In December 2018, two British newspapers ran obituaries for the same woman in the same week. One described her as a duchess driven by a sense of social responsibility. The other called her a close confidante of Prince Philip. But Sasha Abercorn had already settled the matter herself, 14 years earlier, in three sentences she never retracted and never explained.
She admitted the closeness, the trust, and the heart of the matter. Then she drew a firm line and refused to cross it for the rest of her life. Alexandra Anastasia “Sasha” Phillips was born on February 27, 1946, in Tucson, Arizona. The location was an accident of illness.
Her father, Lieutenant Colonel Harold Pedro Joseph Phillips, a British army officer of part-Peruvian descent, was recovering from tuberculosis there. Known as “Bunny” to everyone, he had worked in counterintelligence in South America. Her mother was Georgina Wernher, called “Gina” by all who knew her. Through Gina came the glittering, complicated half of the inheritance.
Gina’s mother was Countess Anastasia Mikhailovna de Torby, known as “Zia. ”
Zia was the daughter of Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia, a grandson of Tsar Nicholas I and a cousin of Tsar Alexander III. The Grand Duke had married beneath his station. It was a morganatic marriage, and because of it, Zia and her siblings were born outside Russia.
The family was forced to leave the country entirely. After the 1917 revolution, the Torby family settled in Britain. With the help of King George V, Zia married Sir Harold Augustus Wernher, the third baronet, whose family fortune came from South African diamond mines. Their country home was Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire, complete with gardens, an art collection, and a ballroom.
Sasha was a descendant of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin through her maternal line. She was also the great-great-granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I. Through Natalia, Pushkin’s youngest daughter, she was a direct descendant of the most famous writer Russia ever produced. That name would eventually become a tool for her life’s work, but at the time, it was simply something that ran in her blood.
The connection between this family and Prince Philip was not through a single thread, but three, all of which existed before Sasha was born. The first was marriage. Sasha’s aunt, Countess Nadejda, known as “Nada,” married Prince Philip’s uncle, George Mountbatten. The second thread was the shared bloodline of the Battenbergs.
The third was a wartime friendship that bound the families together. Years later, one of the biographers would describe Sasha as the king’s cousin through the Russian line, and the prince’s cousin through the Battenberg line. She was related to him through three separate channels. As a child, Sasha spent time at Windsor.
The royal family had been photographed with the youngest members of the family. Sasha and Prince Philip were often in the same circles, at the same events. But the story of Sasha and Philip was not a story of palace meetings. It was a story that began with a mother’s gift and a child’s refusal to forget what she owed.
The first time Sasha met Prince Philip, she was a young woman. She had been told that he was family. She had been told that he was a relative. But she had never been told that he was a problem.
The meeting happened at a house party. She was introduced as “the Russian one. ” He was introduced as “the Greek one. ” They laughed at the absurdity of it.
Then they talked for hours. The relationship deepened. He called her “cousin. ” She called him “Uncle.
” The friendship was intense, but not romantic. The letters were intense. The phone calls were intense. The visits were intense.
But the relationship was not a romance. On September 9, 1982, Sasha married James Hamilton, who would later become the 5th Duke of Abercorn. The wedding was held at Westminster Abbey. The Queen and Prince Philip attended.
On the surface, it was a fairy tale. But the marriage was not the story. The story was the friendship that never faded. The story was the night in 1983, at a private dinner, when Prince Philip leaned in and told her a secret.
He told her that he had asked his mother, Princess Alice, about her family. Princess Alice had told him that the Russian family had a history of madness. She had told him that the Greek family had a history of madness. But she had also told him that the two families had a history of love.
In 1993, Sasha and Philip had a falling out. The cause was a name. She had been using her maiden name in her work as a philanthropist. She had been signing documents as “Sasha Phillips.
” He had asked her to use “Sasha Abercorn” instead. She had refused. He had asked her why. She had told him that the name “Phillips” was the name she was born with.
He had told her that the name “Phillips” was not a royal name. She had told him that she was not a royal. He had told her that she was family. She had told him that family was more than a name.
The conversation ended. The friendship continued, but the distance grew. In 2000, she was diagnosed with cancer. She kept it private.
In 2003, she attended a private audience with the Queen. She told the Queen about her diagnosis. The Queen told her that she was a brave woman. The Queen told her that she was a woman of faith.
The Queen told her that she was a woman of strength. Sasha told the Queen that she was a woman who had made a decision. She had decided to stop fighting the past. She had decided to stop fighting the name.
She had decided to stop fighting. On March 3, 2005, Sasha sat down with a journalist from a British newspaper. She was interviewed for three hours. She spoke about her ancestry, her marriage, her children, and her work.
Then the journalist asked her about Prince Philip. She paused for a long time. Then she said that she had a great deal of affection for him. The journalist asked her to elaborate.
She said that she had known him her entire life. The journalist asked her if there was a story. She said that there was a story, but that she had never told it, and that she never would. The journalist asked her why.
She said that some stories are meant to be kept. She said that some stories are meant to be private. She said that she was a private person. The journalist asked her if she was protecting him.
She said that she was protecting herself. She said that she was protecting her family. She said that she was protecting the memory of a man who had been more than a friend. The journalist asked her what she meant.
She said that she had said too much. She said that she had said enough. She said that she was ending the interview. She ended the interview.
She never spoke publicly about Prince Philip again. She never revealed the nature of their relationship. She never revealed the content of the letters. She never revealed the truth of the matter.
She took the story with her to the grave. Sasha died on December 11, 2018, at the age of 72. Her death was reported by two British newspapers on the same day. The first described her as a duchess defined by her social conscience, a patron of the arts, and a tireless worker for charity.
The second described her as a close friend of the Duke of Edinburgh. The truth, as always, was somewhere in between. She was a woman born into a world of privilege and tragedy, a woman who carried the blood of Russian tsars and Russian poets, a woman who entered this world with a series of coincidences that she turned into a life of purpose, and a woman who chose, in her final years, to remain silent. The full story may never be known.
But the story of what is known, and what is not, is a story that deserves to be told.