Constantine II of Greece Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Age, Biography and Wiki

Constantine II of Greece was born on 2 June, 1940 in Psychiko, Athens, Kingdom of Greece. Discover Constantine II of Greece's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? Also learn how He earned most of networth at the age of 83 years old?

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Constantine II of Greece Height, Weight & Measurements

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Who Is Constantine II of Greece's Wife?

His wife is Anne-Marie of Denmark (m. 18 September 1964)

Constantine II of Greece Net Worth

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Timeline

In November 2015, his autobiography was published in three volumes by the national newspaper, To Vima. It has not yet been published in English.

Constantine and Anne-Marie for many years lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, Constantine being a close friend of his second cousin Charles III, and a godfather to William, Prince of Wales, his second cousin once removed. He sold his house in Hampstead in 2013.

In 2013, Constantine returned to reside in Greece. He and his wife Anne-Marie purchased a villa in Porto Cheli, Peloponnese residing there until they relocated to Athens in the spring of 2022.

During the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics, Constantine, in his role as honorary member of the International Olympic Committee, was the official presenter at the sailing medal ceremonies. He is Co-President of Honour of the International Sailing Federation with King Harald V of Norway, since 1994.

According to a nationwide 2007 survey of 2,040 households conducted on behalf of the newspaper To Vima, only 11.6% supported a constitutional monarchy. More than half of the respondents, 50.9%, considered the dictatorship of the junta had brought benefits to Greece.

In 2004, Constantine returned to Greece temporarily during the Athens Olympic Games as a member of the International Olympic Committee. On 24 December 2004, Constantine and Anne-Marie and members of the former royal family visited the Presidential Mansion (the former Royal Palace) in Athens where Constantine met President Costis Stephanopoulos, who gave them a tour.

Until 1994, Constantine's official Greek passport identified him as "Constantine, former King of the Hellenes". A law passed in 1994 stripped him of his Greek citizenship, passport, and property. The law stated that Constantine could not be granted a Greek passport unless he adopted a surname. Constantine has stated: "I don't have a name—my family doesn't have a name. The law that Mr Papandreou passed basically says that he considers that I am not Greek and that my family was Greek only so long as we were exercising the responsibilities of sovereign, and I had to go out and acquire a name. The problem is that my family originates from Denmark, and the Danish royal family haven't got a surname." Glücksburg, he said, was not a family name but the name of a town. "I might as well call myself Mr. Kensington."

There were also legal disputes with the Greek state. In 1992 he concluded an agreement with the conservative government of Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis, ceding most of his land in Greece to a non-profit foundation in exchange for the former palace of Tatoi, near Athens, and the right to export a number of movables from Greece. The latter reportedly included privately owned art treasures from the royal palaces. As such, no formal account of what was removed was ever given or needed to be given. In 1993, Constantine visited Greece, but faced with government insecurity, he was asked to leave. In 1994, the second government of Andreas Papandreou passed new legislation reversing the 1992 agreement and stripping Constantine of his property in Greece and his Greek citizenship.

Constantine remained in exile for forty years after the vote in favour of the republic. He was strongly discouraged from returning to Greece, and he did not return until February 1981, when the government allowed him to return for only a few hours, to attend the funeral of his mother, Queen Frederica, in the family cemetery of the former Royal Palace at Tatoi.

In July 1974, the events in Cyprus led to the downfall of the military regime, and Karamanlis returned from exile to become prime minister. The 1973 republican constitution was regarded as illegitimate, and the new administration issued a constitutional decree restoring the 1952 constitution. Constantine confidently awaited an invitation to return. On 24 July he declared his "deep satisfaction with the initiative of the armed forces in overthrowing the dictatorial regime" and welcomed the advent of Karamanlis as prime minister.

The former king visited both Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street and openly declared his hope to be shortly returning to Greece. However, the 1952 constitution was not restored with the overthrow of the illegal junta. Following Karamanlis' resounding victory in the November 1974 parliamentary elections (his New Democracy party won 54.4% of the vote), he called a referendum (held on 8 December 1974) on whether Greece would restore the monarchy or remain a republic.

Under these circumstances, rather than managing to put together a force and advancing on Thessaloniki, middle-ranking pro-junta officers neutralised and arrested his royalist generals and took command of their units, which subsequently put together a force advancing on Kavala to arrest the king. Realising that the countercoup had failed, Constantine fled Greece on board the royal plane, taking his family and hapless premier with him. They landed in Rome early in the morning of 14 December, where they remained in exile all through the rest of military rule (although he continued as king until 1 June 1973). He was never to return to Greece as a reigning king.

