Princess Christina Margarethe of Hesse

Family background and early life

Princess Christina Margarethe of Hesse was born on 10 January 1933 at the Kronberg Castle in Kronberg im Taunus, Germany. She was the eldest child of Prince Christoph of Hesse (14 May 1901 — 7 October 1943) and Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark (26 June 1914 — 3 November 2001), the elder sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. She had four siblings: Princess Dorothea (born 1934), Prince Karl (born 1937), Prince Rainer (born 1939) and Princess Clarissa (born 1944). Although the German Empire had been abolished in 1918, Christina Margarethe and her siblings all received the title of Prince or Princess of Hesse, and were styled His or Her Highness.

Prince Christoph occupied high positions in Nazi Germany and the Nazi Party, serving as the chief of Hermann Göring's secret intelligence service, an aide to Heinrich Himmler, and a member of the Schutzstaffel (SS). During World War II, he was a major of the Luftwaffe. Prince Christoph died on 7 October 1943 in an airplane crash in the Apennine mountains near Forlì, Italy. Following the death of her husband, Princess Sophie remarried Prince George William of Hanover in 1946. Christina Margarethe gained three half-siblings from this marriage: Prince Welf Ernst (1947-1981), Prince Georg (born 1949) and Princess Friederike (born 1954).

Christina Margarethe was a descendant of Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert through both her father and her mother. (Through her father she was the great-granddaughter of their eldest child, Victoria, Princess Royal, and through her mother, the great-great-granddaughter of their 2nd daughter, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom.) Christina's ancestors also include German emperors Frederick III and William I, Danish king Christian IX, Greek king George I, and Russian emperor Nicholas I. Via her mother, Christina Margarethe was a niece of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a first cousin of Charles, Prince of Wales, Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, and a first cousin once removed of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Prince Harry.

First marriage

Princess Christina Margarethe of Hesse married Prince Andrew of Yugoslavia, the youngest son of Alexander I of Yugoslavia and Princess Maria of Romania, on 2 August 1956 in Kronberg im Taunus, Germany. They had two children:

The family lived in London, where Prince Andrew had lived in exile after the fall of the monarchy in Yugoslavia. In 1962, Andrew filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery. The divorce was finalized on 31 May 1962, and Andrew received custody of the couple's two children, Princess Maria Tatiana and Prince Christopher. Christina Margarethe soon married her lover Robert Floris van Eyck. While Princess Christina was condemned for her adultery, Prince Andrew himself had a lover, Princess Kira of Leiningen (18 July 1930 – 24 September 2005), daughter of Grand Duchess Maria Kirillovna of Russia. Andrew had already fathered a child with Kira at the time of his divorce from Christina.

Second marriage

Shortly after divorcing her first husband, Christina Margarethe married her lover Robert Floris van Eyck, a London–based Dutch artist of Jewish and Latin ancestry, on 3 December 1962. Van Eyck was the son of poet, critic, essayist and philosopher Pieter Nicolaas van Eyck, and the brother of architect Aldo van Eyck. The couple had two children:

Christina Margarethe and Van Eyck separated in 1985, and divorced on 3 February 1986.

Titles and styles

Her titles are translated in German as Ihre Hoheit Prinzessin Christina Margarethe von Hessen and Ihre Königliche Hoheit Prinzessin Andreas von Jugoslawien, and in Serbian as Njeno visočanstvo princeza Kristina Margareta od Hesea and Njeno kraljevsko visočanstvo princeza Kristina Margareta od Jugoslavije (Cyrillic: Њено височанство принцеза Кристина Маргарета од Хесеа and Њено краљевско височанство принцеза Кристина Маргарета од Југославије).