Princess Michael of Kent

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marie-Christine
Princess Michael of Kent
Spouse Prince Michael of Kent (1978—)
Thomas Troubridge (1971–1978)
Issue
Lord Frederick Windsor
Lady Gabriella Windsor
Full name
Marie-Christine Anna Agnes Hedwig Ida[1]
Titles and styles
HRH Princess Michael of Kent
Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz
Royal house House of Windsor
Father Baron Günther Hubertus von Reibnitz
Mother Countess Maria Anna von Muraszombath
Born 15 January 1945 (1945-01-15) (age 63)
Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia
Occupation Author

Princess Michael of Kent (Marie-Christine; née Baroness Marie-Christine Agnes Hedwig Ida von Reibnitz, 15 January 1945), is a member of the British Royal Family. She is married to Prince Michael of Kent, who is a grandson of King George V.

Princess Michael is an author, and has published several books on the royal families of Europe. She also undertakes lecture tours, and supports her husband in his public work. The Kents do not officially carry out royal duties, although they have on occasion represented Queen Elizabeth II at functions abroad.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Princess Michael of Kent was born on 15 January 1945, in Carlsbad, at the time part of the Sudetenland Gau of the German Reich (now Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic), the only daughter of Baron Günther Hubertus von Reibnitz (of German descent), and his Hungarian wife, Maria Anna Carolina Franziska Walpurga Bernadette Szapáry von Muraszombath, Széchysziget und Szapár, Countess Szapár. After her parents' divorce, her father, a Nazi party member who had held the rank of Sturmbannführer in the SS during the Second World War[2], moved to Maforga, Mozambique. Marie-Christine, her mother, and her brother, Baron Friedrich (Fred) von Reibnitz (now living in Canberra), moved to Australia, where her mother ran a beauty salon. Friedrich became a senior Australian Government official.

In Sydney, Princess Michael attended Rose Bay Convent, a private Roman Catholic girls' school, run by nuns of the Sacred Heart (Sacré Coeur) order. She is approximately six feet (1.83 metres) tall.

Through her mother, the Princess is a great14-granddaughter of Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henry II of France, and a great12-granddaughter of Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France (his wife).

[edit] Marriage

Her first husband was the English banker Thomas Troubridge, the younger brother of Sir Peter Troubridge, 6th Baronet. They met during a boar hunt in Germany. They were married on 14 September 1971, at Chelsea Old Church, London. The couple separated in 1973, were divorced in 1977, and the marriage was formally annulled by the Roman Catholic Church in May 1978 for undisclosed reasons.

One month after the annulment, on 30 June 1978, in a civil ceremony in Vienna, Austria, she married Prince Michael of Kent, the son of Prince George, Duke of Kent (1902-1942) and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark (1906-1968). Prince Michael is a first cousin of the current British monarch, Elizabeth II. Upon marriage, she assumed the style and title of HRH Princess Michael of Kent. After receiving the Pope's permission, the couple later married in a Roman Catholic ceremony on 29 June 1983, at the Archbishop House, London.

Since the Act of Settlement 1701 prohibits anyone who has married a Roman Catholic from succeeding to the throne, Prince Michael of Kent (at the time, 15th in the line of succession) lost his succession right upon his marriage to Marie-Christine. However, their children retain their rights of succession because they are in communion with the Anglican Church.

TRH Prince and Princess Michael of Kent have two children:

[edit] Career

[edit] Royal duties

Styles of
Princess Michael of Kent
Reference style Her Royal Highness
Spoken style Your Royal Highness
Alternative style Ma'am

As the second son of King George V's fourth son, Prince Michael of Kent was never expected to undertake royal and official duties. Prince Michael has never received a parliamentary annuity or an allowance from the Privy Purse. Even so, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent represented The Queen at the independence celebrations in Belize and at the Coronation of King Mswati III of Swaziland. Prince Michael also supports a large number of different charities and organisations, and Princess Michael supports him in this work. The couple have the use of a grace and favour apartment at Kensington Palace.

On their behalf, The Queen is paying the rent[3] for Prince and Princess Michael of Kent's apartment at a commercial rate of £120,000 annually from her own private funds. The rent goes to the Grant-in-aid, provided by the Government for the maintenance of the Occupied Royal Palaces.

