page_title: Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Aankomst Prinses Alexandra op Schiphol. 29 juni 1961
context_page_description: Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy, KG, GCVO, CD is a member of the British royal family.
  Alexandra was born to Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark. She is a first cousin of the current British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, and since her mother was a first cousin of the queen's husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, she is also his first cousin once removed.
  Alexandra is the widow of businessman Sir Angus Ogilvy, to whom she was married from 1963 until his death in 2004. As of 2019, she is 53rd in the line of succession to the British throne; at the time of her birth in 1936, she was sixth.
context_section_description: Princess Alexandra was born on 25 December 1936 at 3 Belgrave Square, London. Her parents were Prince George, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George V and Queen Mary, and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, a daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark and Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia. She was named after her paternal great-grandmother, Queen Alexandra; her grandmother, Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia; and both of her maternal aunts, Countess Elizabeth of Törring-Jettenbach and Princess Olga of Yugoslavia. She received the name Christabel because she was born on Christmas Day, like her aunt Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester. Her birth was the last to have the tradition of having the Home Secretary present to verify the birth of potential heirs to the throne. Sir John Simon was present and was the last to do this.
  As a male-line granddaughter of the British monarch, she was styled as a British princess with the prefix Her Royal Highness. At the time of her birth, she was sixth in the line of succession to the British throne, behind her cousins Elizabeth and Margaret, her uncle the Duke of Gloucester, her father the Duke of Kent, and her elder brother Prince Edward. She was born two weeks after the abdication of her uncle King Edward VIII.
  The Princess was baptised in the Private Chapel of Buckingham Palace, on 9 February 1937, and her godparents were King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (her paternal uncle and aunt); the Queen of Norway (her grand-aunt); Princess Nicholas of Greece and Denmark (her maternal grandmother); Princess Olga of Yugoslavia (her maternal aunt); the Princess Beatrice (her paternal great-grand-aunt); the Earl of Athlone (her paternal grand-uncle); and Count Karl Theodor of Törring-Jettenbach (her maternal uncle by marriage). Of her godparents, only the King and Queen and Lord Athlone were present.
  Princess Alexandra spent most of her childhood at her family's country house, Coppins, in Buckinghamshire. She lived with her grandmother, Queen Mary, the widow of George V, during World War II at Badminton. Her father was killed in an aeroplane crash near Caithness, Scotland on 25 August 1942 while serving in the Royal Air Force. Princess Alexandra has the distinction of being the first British princess to have attended a boarding school, Heathfield School near Ascot. She then studied in Paris. She was also trained at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
  She was a bridesmaid at the 1946 wedding of Captain Lord Brabourne and The Hon. Patricia Mountbatten. The following year, she served as bridesmaid at the wedding of her cousins, the then-Princess Elizabeth and The Duke of Edinburgh, on 20 November 1947. The Queen is Princess Alexandra's paternal first cousin; the Duke of Edinburgh is Princess Alexandra's maternal first cousin once removed.
  She was also a bridesmaid at the 1962 wedding of Prince Juan Carlos of Spain and her second cousin, Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark.
caption: Princess Alexandra of Kent on a visit to the Netherlands in June 1961
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