Prince Philip’s elder sister dies at 87

PRINCESS Sophie von Hanover, one of the four elder sisters of the Duke of Edinburgh, has died at the age of 87.

She passed away at Neuhaus bei Schliersee in Bavaria at the weekend, it was announced yesterday. The Princess is due to be buried tomorrow in Schliersee where she had been living in a care home.

The Princess of Greece and Denmark was born in 1914 in Corfu and had been married twice, the first time at 16 when she married Prince Christoph Ernst August von Heesen. She had five children with him.

The Heesen prince died in a plane crash in World War II and three years later she remarried Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hanover. The couple had two sons and a daughter.

The Queen is godmother to her daughter, Princess Friederike of Hanover.

Princess Sophie had three older sisters, all of whom are deceased. Princess Margarita (1905-81) married Prince Gottfried of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and Princess Theodora (1906-69) married Bertold Margrave of Baden.

Princess Ccile (1911-37) married Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, but, together with her husband and two of their children, Princess Ccile was killed in an air crash en route to a family wedding in the UK.