Princess Alice, oldest Brit royal, dies at 102

LONDON – Princess Alice, aunt of Queen Elizabeth II and the oldest member of the British royal family, has died, Buckingham Palace said Saturday. She was 102.

The palace said the princess died in her sleep on Friday with her family around her.

A spokesman said the queen was greatly saddened by the death of her aunt. He said the queen “remembers with gratitude Princess Alice’s service to the monarchy and to the country.”

Born Lady Alice Christabel Montagu Douglas Scott on Christmas Day, 1901, the princess married Henry, Duke of Gloucester – the third son of King George V and brother of the queen’s father, King George VI – in 1935.

After helping to boost morale on the home front during World War II, Alice moved with her husband to Australia, where the Duke was governor general from 1945 to 1947. Back in Britain, she kept a busy schedule of charitable work and official duties until she was in her 90s.

She was the second member of the royal family to reach her centenary, after the Queen Mother Elizabeth, who died in March 2002 at the age of 101.