Prince Philip ancestors buried at Athens cemetery

Before marrying the heir to the British throne, Prince Philip was already a prince as he was born a member of the Greek royal family.

Philip left Greece when he was a child because the family was forced into exile, but Vassilis Koutsavlis, president of the Tatoi Royal Estate Friends Association, said the prince still had ties with Greece.

The former royal estate at Tatoi just north of Athens includes a cemetery where many of Philip's relatives, including his father and paternal grandparents, are buried.

Born June 10, 1921, on the dining room table at his parents' home on the Greek island of Corfu, Philip was the fifth child and only son of Prince Andrew, younger brother of the king of Greece.

His grandfather had come from Denmark during the 1860s to be adopted by Greece as the country's monarch. He would become King George I.

Philip's mother was Princess Alice of Battenberg, a descendant of Queen Victoria.

When Philip was 18 months old, his parents fled to France.

His father, an army commander, had been tried after a devastating military defeat by the Turks.

After British intervention, the Greek junta agreed not to sentence Andrew to death if he left the country.

Marie Bonaparte, a family's relative, helped the family financially once they made it to France, Koutsavlis said.

Princess Marie is also buried in Tatoi.

Philip's parents drifted apart when he was a child, Alice was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and spent time in a sanitarium after suffering a nervous breakdown.

"Prince Andrew distanced himself very much from the family. He lived his own personal life after the dramatic events concerning Princess Alice, his wife, and her treatment in various psychiatric institutions. He was not close to the family," Koutsavlis said.

Prince Andrew died in Monte Carlo in 1944.

Princess Alice eventually returned to Greece, founded a religious order and managed to devote much of her life to aiding the poor, the sick and needy.

During World War II in Nazi-occupied Athens, Alice saved a Jewish family by hiding them in her home.

She gave her villa in the Athens suburb of Neo Iraklio to the Red Cross, which created one of the country's first elderly care centers.

The Villa Alice is still in use.

Eventually, Prince Philip would bring his mother, whom Koutsavlis said the prince "adored," to Buckingham Palace.

Philip, who has been married to Queen Elizabeth II for more than seven decades, died on Friday. He was 99.