Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark was born on 22 June 1911. She by birth a Greek and Danish princess who became titular Hereditary. She was also the third-eldest sister to Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark. Cecilie, the third of five children of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, had a happy childhood. Baptized on 10 July, her godparents were King George V of the United Kingdom, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, and Grand Duchess Vera Konstantinovna of Russia.
Cecilie spent a happy childhood within a united household that was already made up of two daughters, Margarita (1905-1981) and Theodora (1906-1969), and was further expanded with the arrival of Sophie (1914-2001) The favorite child of her father she grew up in Athens, Tator and Corfu, Pl where her father inherited Mon Repos after King George I’s assassination in 1913.
Cecilie and her sisters communicated in English with their mother, but they also used French, German, and Greek with their relatives and their governesses. The girls also traveled abroad with their families at a very young age in 1911 and 1913. Cecilie’s early years were marked by the instability that the Kingdom of Greece experienced at the start of the twentieth century. Between 1912 and 1913, Greece engaged in the Balkan Wars, during which Prince Andrew served under Crown Prince Constantine while Princess Alice worked as a nurse for wounded soldiers. However, they were especially affected by the First World War, which created a division between different branches of their family. Greece set aside its neutrality due to the Triple Entente.
Cecilie and her sisters were in the Royal Palace of Anthens When the French Navi bombarded during the battle in the capital on 1 December 1916. In June 1917, King Constantine I was finally deposed and driven out of Greece by the Allies. who replaced him on the throne with his second son, the young Alexander. Fifteen days later, Cecilie’s family was in turn forced into exile to remove the possibility of the new monarch being influenced by those close to him. At the beginning of 1919, Cecilie reunited with her paternal grandmother. Cecilie attended a family reunion with her maternal grandparents. Cecilie and her sisters also participated, for the first time, in several great social events. In March 1921, the princesses attended in Athens the wedding of their cousin Helen and Crown Prince Carol of Romania. In July 1922, they went to the United Kingdom to be bridesmaids at the wedding of their uncle Louis Mountbatten to the wealthy heiress Edwina Ashley.
Cecilie was involved in several charitable organizations and became the head of Alice Frauen Verein, an association dedicated to women. She gave birth to three children: Prince Ludwig (born 25 October 1931), Prince Alexander (born 14 April 1933) and Princess Johanna of Hesse (born 20 September 1936).