Good morning, we are going to explore the life of Princess Alice, the mother of Prince Philip.  I know when I started this blog I could potentially overdo the Royal documentaries because I am a royal watcher so I was trying to avoid too many royal documentaries.  However, Princess Alice’s story is so fascinating that I thought I should share it.  The Queen Mother’s story is very well documented, but not so much is known about the other Queen Mother: Princess Alice.  This documentary finally gives this lady her due. The run time is 47:34.

Princess Alice was the mother of Prince Philip and the mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II.  She was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria and was born Princess Alice.  Her story begins when she is escaping an asylum.  She is caught.  Her family had locked her in the asylum.  She was born a princess but turned her back on royal life.  She had a strong personality.  She overcame her mental illness and disability to become a hero of World War II.

Princess Alice was born in Windsor Castle and was raised as an English Princess.  She was born deaf and her mother demonstrated tough love by instructing people never to repeat themselves.  By the age of eighteen, she could lip-read in several languages.  At the coronation of her uncle King Edward, she met the love of her life: Prince Andrew of Greece.  They were married in 1903 and they set up a home in Greece.

Here four daughters would be born and she won over the Greek public.  However, this life did not last.  War broke out between the Greeks and the Turks.  Alice left her children and organized battlefield hospitals.  She worked on the frontlines of the battles.  Wounded soldiers may have found themselves cared for by the princess.  Then World War I started and there was more bloodshed.  After the war, the Greeks overthrew the monarchy.  Prince Andrew was put on trial and Princess Alice had just given birth to a fifth child: Prince Philip.  He was born on a kitchen table.  Eventually, the family would flee Greece and would sail into exile.

Life in exile would begin for Princess Alice and her family in France.  They had lost much of their fortune and had to rely on the charity of others.  Prince Philip recalled that they were a very happy family.  However, there was strain behind the scenes.  The pressures of exile were getting to both Prince Andrew and Princess Alice.  Living off of rich relatives deeply hurt Prince Andrew and he was hurt to be cut off from Greece.  Princess Alice was isolated and vulnerable.  Dark thoughts started to prey and Alice decided to convert to the Greek Orthodox Church.

Princess Alice was becoming religious and preoccupied with the spiritual world.  However, the language she used to describe her relationship with Jesus Christ was in graphic terms.  She was hearing voices and also have relationships with other religious figures.  Her family would eventually commit her to a sanitarium.  She would be leaving behind her son Prince Philip when she was hospitalized.  Even Sigmund Freud became involved in Princess Alice’s case.

Princess Alice would eventually discharge herself from the hospital and declared herself well.  Her mother, Princess Victoria disagreed and had her committed again to the asylum.  Princess Victoria took Prince Philip off for a picnic and Princess Alice was bundled into a car and taken away.  She was committed to the Bellville Sanitorium in Switzerland.  She was now a prisoner.  It was all hushed up in the family.  For two and half years Princess Alice was detained.  She protested against the imprisonment.

Prince Andrew would abandon his wife.  He renounced responsibility for his wife and moved to the south of France.  The marriage was effectively over.  Her four daughters would marry German princes while incarcerated.  The hardest separation was from Prince Philip.  Would Princes Alice ever see her son again?  Would she manage to get out of the Asylum?  Tune into the rest of this episode to find out.

This would be a good documentary to start research on the Royal Family and not necessarily to be shown in class.  If you have a student working on a biography on Prince Philip then I would point them in this direction. 

I am going to wind down the documentaries on Queen Elizabeth II in light of her death.  Her Majesty the Queen: A Remarkable Life an older documentary on Queen Elizabeth II.  The run time for this documentary is 49:30.

In 1953 Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II.  Over the years, her family took second place as she did her job.  Royal weddings came and went.  Royal homes went up in flames.  Marriages were dissolved.  Tragedy happened.  She traveled around the world several times.  She had duties to perform.  A new woman appeared on the scene.  This is the story of Queen Elizabeth II.

