Prince Michael Greece and Denmark

Greek historian, author, and member of the Greek royal family. He wrote several historical books and biographies of Greek and other European figures. He was a first cousin, among others, of Kings George II of Greece, Alexander I of Greece, Pavlos I of Greece, their sister,  Queen Helen, Queen Mother of Romania, in addition to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and also of Prince Henri d'Orléans. Michael was born in Rome to Prince Christopher of Greece and Denmark (youngest son of King George I of Greece) and his second wife, Princess Françoise d'Orléans of France(daughter of the Orleanist claimant to the defunct French throne, Prince Jean d'Orléans, Duke of Guise). His godparents were his two first cousins Queen Helen, Queen Mother of Romania and King George II of Greece (eldest children of his paternal uncle King Constantine I). His father died when he was a year old, leaving Michael an only child, and his mother died in 1953 when he was 14, leaving him an orphan. Although a Greek prince, like many members of his dynasty he grew up largely abroad, sometimes in exile. As Europe marched into World War II, the infant Michael's family scattered: his mother's father, the Duke of Guise, left his residence of exile in Brussels, the  Manoir d'Anjou , for their property at Larache, Morocco, in March 1939 where he died on 24 August, the  Manoir  having become the Belgian headquarters for Germany's invading  Wehrmacht . About eight months before her father's death, Françoise was widowed by the death of Prince Christopher, following an abscess of the lung, in Athens in January. She took Michael to join her mother's household in Larache where her elder sister, Princess Isabelle Murat and her family, had also taken refuge from Europe. Their brother, Henri, Count of Paris, who succeeded his own father as head of the Orleanist monarchist movement, sent for his wife and children to come from their relatives in Brazil, and by the spring of 1941 they too were settled in Spanish Morocco (still being banned from the French sector), near Casablanca, in a small house without electricity that was named  Oued Akreech  in the town of Rabat. Michael lived his early childhood years on the African continent in the midst of his mother's family. Later, they also spent time in Spain. By the time Michael's mother died in Paris in early 1953, France had repealed the law of banishment against its former ruling families (24 June 1950) and the Comte de Paris had taken up residence in the capital. When, in August 1953,  Monseigneur  moved the Comtesse and their children to a new estate, the  Manoir du Cœur Volant  in Louveciennes, Michael joined the couple and their four eldest children in the main building, while the seven younger children and their governesses occupied an annex given the name  la maison de Blanche Neige  ("Snow White's cottage"). Henceforth, Michael was given into the care of his uncle and raised with his Orléans cousins. Michael later acknowledged that his uncle had been a poor manager of his ward's assets, but maintained that there was no malfeasance or attempt to conceal losses. He would also comment that, allegations to the contrary notwithstanding, his uncle's notorious relationship with his assistant Monique Friesz in his later years, during which substantial assets were presumed to have been consumed or diverted, did not reflect manipulation on her part so much as the desire of the Comte de Paris for companionship when he chose to isolate himself from the society, culture and luxury to which he had previously been accustomed. Upon the death of his second cousin, Christian Ludwig Gustav Fritz Castenskiold (1926-2024), on 17 July 2024, just days before his own death, he became the last surviving great-grandchild of King Christian IX of Denmark.