by Susan Flantzer © Unofficial Royalty 2014
King Constantine II of Greece was the King of Greece (styled King of the Hellenes) from 1964 until the monarchy was abolished in 1973. He was born on June 2, 1940, at Villa Psychiko, in the suburbs of Athens, Greece. His parents were King Paul of Greece and Princess Frederica of Hanover, both descendants of Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter Victoria, Princess Royal who married Friedrich III, German Emperor.
- Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom → Victoria, Princess Royal (married Friedrich III, German Emperor) → Princess Sophie of Prussia (married King Constantine I of Greece) → King Paul I of Greece (Princess Frederica of Hanover) → King Constantine II of Greece
- Queen Victoria → Victoria, Princess Royal (married Friedrich III, German Emperor) → Wilhelm II, German Emperor (married Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein) → Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia (married Ernst August of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick) → Princess Frederica of Hanover (married King Paul of Greece) → King Constantine II of Greece
Constantine had an elder and a younger sister:
- Princess Sophia (born 1938), married King Juan Carlos of Spain, had three children
- Princess Irene of Greece (born 1942), unmarried
Constantine on the left with his family around 1947; Credit – www.britannica.com
In April of 1941, during World War II, Germany and Italy invaded Greece and Constantine’s family was forced to flee. The family lived in Alexandria, Egypt, and Cape Town, South Africa before returning to Greece in 1946. King George II of Greece, Constantine’s uncle, died childless in 1947, so Constantine’s father became King and Constantine became Crown Prince.
From 1949 – 1955, Crown Prince Constantine attended the Classical Lyceum Anavryton in Athens. The school was based on the educational principles of Kurt Hahn and modeled on the schools that Hahn created, Salem School in Germany and Gordonstoun School in Scotland. Attending the school gave Constantine the opportunity to associate with other children, many of whom became his life-long friends. Constantine participated in hockey, volleyball, and high jump, acted in school plays, and became Head Boy.
While still in school, Constantine attended military training on weekends and after graduating, he attended all three Greek military academies: Evelpidon Military Academy, Hellenic Naval Academy, and Hellenic Air Force Academy. In 1960, Constantine went to the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens to study law.
Crown Prince Constantine meeting President Eisenhower at the White House in 1959; Credit – Wikipedia
In 1960, Constantine became one of the royal Olympian medal winners. In the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics, Constantine won a Gold Medal in Sailing: Mixed Three Person Keel/Dragon Class, the first Greek Gold Medal since the 1912 Stockholm Summer Olympics.
Constantine after being awarded his Gold Medal; Photo source: www.yachtsandyachting.co.uk
In late February 1964, King Paul had surgery for stomach cancer but died soon afterward on March 6, 1964, and Constantine became king at the age of 23. That same evening, the devastated new king swore his oath before the Greek Parliament and his younger sister Irene was recognized as his successor until he married and had children. His elder sister Sofia had converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism when she married Juan Carlos of Spain and therefore had relinquished her rights to the Greek throne.
King Constantine II of Greece swears his oath in the Greek Parliament; Photo: Greek Royal Family
Later that year, King Constantine married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, the youngest daughter of King Frederick IX of Denmark. He had first met his future bride in 1959 when she was 13 years old and he was accompanying his parents on a state visit to Denmark. They met a second time in Denmark in 1961, when Constantine declared to his parents his intention to marry Anne-Marie. In 1962, Anne-Marie served as a bridesmaid at the wedding of King Constantine’s sister Sofia and Juan Carlos of Spain. It was at that wedding that Constantine and Anne-Marie realized that they were falling in love. Constantine proposed during a sailing holiday in Norway, but the engagement announcement was postponed for six months because of Anne-Marie’s young age. They were married on September 18, 1964, two weeks after Anne-Marie’s 18th birthday, in a Greek Orthodox ceremony at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens.
King Constantine and Queen Anne-Marie had five children:
- Princess Alexia, born 1965 at Mon Repos, Corfu, Greece; married Carlos Morales Quintana, had four children
- Crown Prince Pavlos, born 1967 at Tatoi Palace, Greece; married Marie-Chantal Miller, had five children
- Prince Nikolaos, born 1969 in Rome, Italy; married Tatiana Elinka Blatnik
- Princess Theodora, born 1983 in London, England
- Prince Philippos, born 1986 in London, England; married Nina Flohr
At the 2021 wedding of Prince Philippos and Nina Flohr: left to right: Crown Prince Pavlos, Crown Princess Marie-Chantal, the bride’s father Thomas Flohr, Prince Constantine Alexios, King Constantine, and Queen Anne-Marie
On April 21, 1967, a coup d’état led by a group of army colonels took over Greece. A military junta ruled Greece from 1967 – 1974. For more information see Wikipedia: Greek military junta of 1967–74 On December 13, 1967, King Constantine attempted a counter-coup against the military junta which failed, and King Constantine and his family had to flee to Italy. The family lived for two months in the Greek embassy and then for the next five years in a house in a suburb of Rome. King Constantine remained the head of state in exile until June 1, 1973, when the junta abolished the monarchy. In 1974, after the fall of the junta, a referendum by the Greek people confirmed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic.
In 1973, the family moved to England, living first in Chobham, Surrey, and later in the London suburb of Hampstead. The Greek government did not permit King Constantine to return to Greece until 1981 when he was allowed to enter Greece for several hours to attend the funeral of his mother Queen Frederica. King Constantine and his family paid a private visit to Greece in 1993. After 2003, when a property dispute between Constantine and the Greek government was settled, Constantine and his family were able to make visits to Greece and purchase a summer home there. In 2013, former King Constantine II permanently returned to reside in Greece.
King Constantine talks with Prince Harry while Queen Anne-Marie chats with the Duchess of Cambridge, now The Princess of Wales, during a luncheon at Windsor Castle; Photo: Zimbio
King Constantine was a close friend of his second cousin King Charles III of the United Kingdom, and a godfather of Prince William, The Prince of Wales. William, in turn, is a godfather of one of King Constantine’s grandchildren, Prince Constantine Alexios, the eldest son of Crown Prince Pavlos. As a descendant of Queen Victoria, King Constantine was related to a number of European royals and was regularly invited to royal functions.
King Constantine II, the former King of Greece, died at Hygeia Hospital in Athens, Greece on January 10, 2023, at the age of 82. He had been admitted to the intensive care unit at the hospital a couple of days earlier. His funeral, attended by many royal guests, was held at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Annunciation in Athens, Greece, followed by the burial at the Royal Cemetery on the grounds of Tatoi Palace, the former summer palace of the Greek royal family, near Athens, Greece.
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