After September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in America, the Queen was seen attending a memorial service in honor of the victims.  It was not all that long ago that they were celebrating Princess Margaret’s and the Queen Mother’s birthdays.  Flashback to their growing-up years.  Princess Margaret was cheeky and naughty.  While Princess Elizabeth was trained by her grandmother Queen Mary.  Then flash forward to post-war England.  Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret were traveling with their parents on a state visit to South Africa.  Scenes of them were recorded on a ship.  Fifty years later, the Queen would return to South Africa.  She visited with President Nelson Mandela.

After the original trip, Princess Elizabeth would marry a dashing naval lieutenant: Philip Mountbatten.  He was given the title Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.  It gave the nation a chance to rejoice and celebrate a royal marriage.  This is the one point of the documentary, where the historians point out that Prince Philip was a good-looking young man, and that he was a Greek god back in the day.

Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip went to Malta.  Malta was where he was stationed.  Malta was happy for Princess Elizabeth because there she was a naval officer’s wife.  A few days before their first anniversary, Prince Charles was born.  Two years Princess Anne was born.  The two had different personalities: Prince Charles was sweet and Princess Anne was naughty.  When Princess Elizabeth’s father suddenly died, she found herself, Queen.  She would have official duties and these duties would take her away from the children.

Prince Charles was sent off to school and was sent to a place that was supposed to toughen him up.  Prince Philip was the boss in the home and the boys would be sent off to the place he went to school.  Prince Charles would be deeply unhappy at school.  Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip would have two more children ten years after the birth of Prince Andrew.  Like any marriage, the marriage of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth had their up and downs.  Do not get in the way of her while she watches Prince Philip’s carriage driving competitions.

In 1977, Queen Elizabeth celebrated her silver jubilee.  It drew parallels to the Silver Jubilee of her grandfather. There was one difference in the celebrations.  Queen Elizabeth would do a royal walkabout and acknowledge the people’s feelings.  She is the custodian of the Royal Collection.  She could be considered as immensely rich, however, she is deeply frugal.  She loves horses and breeds her own for racing.  It is at the races, you can see the Queen turn into a gleeful girl.  To learn more about Queen Elizabeth, continue to watch this documentary.

Some of the stories are repeated through other documentaries, although I appreciated the tidbit about her getting her training to be queen from Queen Mary.  I also appreciated the bit that she is the steward of the Duchy of Lancaster.  This would be a good documentary for research purposes. 

Good morning, we will continue to finish up September with documentaries on Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.  This time we will look at the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip.  It is called a Very Royal Wedding.  It is narrated by Alexander Armstrong.  The run time for this documentary is 47:54. There is nothing like a royal wedding.  It is something that brings the nation together. 

The royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip set the trend for royal weddings to come.  It was something that the British had never seen before.  This film looks at how their royal wedding was pulled off.  It happened at a time when a nation needed a moral boost.  So from the wedding dress to the bouquet and the flowers, one historian looks at how the state pulled off this royal wedding.  It was the marriage of a beautiful princess and a dashing prince.

The day had finally arrived.  It was November 20, 1947, and a princess and her father are being taken to the church in a carriage.  They were greeted by crowds.  Over 200 million people listened on the radio.  A small group was lucky enough to watch on television.  Prince Michael of Kent recalls the crowds and felt their energy. 

When Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip announced their engagement it caused a sensation.  Their courtship was conducted through letters over the war.  When their engagement was announced, it was clear that Prince Philip was not the only pin-up for Princess Elizabeth.  Prince Philip had the film star good looks and was considered a Greek god.  Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth were the glamour couple of the decade.

