She was never there the city however, he traveled extensively between the family’s many homes: Eildon Hall, on the Scottish borders; Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfriesshire; Dalkeith House, nearby Edinburgh; Bowhill, outside Selkirk and Boughton, Northampton County. A special train would transport all the luggage, as well as servants, carriages and horses, from one place to another. In fact, the family had so many staff that when news of the engagement of the second nurse with the groom of the rooms reached the nursery, the only one of the governess the comment to nanny was: ‘Where could they have met?’

Lady Alice Christabel Montagu-Douglas-Scott, photographed in 1927

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Alice’s love of the outdoors and Scotland made him prefer Langholm, a shooting lodge on the Dumfriesshire moors, to all the family’s other homes. Here she satisfies her passion for wild nature, fishing and hunting – a sport in which she continued to be greatly interested throughout her life. A formative experience at the age of 14 saw Alice caught in a current in the nearby Solway Firth; Almost drowned, she was convinced she was going to die and prayed to God, begging for a miracle to save her life.

“The next moment my feet touched rocks,” she later wrote. in his memoirs. “I was able to get up and catch my breath… In exchange for my life, I promised to devote it to a useful purpose; but there never seemed to be anything that required my help or for which I was useful. So when, following a series of unforeseen circumstances, I A day I found myself blessed with a life of public duty in the service of my country, a very secret commitment has been honored.

This experience might have foreshadowed Princess Alice’s royal life in the public eye – but it was, at first, a vocation for which she could not have seemed less suited. In 1919, she made her debut in the company, which she described in her autobiography, Memories of ninety yearsas “miserable”. Shy and rather plump, she described spending most of her coming-out ball hiding behind a pillar and found the endless debutante balls she was supposed to attend to be nothing short of “terrible.” As she was featured again and again, season after season, she found the whole ordeal “unnecessary and boring.”