A newly published book by royal biographer Tom Quinn has revealed that a member of The Royal Family received a reputation for being something of a firestarter.

In his book, Mr Quinn goes behind palace doors to reveal some of the secrets of the servants and staff who worked in Buckingham Palace over the years.

One of the revelations is that Prince Philip’s mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, ‘regularly’ started fires in her Buckingham Palace apartment.

Princess Alice, who died in 1969, accidentally started a number of blazes, caused by her love of smoking cigarettes.

In the book, Agnes Cooke, who worked in the royal kitchen, said that Alice’s habit was behind many accidents.

She said: “Well, there was a lady in waiting who was very friendly with Philip’s mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, when Alice was living at Buckingham Palace, and they used to smoke cigarettes together in Alice’s apartment – so much so that they regularly set fire to it.

“And despite being very grand indeed – a member of one of Britain’s oldest and most aristocratic families – this particular lady in waiting used to wander about with a cigarette stuck behind her ear, like a coal miner or a carpenter.’“

Princess Alice moved into Buckingham Palace in 1967 at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. She lived there until her death in 1969. 

Born in 1885 at Windsor Castle, Alice was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

Alice spent her childhood across many different countries, as her father was in the navy. After she struggled to learn to speak, she was diagnosed with congenital deafness. Alice learned to lip-read and speak in both English and German, and would go on to learn both French and Greek. 

The Princess met Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark in 1902 and they were married in 1903. The couple had five children: Princess Margarita in 1905, Princess Theodora in 1906, Princess Cecile in 1911, Princess Sophie in 1914, and Prince Philip in 1921. 

The family of six was forced into exile in 1917 when King Constantine of Greece abdicated. 

By the 1930s, Alice faced a health crisis. She claimed that she had direct communication with both Christ and Buddha, and that she had healing powers. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia and would spend two years in a sanatorium. 

During the Second World War, Alice lived in Athens and helped organise soup kitchens for those in need. She also sheltered a Jewish family during the war. In 2010, she was named a British Hero of the Holocaust, one of twenty-seven original recipients.

In 1949, Princess Alice founded the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, a Greek Orthodox order.

Additional reporting by Jessica Storoschuk