Even though Prince Philip had blue blood, he did not have a bank account to back him up.  A bit of royal recycling had to take place and Prince Philip used his mother’s tiara to get prepare an engagement ring for his future bride.  Prince Philip designed the ring so that the Princess could wear it all the time.  Once engaged, the wedding planning began.  However, the government thought the nation could not afford the wedding.  Prime Minister Winston Churchill disagreed and felt the nation was due for a celebration.  It had been a hard road for Britain during World War II and recovery from World War II.  The royal family faced the hardships of World War II alongside the British people.

Every corner of the country pitched in to help with the wedding.  Women sent in their clothing coupons so that Princess Elizabeth could get a wedding dress.  However, Buckingham Palace returned the coupons.  There were rumors that the silkworms came from Japan, which was an enemy nation.  The public was assured that the silkworms came from China.  One of the silk weavers spoke about her pride in working on the material for the dress and had an invite to the Royal wedding.  The wedding dress design was kept under lock and key.  Normal Hartnell, the designer, blacked out his windows and kept his manager in the studio with a gun.  Betty Foster, a seamstress was one of the few people in on the secret.  She would sew the button holes for the dress and she had never sown button holes before.

What else needed to be accomplished before the big day?  Continue to watch this documentary to find out more.

This is a delightful documentary on the wedding of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.  I thoroughly enjoyed Alexander Armstrong’s narration; he brought a lightness to the film.  I also enjoyed hearing the stories from the people who witnessed those events from Prince Michael of Kent who was a page boy at the wedding to the silk weaver.  This would be something that would be fun showing in a history class.

I am scrambling to find documentaries on Queen Elizabeth II in light of her recent death.  I also rearranged things and Nations at War will resume in January 2023.  This time I found a documentary called Reign Supreme: The Unauthorized Story of Queen Elizabeth II.  This documentary is fast-paced in comparison to others that I have found.  The facts about Queen Elizabeth II’s life come quickly.  The run time for this documentary is 48:11.

Queen Elizabeth II is a symbol of stability and continuity in the United Kingdom.  She has weathered the storms of life.  She has witnessed the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.  At a young age, she was called on to lead an empire and served that empire.  The work of the monarchy increased under her leadership.  The monarchy evolved under her watch.
Queen Elizabeth II was born the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York.  Her parents were going to give her a normal upbringing.  So her parents raised her to understand the realities of a nation coming out of World War I.  At age eleven her grandfather died and her uncle became king.  When her uncle abdicated, her father became King she became second in line to the throne.  Then World War II happened and at age eighteen, she helped her father with his official duties.

When she was twenty-one, she traveled to Africa with her parents and declared that she would serve the people for her whole life.  After this trip, the royal family announced that she was going to marry Prince Philip.  Originally, the wedding was going to be low-key, but wedding fever struck the nation.  It became an international event, signaling a new era of the monarchy.  To make her wedding dress, she saved up her clothing coupons to have the wedding dress made.  The pair received over 2,000 wedding gifts.

Almost exactly one year after Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth’s marriage, Prince Charles was born.  The birth of a male heir was greeted with celebrations.  Princess Anne came next, two years later.  However, King George’s health declined, so Princess Elizabeth was called on to carry out duties in his place.  She traveled to the United States where she was greeted by President Truman.  Princess Elizabeth spoke on behalf of her father.  She then went to Australia on another royal tour.  It was when she was in Kenya that she found out that her father had died.

She would return to England as Queen and she mourned her father in seclusion.  Then in 1952, she was officially crowned Queen.  Her coronation was the first coronation broadcasted all around the world on TV.  After she was crowned, Queen Elizabeth II went on a world tour as part of a “global charm offensive.”  The Coronation World Tour was to strengthen the ties of the empire.  She would have discovered that she was a popular figure in the Commonwealth.  She was the most widely traveled monarch in history and was the first monarch to circumnavigate the globe.  How will Queen Elizabeth II approach the rest of her reign?  What does television do to show the world the royal family?  Tune into the rest of this documentary to discover more.

This documentary was definitely no fuss, no frills.  It was fast and furious.  It was almost too fast at times, but I was able to follow along well.  The documentary provided the basics about the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II.  This documentary would provide students with a good start in researching Queen Elizabeth II.  I also would show this documentary in the classroom.

