Prince Michael of Kent

by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2014

Prince Michael of Kent; Credit – Wikipedia

Prince Michael of Kent was born on July 4, 1942, at Coppins, his family’s country house in Iver, Buckinghamshire, England. He is the youngest of the three children of Prince George, Duke of Kent and Princess Marina of Greece, and one of the nine grandchildren of King George V. Because Prince Michael was born on American Independence Day, the Duke of Kent asked President Franklin Roosevelt to be one of his son’s godparents. President Roosevelt accepted and the baby prince was named Michael George Charles Franklin. See Unofficial Royalty: Born on the Fourth of July.

Michael was christened on August 4, 1942, at the Private Chapel in Windsor Castle. His godparents were:

 

Michael has two elder siblings:

Sadly, six weeks after his son’s birth, on August 25, 1942, the Duke of Kent died in a Royal Air Force plane crash in the service of his country. In 1947, Prince Michael served as a page boy at the wedding of his cousins, Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten.

Prince Michael was educated at Sunningdale School in Sunningdale, Berkshire, England and Eton College in Eton, Berkshire, England. He attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned into the 11th Hussars (Prince Albert’s Own).  Prince Michael served in Germany and Hong Kong and was part of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Cyprus in 1971. He had a twenty-year career in the military which included serving on the Defense Intelligence Staff.

Prince Michael does not carry out any official duties, although he occasionally represented Queen Elizabeth II, his first cousin, at events abroad.   Because he receives no public funds, Prince Michael had the permission of the Queen to earn a living and has his own consulting company.

Prince Michael attends the reburial ceremony for Empress Maria Feodorovna at the Cathedral of the Peter and Paul in St. Petersburg, 2006

Prince Michael had a strong interest in Russia and was the first member of the British Royal Family to learn Russian. Three of his grandparents were first cousins of Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia and it has been said that Michael bears some resemblance to Nicholas. Prince Michael has qualified as a Russian interpreter and has traveled frequently to Russia. He has represented his cousin, Queen Elizabeth II, at Romanov-related events including the 1998 burial of Nicholas II and his family and the 2006 reburial of Empress Maria Feodorovna.

On June 30, 1978, Prince Michael married Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, now known as Princess Michael of Kent, in a civil ceremony at the Rathaus (City Hall) in Vienna, Austria. Because his wife was Roman Catholic, Prince Michael forfeited his place in the line of succession under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701.  When the Succession to The Crown Act 2013 went into effect, eliminating the exclusion of anyone who marries a Roman Catholic, Prince Michael was returned to his place in the line of succession.

 

Prince and Princess Michael of Kent have two children who were raised in the Church of England and are in the line of succession:

 

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