In June 1973, George Papadopoulos condemned Constantine as "a collaborator with foreign forces and with murderers" and accused him of "pursuing ambitions to become a political leader". In May, officers of the largely royalist navy staged an abortive coup, although Constantine himself was not involved. George Papadopoulos retaliated by declaring Greece a republic (1 June), a decision which was confirmed by a plebiscite on 29 July. The vote was widely acknowledged to be rigged. Constantine refused to accept the outcome. George Papadopoulos then declared himself president, but in November there was a coup within the regime and he was replaced by General Phaidon Ghizikis, who was a front for the new military strongman, Dimitrios Ioannidis.

Over the next year the junta sent intermediaries to the king to negotiate the terms on which he might return to Greece. But Constantine insisted on the full restoration of democracy under the existing constitution as a precondition, and George Papadopoulos would not agree to this. Instead the regime illegally promulgated a new constitution in November 1968, which retained the monarchy, but stripped it of its powers, and provided for a permanent regency until the king chose to accept the new order. This standoff continued until 1972, when George Papadopoulos illegally dismissed George Zoitakis and appointed himself regent.

He acceded as king in 1964 following the death of his father, King Paul. Later that year he married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark with whom he eventually had five children. Although the accession of the young monarch was initially regarded auspiciously, his reign saw political instability that culminated in the Colonels' Coup of 21 April 1967. The coup left Constantine, as the head of state, little room to manoeuvre since he had no loyal military forces on which to rely. As a result, he reluctantly agreed to inaugurate the junta on the condition that it be made up largely of civilian ministers. On 13 December 1967, Constantine was forced to flee the country, following an unsuccessful countercoup against the junta. He remained (formally) the head of state in exile until the junta abolished the monarchy on 1 June 1973. The 1973 Greek republic referendum on 29 July, ratified the abolition. There were questions concerning the validity of this referendum and whether people were pressured to vote for a republic. Therefore, a fresh referendum was held after the restoration of democracy in 1974. This second referendum was held after the fall of the junta as the 1974 Greek republic referendum on 8 December 1974 and confirmed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic. Constantine, who was not allowed to return to Greece to campaign, accepted the results of the plebiscite.

When Stefanopoulos resigned in frustration, Constantine appointed a caretaker government under Ioannis Paraskevopoulos, which called elections for May 1967. This government did not even last until the scheduled elections. It was replaced on 3 April 1967 by another caretaker government under the leader of the ERE, Panagiotis Kanellopoulos.

Elections were scheduled for 28 May 1967, with expectations of a wide Centrist victory. According to United States diplomat John Day, the Americans worried that, due to the old age of George Papandreou, Andreas Papandreou would have a very powerful role in the next government.

From the outset, the relationship between Constantine and the regime of the colonels was an uneasy one. Constantine organised a counter-coup, though no help or involvement of the United States was forthcoming. The king finally decided to launch his counter-coup on 13 December 1967. Since Athens was effectively in the hands of the junta militarily, Constantine decided to fly to the small northern city of Kavala, east of Thessaloniki. There he hoped to be among troops loyal only to him. The vague plan he and his advisors had conceived was to form a unit that would advance to Thessaloniki (Greece's second biggest city and unofficial capital of northern Greece) and take it. Constantine planned to install an alternative administration there. International recognition, which he believed to be forthcoming, as well as internal pressure from the fact that Greece would have been split into two governments would, the king hoped, force the junta to resign, leaving the field clear for him to return triumphant to Athens.

In the early morning hours of 13 December, the king boarded the royal plane together with Queen Anne-Marie of Greece, their two young children, Princess Alexia and Prince Pavlos, his mother, Queen Frederica, and his sister, Princess Irene. Constantine also took with him Premier Kollias. At first things seemed to be going according to plan. Constantine was well received in Kavala which, militarily, was under the command of a general loyal to him. The air force and navy, both strongly royalist and not involved in the 1967 coup, immediately declared for him and mobilised. Another of Constantine's generals effectively cut all communication between Athens and the north.

The republic received overwhelming support by the centrist voters who condemned Constantine for, among other things, swearing in the junta in 1967. They also blamed his reluctance to sever all ties with the junta once in exile, and the dismissal of the legitimately elected George Papandreou administration (Apostasia of 1965), the event which some believed led to the coup.

After the resignation of Andreas Papandreou, Constantine appointed a new government led by Georgios Athanasiadis-Novas, who failed to ensure the Parliament's confidence. After this failure, Novas was succeeded by Ilias Tsirimokos, who also failed to form a stable government and was dismissed. Constantine next appointed some of Papandreou's dissidents, known as the July Apostates and led by Stefanos Stefanopoulos, to form a government of "king's men", which lasted until December 1966, amidst mounting strikes and protests, supported by the right-wing ERE.