Good morning, we are continuing to explore the life of Queen Elizabeth.  I am going to continue with Elizabeth II’s documentaries until the end of September and then will move on to the Thirty-One Days of Time Team.  This documentary looks at the marriage of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II and is in honor of their Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary.  The run time for this documentary is 49:28.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip fell in love with Prince Philip when he was thirteen years old and they started exchanging letters.  Eight years later they would marry and would be married in Westminster Abbey on November 20, 1947.  They were one of the most glamorous couples at the time.  They were married while rationing was taking place and the British public lapped up the joyful celebrations.  So, what was their marriage like?

Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth’s love story is one for the ages.  She was in love with Prince Philip since she was thirteen years old.  After their wedding, Prince Philip returned to the navy and so Princess Elizabeth was able to enjoy life as a naval wife.  A year after they were married Prince Charles joined the family.  Two years later, Princess Anne joined the family as well.  They were able to secure the succession with the birth of both children. 

Unfortunately, the King’s health deteriorated.  So Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip had to take on more and more of his duties.  When he suddenly passed away, his family was devastated by the news.  Both Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth had to adjust to their roles.  Elizabeth had to adjust to her role as Queen and Prince Philip had to adjust to his role as her consort.  They went on their first royal tour together.  They now how had to adjust to public life.

They could relax as a family together in Balmoral.  There they were treated like locals and they had family outings.  However, Queen Elizabeth had to go about her business to be Queen.  She has barely had a break during her time as Queen.  Prince Philip remained stalwart support at her side over the decades. 

Together, at the Queen’s Golden Jubilee she acknowledged the support that Prince Philip had given her during the years of her reign.  When Princess Margaret wanted to marry Peter Townsend, it proved to be one of the challenges that Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth had to navigate together.  It would have been the first time that the public felt the need to comment on the private life of the royals.  Princess Margaret had been struggling with the loss of her father, and Peter Townsend was a shoulder to cry on.  The Queen Mother continued to work in public instead of retiring in the shadows.  Even Prince Philip knew better than to interfere with the bond between Princess Margaret, the Queen, and the Queen Mother.

One thing revealed about the Queen is that she has a thrifty nature.  She always carefully unwrapped her wrapping paper and saved it.  Prince Philip was the boss in the home.  Queen Elizabeth was the boss of the country, so Prince Philip would be the boss in the home.  To learn more about the marriage between Prince Philip and the Queen continue to watch this documentary.

Well, for a documentary on the Queen and Prince Philip’s marriage, the filmmakers seemed to focus too much on the relationship between the Queen and her mother and her sister.  There was no point in talking about those relationships.  This would be one documentary to skip for both the history classroom and for research purposes.
 

Good morning, we are continuing to explore the life of Queen Elizabeth.  Today we are looking at the relationship between Elizabeth and Margaret.  The documentary is called Elizabeth and Margaret: The Tale of Two Sisters.  The run time for this documentary is 43:56.

No two sisters were ever less alike.  One sister was reserved and the other lively.  One was the leader of the nation.  The other was looking for purpose.  They each had to carve a different path in life.  Elizabeth and Margaret are among the most photographed women in history.  However, what lies underneath the relationship between the two sisters?  This documentary explores the relationship between Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.

From the start, the contrast between Elizabeth and Margaret was there.  The Duke of Duchess of York were their parents.  Elizabeth was a serious child who shared a love of horses and dogs with her grandfather, the King of England.  Princess Margaret was cheekier and had an outgoing personality.  She was never corrected by her father.  While Elizabeth had a natural discipline.  Neither girl could foresee the future nor were they prepared for what was to come.  The Duke and Duchess of York never expected to become King and Queen.  It was also a possibility they could produce a male heir.  They were going to have a cozy family life.

