The extraordinary story of Prince Philip's mum who became an orthodox nun and gave away all her belongings

It wasn't until the third series of The Crown that the extraordinary story of Prince Philip's mum came to the fore.

Up until that point, Prince Philip was portrayed as a confident, if not cranky, man sometimes frustrated by the restrictions placed upon him because he'd married the Queen.

But in an episode called 'Bubbikins' - based on the nickname Philip's mother gave him - we learned the true extent of his turbulent childhood.

His mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was a chain-smoking Orthodox nun who embarrassed her son but showed the true meaning of authenticity. When she died in 1969, she had reportedly given away all of her possessions, leaving a note for her only son which said: "You will always find me when you need me most."

The story of Prince Philip’s mother was one "beyond what any scriptwriter could come up with", said The Crown writer Peter Morgan. Plotting the third season of the hit series based on the Royal Family, Morgan was struck by her fascinating character.

An eccentric and mysterious royal, she was born Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie in Windsor Castle into unfathomable privilege. She married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1903 when she was still a teenager.

The royal couple went on to have five children - four daughters and their only son, Philip. But the wedding marked the height of her life’s extravagance. The royal biographer Hugo Vickers later wrote: "In the course of her life, virtually every point of stability was overthrown."

In the early 1920s, the Greek royal family were toppled and Princess Alice and her family had to flee to Paris. Prince Philip was still only a baby.

Alice, "indignant at her husband’s treatment, vowed that their son, Philip, would never receive the same treatment, and he was sent to school in England," the New York Times reported. The four girls married German nobility and Prince Andrew settled in Monte Carlo, having little to do with his family.

Prince Philip obituary: The extraordinary life of Duke of Edinburgh who has died aged 99walesonline

Prince Philip day of mourning: Will there be national day to mark death?walesonline The princess' mental health took a turn for the worse during the 1920s. Having been born deaf, she had found herself isolated and she began to experience ‘religious delusions’, believing that she had been intimate with Christ.

By 1930 she was treated first in Germany before being unceremoniously placed in a sanatorium in Switzerland and diagnosed with schizophrenia. She was separated from her family including Philip, who was not yet 10.

Treated by Sigmund Freud, there were reports of her being exposed to primitive medical treatments, including having her ovaries x-rayed as a means to end her libido. It wasn't until 1937 that the princess was reunited with Philip, at the funeral of her daughter - and Philip’s sister - Cecilie, who died with her husband and two children in an air accident.

After several years, she left the sanatorium and returned to Athens where she founded an Orthodox order of nuns - the monastic society of Martha and Mary- which was aimed at training sisters to take care of poor children and the sick. As Mother-Superior Alice-Elizabeth, she raised funds to buy two houses, one to house convalescents and the other to train nurses.

When World War Two began, the princess returned to Greece to work for the Swedish and Swiss Red Cross. But the war divided her family - three of her daughters married prominent Nazi supporters, while her son, Philip, fought in the British Royal Navy. The princess herself sheltered persecuted Jews in her Athens home during the Holocaust, and was posthumously honoured with the Righteous Among the Nations.

And that's where The Crown, season three, picks up her story. When military rule was imposed in Greece in 1967, she was thought to be unsafe and brought to England to live with Prince Philip and the Queen. An elderly chain-smoking nun by this point, she was an embarrassment to Philip, who says at one point in the episode that she was only ever "technically" his mother. He said: "It means she gave birth to me."

In the late 1960s, the royal family was enduring a spell of unpopularity and making efforts to prove their worth and authenticity. In season three, episode four of The Crown, they invite a documentary crew into the palace to film them but as they watch the show, Gogglebox-style, it becomes apparent that they are stilted, maybe even ridiculous.

It's only when a Guardian journalist gets access to Princess Alice and is able to tell the story of her extraordinary life does the family enjoy a boost in popularity.

The episode demonstrated the true meaning of authenticity: who has it and who doesn’t; can it be faked and how it is earned. It's pretty clear to see that Princess Alice is the truly authentic royal. Fittingly, she lived out her last years in the peaceful and grand surroundings of the Palace, both in the drama and in real life.

Alice died at Buckingham Palace on December 5, 1969. She had reportedly given away all of her possessions before her death.

A note that she left to her son read: "Dearest Philip, be brave, and remember I will never leave you, and you will always find me when you need me most. All my devoted love, your old Mama."

Although she was interred in the royal crypt in Windsor Castle, her remains were transferred, according to her wishes, to the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem in 1988.

In the summer of 2018, Prince William made a "profoundly moving" visit to the tomb of his great-grandmother at the end of his tour of the Middle East. In keeping with Russian Orthodox tradition William took bread and salt and the entrance of the church.

In 1994, when the princess was posthumously honoured with the Righteous Among the Nations, Prince Philip said of his mother: "I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. She was a person with deep religious faith and she would have considered it to be a totally human action to fellow human beings in distress."

During World War I she supervised hospitals and aid to refugees.

When her husband was dethroned, he was jailed for while and faced execution. She lost her money, lived in foreign lands, cared for her children but later when her husband rejoined them they had little money.

So when he left them to live with his mistress, Alice had a nervous breakdown at menopause and was hospitalized. Phillip was a young child at the time. When she left the mental hospital, years later, family arranged care for her at home, but she was still too mentally ill to care for him.

So why didn't his father, living with his mistress,care for him?

So Phillip was sent to British boarding school (a common practice back then, some attending as young as age 6) and had no one to care for him until Mountbatten helped him as a teenager, arranging him to get in the Navy and become a British citizen.

Alice returned to Greece alone and when the war started worked with the Red Cross to help refugees, and hid a Jewish family in her apartment. His older sisters stayed in Europe,where many of their cousins were German nobility, and married upper class Germans who supported Hitler.

Being a "royal" sure isn't a cushy job.

Spot on. Sometimes we Americans have this facile knee-jerk reaction to monarchy as if it's all trappings and privilege. We don't recognize the hard work, self-discipline, and loss of personal freedom that goes into it. Heck, there are kings and queens who are canonized saints.

Seems to me that the whole reason the royal family and much of the UK turned against Meghan Markle is that she wanted all the glitz but none of the discipline or work.

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