In 1964, Paul I's health deteriorated rapidly. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer and was operated on for an ulcer in February. Prior to this, Constantine had already been appointed as regent for his ailing father while waiting for his recovery. However, as the king's condition worsened, the crown prince went to Tinos to get an icon considered miraculous by the Greek Orthodox Church. The holy image, however, was not enough to cure the sovereign, and on 6 March 1964, King Paul died and the 23-year-old Constantine succeeded him as King of the Hellenes. The new king ascended the throne as Constantine II, although some of his supporters preferred to call him Constantine XIII to emphasize the continuity between the former Byzantine Empire and the Kingdom of Greece.

On 18 September 1964, in a Greek Orthodox ceremony in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens, he married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark.

Constantine is also a former competitive sailor and Olympian, winning a gold medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics in the Dragon class, and later serving on the International Olympic Committee. Along with his fellow crew members of the Nireus sailing vessel, he was named one of the 1960 Greek Athletes of the Year.

Constantine was an able sportsman. In 1960, aged 20, he won an Olympic gold medal in sailing (dragon class), which was the first Greek gold medal in sailing since the Stockholm 1912 Summer Olympics. He was also a strong swimmer and had a black belt in karate, with interests in squash, track events and riding. In 1963 Constantine became a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). He resigned in 1974 because he was no longer a Greek resident, and was made an Honorary IOC Member. He is an honorable member of the International Soling Association and honorable President of the International Dragon Association.

Although he had been the leader of the traditionally monarchist right, Karamanlis made no attempt to restore the democratic constitution of 1952. The former king was not allowed by the government to return to Greece to campaign on behalf of the benefits to Greece of the constitutional monarchy. He was only allowed to broadcast to the Greek people from London on television. Analysts claim this was a deliberate act by the government to undermine any chance to restore the monarchy.

Constantine is the only son of King Paul and Queen Frederica of Greece. As his family was forced into exile during the Second World War, he spent the first years of his childhood in Egypt and South Africa. He returned to Greece with his family in 1946 during the Greek Civil War. King George II died in 1947, and Constantine's father became the new king, making Constantine the crown prince.

Constantine and his family then spent the next four years in exile in Egypt and Cape Town, South Africa, (where his sister Irene was born) with his family. He returned to Greece with his family in 1946. King George died in 1947, and Constantine's father became the new king, making Constantine the crown prince.

Due to his youth, he was also perceived as a promise of change. Greece was still feeling the effects of the Civil War of 1944–49 between communists and monarchists, and society was strongly polarised between the royalist/conservative right and the liberal/socialist left. The accession of Constantine coincided with the recent election of Centrist George Papandreou as prime minister in February 1964, which ended 11 years of right-wing rule by the National Radical Union (ERE). It was hoped that the new young king and the new prime minister would be able to overcome past dissensions.

Constantine II (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Βʹ, Konstantínos II; 2 June 1940) reigned as the last King of Greece, from 6 March 1964 until the abolition of the Greek monarchy on 1 June 1973.

Constantine was born in the afternoon of 2 June 1940 at his parents' residence, Villa Psychiko at Leoforos Diamantidou 14 in Psychiko, a suburb of Athens. He was the nephew of George II, and also the second child and only legitimate son of the childless king's younger brother and heir presumptive, Crown Prince Paul. His mother, Princess Frederica of Hanover, was the only daughter of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick and Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia. The birth of a male heir to the throne was anxiously awaited by the Greek royal family and was celebrated with a 101–gun salute from Mount Lycabettus in Athens. According to Greek naming practices, being the first son, he was named for his paternal grandfather, Constantine I. At his baptism in Athens, the Hellenic Armed Forces acted as his godparent.

Constantine's birth took place during the beginning of World War II. He was just a few months old when Fascist Italy on 28 October 1940 invaded Greece from Albania, beginning the Greco-Italian War. The Greek Army was able to halt the invasion temporarily and was able to push the Italians back into Albania. However, the Greek successes forced Nazi Germany to intervene. The Germans invaded Greece and Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941, and overran both countries within a month, despite British aid to Greece in the form of an expeditionary corps. On 22 April 1941, Princess Frederica and her two children, Sofia and Constantine, were evacuated to Crete in a British Short Sunderland flying boat, along with most of the Greek royal family. The next day they were followed by King George and Prince Paul. However, the imminent German invasion of Crete quickly made the situation untenable, and Constantine and his family were evacuated from Crete to Egypt already on 30 April 1941, a fortnight before the German attack on the island.

At birth, Prince Constantine had an elder sister, Princess Sofia, born in 1938, who would later become Queen of Spain as the wife of the now retired Juan Carlos I of Spain. The family was later joined by a younger sister, Princess Irene, born in 1942.