Princess Michael of Kent
Princess Michael of Kent is a member of the British royal family. She is married to Prince Michael of Kent, a grandson of King George V. Princess Michael of Kent was an interior designer before becoming an author; she has written several books on European royalty.
Early life and ancestry
Princess Michael was born Freiin Marie-Christine Anna Agnes Hedwig Ida von Reibnitz on 15 January 1945 in Karlovy Vary, then part of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, and officially known as Karlsbad in the German-populated Sudetenland, now in the Czech Republic. She was born at Jagdschloss Inselthal, the family estate inherited from her Austrian maternal grandmother, Princess Hedwig von Windisch-Graetz, the eldest daughter of Alfred III, Prince of Windisch-Grätz, who served as the 11th Minister-President of Austria and was President of the Imperial Council from 1895 to 1918.She is born into the Reibnitz family, an ancient German nobility from Silesia who can trace its noble lineage back to 1288 with Henricus de Rybnicz. The ancestral seat of the family was Burg Läusepelz, today Rybnica in present-day Poland. On her paternal line, Princess Michael is descended from the Burggrafen of Dohna, Herrand III von Trauttmansdorff, and the Nostitz family, who are also among the ancestors of Queen Elizabeth II.
She is the younger daughter of Freiherr Günther Hubertus von Reibnitz by his second wife, Countess Maria Anna Carolina Franziska Walburga Bernadette Szapáry von Muraszombath, Széchysziget und Szapár, who was the daughter of Count Friedrich Szapáry von Muraszombath, Széchysziget und Szapár, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Saint Petersburg at the outbreak of the First World War. On her mother's side, she descends from the House of Lobkowicz and numerous other Austrian princely houses, lineages which also connect her by blood to her husband, Prince Michael of Kent, and to Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III. Through her maternal line, she is also descended from King Henry II of France via both his wife, Catherine de' Medici, and his longtime mistress and rival of Catherine, Diane de Poitiers, a connection noted in her historical work. She also descends, through this line, from Peter Paul Rubens, the celebrated Flemish Baroque painter, artist and diplomat who served and was knighted by the Habsburg and Stuart monarchs.
Princess Michael's father was a Nazi Party member and served as a cavalry officer in the Waffen-SS during the Second World War. In response to the advances of the Red Army near the end of the war, the family abandoned their estates and moved to Bavaria, which was part of the American-occupied zone of Germany. Her parents divorced in 1946 and, along with her mother and elder brother Baron Friedrich von Reibnitz, Princess Michael moved to Australia, where she was educated at Convent of the Sacred Heart, Rose Bay. In the early 1960s, she lived with her father on his farm in Portuguese-ruled Mozambique. She then went from Vienna to London to study History of Fine and Decorative Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Marriages
Her first husband was the English banker Thomas Troubridge, the younger brother of Sir Peter Troubridge, 6th Baronet. They met at a boar hunt in Germany and were married on 14 September 1971 at Chelsea Old Church, London. The couple separated in 1973 and were civilly divorced in 1977. The marriage was ecclesiastically annulled by Pope Paul VI in May 1978.One month after the annulment, on 30 June 1978, at a civil ceremony at the City Hall in Vienna, Austria, she married Prince Michael of Kent, the son of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark. Prince Michael is a grandson of King George V. Marie-Christine has named Lord Mountbatten as their matchmaker.
Michael presented Marie-Christine with a two-stone sapphire-and-diamond ring made from stones that had belonged to his mother, Princess Marina. At the civil ceremony she wore a cream two-piece suit, a blazer and knee-length skirt combination, by Hardy Amies. For the ball held after the wedding, she wore the City of London diamond fringe tiara and a cream dress from Bellville Sassoon. Upon their marriage, she was accorded the style and title of Her Royal Highness Princess Michael of Kent, the female equivalent to her husband's title. After receiving Pope John Paul II's permission, the couple later received a blessing of their marriage in a Roman Catholic ceremony on 29 June 1983 at Archbishop's House, London.