However, Prince David was expected to be king.  He was to marry and have children who would inherit the throne.  In 1936, everything changed.  King George died and David became King Edward VIII.  He was a man who never wanted to be king and was also set on marrying an American Divorcee.  The King would abdicate his throne in favor of his younger brother the Duke of York.  It was a shock to the nation and the nation would have seen it as a dereliction of duty.

The lives of Elizabeth and Margaret were transformed by abdication.  Elizabeth would immediately start training to be the monarch.  King George would have become King without the training his older brother had.  He would not allow the same thing to happen to Elizabeth.  Princess Elizabeth would have been taught by a professor and King George would have explained the dispatch boxes to her.  Here is where the upbringing of Elizabeth and Margaret diverged.  Elizabeth was being groomed to be Queen, and Margaret was being groomed to be a wife.

Then World War II started and Elizabeth and Margaret were evacuated to Windsor.  The Queen was not going to leave the King and the girls were not going to leave their mother.  The image of the family being together was a powerful image for the British public.  It stood in contrast to the images that were coming out of Germany.  They would spend five years in Windsor Castle.  As the war progressed, Princess Elizabeth took on more and more responsibilities.  She would eventually become a mechanic and driver at the age of eighteen in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Corps.  Princess Elizabeth loved her time in the Women’s Auxiliary, and she also fell in love with Prince Philip.

The paths of Elizabeth and Margaret were going to continue to diverge over the years.  Elizabeth would be seen as the steady one and Margaret was the rebel.  How would the pair continue to navigate changing times?  To discover how their paths would diverge and continue throughout their lives. 

This was an excellent documentary highlighting the relationship between Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.  It was well done and I enjoyed the tidbits about their relationship.  This would be a good documentary for a fun history day and for research purposes.

I am going to interrupt Nations at War due to the Death of Queen Elizabeth II.  It took a lot of thinking, but I feel the need to share documentaries on Queen Elizabeth II in tribute to her life and service as Queen.  I will probably resume Nations at War in January 2023. Today’s documentary is Queen Elizabeth: A Lifetime of Service.  The run time of this documentary is 49:48.

This documentary on the Queen has an old-school feel to it.  Queen Elizabeth has reigned longer than any British Monarch (yes, this documentary came out during the Diamond Jubilee) and in sixty years she witnessed many changes to the world and to the royal family.  Over her reign, she traveled over a million miles and made over 250 foreign visits.  She strives to strengthen the ties among the Commonwealth Nations.  So this is a documentary about the highs and lows of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

In 2006, a service of thanksgiving was made in honor of the Queen’s Eightieth Birthday.  The crowds greeted her to share their thanks for her service.  Years before the monarch’s popularity took a hit with the death of Princess Diana.  Things changed, and Queen Elizabeth wanted to have a more personal touch on the monarch.  The divorces in the royal family would have given her a shock.  She would have overseen changes in society as well as the technology that came into the world.  When she had her coronation, hers was the first to be broadcasted on TV.

The first part of the documentary talks about the relationship and marriages of Prince Charles and Prince Andrew and how those marriages ended in divorce.  Then this documentary talks about her relationship with her niece and her nephew.  I felt like if the filmmakers wanted to talk about these relationships, they could have been saved for the end and given a cursory look.  There was a fire at Windsor Castle that upset the Queen and it was her favorite home. 

She was one of the most widely traveled monarchs in history.  She also welcomed world leaders into her home during the State Banquets.  She grasps foreign affairs really well.  She is the head of state in Australia and it was the first visit she made when she was Queen.  Her popularity in Australia stops the republic movement in its tracks.  What else did Queen Elizabeth face during her reign?  If you want to finish this documentary continue to watch the documentary.

Man, it was annoying to see so much of the focus on the documentary about Camilla and Charles.  Come on, it is a documentary on the Queen, it is not a documentary on Charles and Camilla.  Devoting ten minutes to that relationship was completely unnecessary.  Also, there was no need to rehash the reaction to Princess Diana’s death, after all this was a documentary about the Queen and how she navigated changes.  I really wish the documentary filmmakers would have focused more on the life of Queen Elizabeth instead of the relationships of her children.

