Constantine, the former and last king of Greece, has died at a private hospital in Athens aged 82, his doctors announced late Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
Staff at the private Hygeia Hospital in Athens confirmed to AP that Constantine has died after treatment in an intensive care unit but had no further details pending an official announcement.
When he acceded to the throne as Constantine II at the age of 23 in 1964, the monarch, who had already achieved glory as an Olympic gold medalist in sailing, was hugely popular. By the following year he had squandered much of that support with his active involvement in the machinations that brought down the popularly elected Center Union government of prime minister George Papandreou.
The episode destabilized the constitutional order and led in 1967 to a military coup. Constantine eventually clashed with the military rulers and was forced into exile. The dictatorship abolished the monarchy in 1973 while a referendum after democracy was restored in 1974 dashed any hopes that Constantine had of ever reigning again.
Reduced in the following decades to only fleeting visits to Greece that raised a political and media storm each time, he was able in his waning years to settle again in his home country. With minimal nostalgia for the monarchy in Greece, Constantine became a relatively uncontroversial figure from the past, noted AP.
Constantine was born June 2, 1940 in Athens, to Prince Paul, younger brother to King George II and heir presumptive to the throne, and princess Federica of Hanover. His older sister Sophia is the wife of former King Juan Carlos I of Spain. The Greek-born Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh and husband of the United Kingdom’s late Queen Elizabeth II, was an uncle.
Before Constantine’s first birthday, the royal family was forced to flee Greece during the German invasion in World War II, moving to Alexandria in Egypt, South Africa and back to Alexandria. King George II returned to Greece in 1946, following a disputed referendum, but died a few months later, making Constantine the heir to King Paul I.
To his final days, Constantine, while accepting that Greece was now a republic, continued to style himself King of Greece and his children as princes and princesses even though Greece no longer recognized titles of nobility.
For most of his years in exile he lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, and was said to be especially close to his second cousin Charles, the Prince of Wales and now King Charles III.
He is survived by his wife, the former Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, youngest sister of Queen Margrethe II, as well five children, and nine grandchildren.