Britain bids farewell to its eldest royal, Princess Alice

06 Nov, 2004

Queen Elizabeth II and her family bade farewell Friday to Princess Alice, who died a week earlier at 102, believed to be the greatest age ever reached by a member of the British royal family. Prince Philip, Prince Charles and his sons William and Harry, as well as Princess Anne attended the private funeral held in Windsor Castle's historic Saint George's Chapel - the resting place of 10 former sovereigns.
Alice, the Duchess of Gloucester and aunt of Queen Elizabeth II, was to be buried later Friday at Windsor Castle, near the resting places of her husband Prince Henry, the third son of King George V and Queen Mary, and their son Prince William.
Born Lady Alice Christabel Montagu Douglas Scott on Christmas Day 1901, she was the third daughter of the seventh Duke of Buccleuch, who served in the navy with George V before he became king.
When she and Henry were married in 1935, young Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret were bridesmaids at the ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
The couple had two sons. William, the eldest, a pilot, was killed in a crash at an air show in 1972.
Two years later her husband died after suffering a series of strokes and their younger son, Prince Richard, inherited the title.
She spent most of her life in the family home in Northamptonshire, in an Elizabethan manor set deep in the countryside in central England.
But since 1995 she had lived in London's Kensington Palace with her son, the present Duke of Gloucester, and his family and had been seen very rarely in public.

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