as a character witness for Mrs. Vanderbilt.

Although Margarita and her sisters were not invited to their brother Philip’s wedding (due to the strong anti-German sentiment so soon after the war), she and Philip remained close. In 1950, she was named as one of the godparents of Philip’s daughter, Princess Anne. In 1953, Margarita, her surviving sisters, and their mother were prominent guests at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. On April 17, 2021, Margarita’s grandson Philipp, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Head of the House of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, was one of the thirty guests at the funeral of his great-uncle Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

After being widowed in 1960, Margarita maintained a quiet life in Langenburg, in the German state of  Baden-Württemberg, visiting with her children and grandchildren, as well as occasional trips to visit Philip and his family in the United Kingdom. At the age of 76, Princess Margarita died in Langenburg on April 24, 1981, and was buried beside her husband in the family cemetery.

Margarita’s grave; Photo – www.findagrave.com

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