The rent is based on the current rate for commercially rented properties at Kensington Palace, and is recorded in the overall figures for commercial rents, in the Grant-in-aid annual report.

This rent payment by The Queen is in recognition of the Royal engagements and work for various charities which Prince and Princess Michael of Kent have undertaken at their own expense, and without any public funding.

[edit] Author

The princess is the author of three books, Crowned in a Far Country: Eight Royal Brides (Weidenfeld), and Cupid and the King - Five Royal Paramours (Harper Collins) and in 2004 released The Serpent and The Moon, a true sizzling story of love and betrayal in a royal family. She also writes a society column for www.bestselections.com, an on-line shopping website.

Before her marriage to Prince Michael, she was an interior decorator. According to a report in The Observer's Pendennis column in September 2007, she has taken up this career again due to looming financial pressures.

[edit] Media coverage

British Royal Family

HM The Queen
HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
v • d • e

Princess Michael of Kent has received considerable media attention in the years since her marriage to Prince Michael, much of it critical, although she does get sympathetic coverage in celebrity magazines. It has been alleged that she does not get along well with other members of the Royal Family, including the Queen. Rumour has it that they see her as having ideas and delusions above her station, hence the media have attached to her the derogatory nickname "Princess Pushy". As an example of her sense of self-importance by way of justification for the moniker, it is claimed that she once declared to an American fashion magazine that she had more royal blood in her veins than any person to marry into the royal family since Prince Philip. She also has said she was probably the first tall person to marry into the clan. (The Queen reportedly has referred to her as "Our Val," a reference to the warrior-like Valkyries, and - sarcastically - as "a bit too grand for" the rest of the royal family.) [1]. She is the only Royal cat-lover, owning pedigree Siamese. It is alleged that having complained about a cat being mauled by a Corgi, she was promptly and unsympathetically put in her place.

With the arrival of younger royals such as Diana, Princess of Wales and Sarah, Duchess of York, the princess' public profile was lowered. However, in May 2004 she was in the news when a group of black diners in a New York restaurant alleged that the Princess had told them to "get back to the colonies" when complaining about their noise - an accusation she denied but that made headlines around the world. She said that she had merely told one of her fellow dinner guests that she would be glad to go back to the colonies in order to escape her noisy neighbours. She later described her accusers as a "group of rappers" [2].

In September 2005, she appeared in the news again, after the News of the World reporter Mazher Mahmood apparently gained her confidence and claimed that she made a number of intemperate remarks, including calling Diana, Princess of Wales "bitter" and "nasty" [3].

In November 2005, Channel 4 pulled, during production, a bio-film about the Princess, being produced by Tris Payne's independent production company, Liverpool Street. Channel 4 cited "editorial reasons" as the Princess had insisted on final editorial control [4].

In April, 2006, she was photographed in Venice with Mikhail Kravchenko. She kept close company with the Russian millionaire tycoon, 21 years her junior, holding hands, kissing and taking a gondola ride with him. In the Daily Mail, sources close to the Princess said that they were "discussing doing some business together."

Her latest newsmaking statement came in October 2006, in an interview for US TV, in which she claimed that her children were the brightest royals with the best (university) degrees. [5]

On hearing that the research of Dr Dorothy Cheney and Dr Robert Seyfarth seems to indicate that rank among female baboons is hereditary, the Princess said "I always knew that when people who aren’t like us claim that hereditary rank is not part of human nature, they must be wrong. Now you’ve given me evolutionary proof!" [6]

[edit] Titles, styles, honours and arms

[edit] Titles

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ As a titled royal, Princess Michael holds no surname, but, when one is used, it is Windsor
  2. ^ SS Officer the Father Of a British Princess - New York Times
  3. ^ Corrections
Order of precedence in the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Katharine, Duchess of Kent		 Ladies
HRH Princess Michael of Kent		 Succeeded by
Princess Alexandra
v • d • e
UK Order of Precedence (Ladies)*
Persondata
NAME Kent, Marie-Christine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Windsor, Marie-Christine Agnes Hedwig Ida; Reibnitz, Marie-Christine Agnes Hedwig Ida von
SHORT DESCRIPTION Wife of Prince Michael of Kent
DATE OF BIRTH 15 January 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Carlsbad, Czech Republic
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH