Former, Last King of Greece dies

The former and last king of Greece, Constantine, died at a private hospital in Athens at 82 years.

His doctors announced this late Tuesday as the staff at the private Hygeia Hospital in Athens confirmed to The Associated Press that Constantine that he died after treatment in an intensive care unit.

 

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Constantine was born June 2, 1940, in Athens, to Prince Paul, younger brother to King George II and heir presumptive to the throne, and princess Federica of Hanover. His older sister Sophia is the wife of former King Juan Carlos I of Spain. The Greek-born Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh and husband of the United Kingdom’s late Queen Elizabeth II, was an uncle.

The family, which had ruled in Greece from 1863 apart from a 12-year republican interlude between 1922-1935, was descended from Prince Christian, later Christian IX of Denmark, of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg branch of the Danish ruling family.

Before Constantine’s first birthday, the royal family was forced to flee Greece during the German invasion in World War II, moving to Alexandria in Egypt, South Africa, and back to Alexandria. King George II returned to Greece in 1946 following a disputed referendum but died a few months later, making Constantine the heir to King Paul I.

Constantine was educated at a boarding school and then attended all three military academies and Athens Law School classes to prepare for his future role. He also competed in various sports, including sailing and karate, in which he held a black belt.

In 1960, aged 20, he and two other Greek sailors won a gold medal in the Dragon Class — now no longer an Olympic class — at the Rome Olympics. While still a prince, Constantine was elected a member of the International Olympic Committee in 1963 and became an honorary member for life in 1974.

King Paul I died of cancer on March 6, 1964, and Constantine succeeded him, weeks after the Center Union party had triumphed over the conservatives with 53% of the vote.

HIS RULERSHIP

When he acceded to the throne as Constantine II at 23 in 1964, the youthful monarch, who had already achieved glory as an Olympic gold medalist in sailing, was hugely popular. By the following year, he had squandered much of that support with his active involvement in the machinations that brought down the popularly elected Center Union government of prime minister George Papandreou.

The prime minister, George Papandreou, and Constantine initially had a very close relationship, but it soon soured over Constantine’s insistence that control of the armed forces was the monarch’s prerogative.

The episode, still widely known in Greece as the defection from the ruling party of several lawmakers, destabilised the constitutional order and led 1967 to a military coup. Constantine eventually clashed with the military rulers and was forced into exile. The dictatorship abolished the monarchy in 1973, while a referendum after democracy was restored in 1974 dashed any hopes Constantine had of ever reigning again.

Reduced in the following decades to only fleeting visits to Greece that raised a political and media storm each time, he was able in his waning years to settle again in his home country when opposing his presence no longer held currency as a badge of vigilant republicanism. With minimal nostalgia for the monarchy in Greece, Constantine became a relatively uncontroversial figure from the past.

With many officers toying with the idea of a dictatorship and viewing any non-conservative government as soft on communism, Papandreou wanted to control the ministry of defence and eventually demanded to be appointed defence minister. After an acrimonious exchange of letters with Constantine, Papandreou resigned in July 1965.

Constantine’s insistence on appointing a government composed of centrist defectors that won a narrow parliamentary majority on the third try was hugely unpopular. Many viewed him as being manipulated by his scheming mother, dowager Queen Frederica. “The people don’t want you; take your mother and go!” became the rallying cry in the often violent protests that rocked Greece in the summer of 1965.

Eventually, Constantine made a truce of sorts with Papandreou and, with his agreement, appointed a government of technocrats and, then, a conservative-led government to hold an election in May 1967.

 

THE IMMINENT DICTATORSHIP

But, with the polls heavily favouring the Center Union and Papandreou’s left-leaning son, Andreas, gaining in popularity, Constantine and his courtiers feared revenge and, with the aid of high-ranking officers, prepared a coup.

However, a group of lower-ranking officers, led by colonels, were preparing their coup and, apprised of Constantine’s plans by a mole, a general whom they had won over to their side, proclaimed a dictatorship on April 21, 1967.

 

COUNTER-COUP DISASTER

Constantine was surprised, and his feelings toward the new rulers were evident in the official photo of the new government. He pretended to go along with them while preparing a counter-coup with the help of troops in northern Greece and the navy, which was loyal to him.

On December 13, 1967, Constantine and his family flew to the northern city of Kavala to march on Thessaloniki and set up a government there. The counter-coup was poorly managed and infiltrated, collapsed, and forced Constantine to flee to Rome the following day. He would never return as the reigning king.

After an abortive Navy counter-coup in May 1973, the junta appointed a regent and abolished the monarchy on June 1, 1973. A July plebiscite, widely considered rigged, confirmed the decision.

 

DICTATORSHIP COLLAPSE

When the dictatorship collapsed in July 1974, Constantine was eager to return to Greece. Still, he was advised against it by veteran politician Constantine Karamanlis, who returned from exile to head a civilian government. Karamanlis, who had also directed the government between 1955-63, was a conservative but had clashed with the court over what he considered its excessive political interference.

After his triumphal win in the November elections, Karamanlis called for a referendum on the monarchy on December 8, 1974. Constantine was not allowed in the country to campaign, but the result was unambiguous and widely accepted: 69.2% voted in favour of a republic.

Soon after, Karamanlis famously said that the nation had rid itself of cancerous growth. On the day following the referendum, Constantine noted that “national unity must take precedence … I wholeheartedly wish that developments will justify the result of yesterday’s vote.”

 

FINAL DAYS

To his final days, while accepting that Greece was now a republic, Constantine continued to style himself King of Greece and his children as princes and princesses even though Greece no longer recognized titles of nobility. For most of his years in exile, he lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, and was said to be incredibly close to his second cousin Charles, the Prince of Wales and now King Charles III.

While it took Constantine 14 years to return to his country, briefly, to bury his mother, Queen Federica, in 1981, he multiplied his visits after that and, from 2010, made his home there. There were continued disputes: in 1994, the then-socialist government stripped him of his nationality and expropriated what remained of the royal family’s property. Constantine sued at the European Court of Human Rights and was awarded 12 million euros in 2002, a fraction of the 500 million he had sought.

Constantine travelled with a Danish passport as a Danish prince. He left behind his wife, the former Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, the youngest sister of Queen Margrethe II; five children, Alexia, Pavlos, Nikolaos, Theodora, and Philippos; and nine grandchildren.

 

CBS/S.O