Since the Act of Settlement 1701 prohibited anyone who married a Roman Catholic from succeeding to the throne, Prince Michael of Kent lost his succession rights upon marrying Marie-Christine. Prince Michael was reinstated to the line of succession to the British throne on 26 March 2015 with the passing of the Succession to the Crown Act 2013. Their children are members of the Church of England and have retained their rights of succession since birth.
Prince and Princess Michael of Kent have two children:
- Lord Frederick Windsor, born 6 April 1979 at St Mary's Hospital, London. He married Sophie Winkleman on 12 September 2009 and they have two daughters: Maud and Isabella.
- Lady Gabriella Kingston, born 23 April 1981 at St Mary's Hospital, London. She married Thomas Kingston on 18 May 2019. Her husband shot himself on 25 February 2024 in the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, leaving her widowed at 42 years old.
Career
Before her marriage to Prince Michael, she worked as an interior designer. According to a report in The Observers Pendennis column in September 2007, the Princess resumed decorating under her original company, Szapar Designs. In 1986, her first book Crowned in a Far Country: Portraits of Eight Royal Brides was published, after which she faced allegations of plagiarism and reached an out-of-court settlement with another author. Her second book Cupid and the King: Five Royal Paramours faced the same issues, which the Princess attributed to the researcher, who had allegedly submitted notes without due attribution. The book was to be published by Michael Joseph, but after the draft was submitted several months late, it was rejected and published by HarperCollins. From 2007 to 2011, the Princess served as president of Partridge Fine Art, a gallery in London's New Bond Street until it went into administration having suffered substantial multi-year losses. In 2008, the Princess was engaged as a consultant by Galerie Gmurzynska in Switzerland, and later became their international ambassador. She also served on the board of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and goes on lecture tours around the world where she talks about historical subjects at universities, museums and galleries to promote her books and endorse her charities. Marie-Christine, whose husband has a strong interest in Russia, was reportedly taking Russian lessons in 2012.Books
Royal and charitable activities
Since she was a teenager, Princess Michael has held a long and enduring passion for the conservation of cheetahs and she is international royal patron for the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia. She is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, a learned society dedicated to natural history and taxonomy.
Finances
Prince Michael has never received a parliamentary annuity or an allowance from the Privy Purse. The couple have had the use of a five-bedroom, five-reception grace and favour apartment at Kensington Palace. Queen Elizabeth II had paid the rent for the apartment at a market rate of £120,000 annually from her own private funds with the couple paying the nominal amount of £70 per week. 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", according to a statement released by the British Monarchy Media Centre.In 2008, it was announced that it had been agreed that Prince and Princess Michael would pay rent of £120,000 a year from their own funds from 2010. Members of Parliament on the public accounts committee had demanded the change after the Kents' rent had come to light. The Kents have lived in the apartment since 1979, paying only their utility bills prior to 2002.
Catholicism
Princess Michael of Kent is a Roman Catholic, and attended several events during Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the United Kingdom in September 2010. She attended Mass in Westminster Cathedral, where she was seated in the first row among other dignitaries, including Lord and Lady Nicholas Windsor, the Duke of Norfolk and former Prime Minister Tony Blair; the Pope gave them an audience after Mass. On the last day of the Pope's visit she attended the open-air Mass of beatification for Cardinal John Henry Newman at Cofton Park, Birmingham. Princess Michael was personally involved in the beatification process and attended several other celebrations relating to his beatification before and after the Cofton Park Mass. She also attended a civic dinner with invited dignitaries and bishops in Birmingham, before attending the Mass and meeting the Pope. Previously, in 2008, the Princess attended the translation of remains of Cardinal Newman at Birmingham Oratory.Princess Michael of Kent represented the Duke of Edinburgh at the launching ceremony of the Green Pilgrimage Network in Assisi, Italy, in 2011. It was organised by the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, founded by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1995, in association with the World Wide Fund for Nature, of which Prince Philip was formerly President. The Princess spoke on behalf of the Duke of Edinburgh and led the opening procession.
In 2024, The Times published a letter to the editor, co-signed by Princess Michael of Kent and other Catholic and non-Catholic public figures, calling upon the Holy See to preserve what they describe as the "magnificent" cultural artifact of the Catholic Church's Traditional Latin Mass.