The documentary was dumb many times.  It was stupid for them to focus so much on Diana’s death and the public reaction to the death.  This documentary was hard to watch at times because of the rabbit holes the filmmakers went down.  However, I wanted to find as many documentaries as I could find on Queen Elizabeth in honor of her death, so I was stuck doing this one while I looked.  This is a documentary I would NOT show in a classroom setting nor is it good for research purposes.

I am going to interrupt Nations at War due to the Death of Queen Elizabeth II.  It took a lot of thinking, but I feel the need to share documentaries on Queen Elizabeth II.  As of right now, I am planning on moving Nations at War to the start of 2023 because of themes for October, November, and December but that may change.  Everything is fluid right now with the announcement of the Queen’s death.  Today’s documentary was shown during the celebrations of the Platinum Jubilee and is called the Majestic Life of Queen Elizabeth II.  It has a runtime of 1:34:39.

Queen Elizabeth’s life was shaped by a life of service.  As a princess, she never expected to be Queen.  However, was thrust into the spotlight.  This documentary highlights her life and her family and the three events that shaped her life.  The Depression, the Abdication, and World War II.  She trained as a mechanic during World War II.  She would meet the love of her life and would raise four children.  She was a steady figure for seventy years of history.  This documentary gives a look at the life of Queen Elizabeth II.

When Queen Elizabeth was a little princess, she never expected to be Queen.  She lived a normal, but grand life.  She was the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of York.  She would have grown up with a reverence for the Crown and Duty.  While she was growing up, the Royal Family was not expected to do much and so could disappear to Scotland for several months.  Her family was incredibly close and they were homebodies.  She was brought up as an aristocratic young lady and would have been taught at home.  Eventually, a professor from Eton College was brought in to teach her about the Constitution. 

Her parents would have been more in touch with the real world.  The Depression was going on when she was growing up and her father would have visited the work camps.  Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was in touch with the times and when Buckingham Palace was bombed the Queen Mother remarked “at least I can now look the east end in the eye.”
Princess Elizabeth was close to Princess Margaret.  Princess Elizabeth never did anything naughty nor was she daring.  Princess Margaret was the more boisterous one.  Eventually, the family was thrust into the spotlight with the abdication.  It was a terrible shock to them all. 

The Duke of York was to become King.  The documentary then talks about the reign of her father and how he got treatment for his stammer.  It is here where Lionel Logue is mentioned for helping him get over his stammer. 

Princess Elizabeth would have witnessed the start of World War II.  She would have seen her father’s devotion to duty while under trying circumstances.  She adored her father and worked to follow his example.  She took part in the World War II victory celebrations. 

She would meet Prince Philip when he was a dashing naval cadet.  Prince Philip would have been considered a Greek god in the Princess’s eyes.  They would keep in touch and she kept a photo of him with a beard.  By 1946 they were in love with each other and planned to marry.  Both would have been considered young to marry.  She would marry her prince and it was a dazzling wedding.  It came at a time of austerity and so Great Britain needed a celebration.

The next section of the documentary goes into the early married life of Prince Phillips and Princess Elizabeth.  While getting settled into married life, she got the news that she was Queen.  Then there is a discussion on how young the Queen was when she became Queen.  Thus begins the reign of one of Britain’s longest-reigning monarchs.  She would have been reigning during a period of great change.  How would a royal family, especially a young queen manage these changes?  Her coronation would have been the first one to be broadcasted on TV.  To learn more about Queen Elizabeth, continue to watch this documentary.

This is an interesting document about the life of Queen Elizabeth.  If you wanted to show this in a classroom, you would want to break it up into smaller pieces because it is a long documentary.  This is a good look into the life of Queen Elizabeth.