The ex-sovereign, cousin of British King Charles III and godfather of Prince William, “died (…) of a brain attack”, announced the Greek public television channel ERT.
The former king of Greece Constantine II, in power before the restoration of the Republic in 1974, died in Athens on Tuesday January 10 at the age of 82, announced the Greek public channel ERT. The ex-sovereign, cousin of King Charles III and godfather of Prince William, “died (…) of a stroke“, announced ERT. He had been hospitalized in Athens last week with respiratory problems, according to Greek media.
Descendant of the royal family of Schleswig-Holstein-Glücksburg, Constantin was the cousin of the British sovereign Charles III and the godfather of his son William. He was also the brother of Sofia, the mother of King Felipe VI of Spain. The monarchy in Greece was abolished by referendum in 1974, ending the Danish dynasty established in 1863 by Constantine II’s great-grandfather, George I.
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Troubled period
Constantine II had acceded to the throne at the age of 23 in 1964, one of the most turbulent periods in contemporary Greek history. The political crises that followed were fertile ground for the colonels’ coup in April 1967 and the seven-year term of the junta that the CIA was accused of supporting.
According to US diplomatic documents released later, Constantin also tried to impose martial law in 1967 to avoid the return of Georges Papandreou or his socialist son Andreas, elected prime minister fifteen years later. He left Greece in 1968 and lived for forty years in London, before returning to his country in 2013. Married to Anne-Marie, sister of Queen Margaret II of Denmark, he leaves five children.