“1903 saw three different royal families find asylum in England: the Mountbattens, the Ascanians, and the Avis. Apparently in England, Exiled Royal Courts are like peanuts: you can never have just one.
Mountbattens [1] *
King Alexander III was the third King of Greece, his great-grandfather having been given the job almost a hundred years earlier. He had become King as an infant when his grandfather and father died in the same automobile accident. A regency council was formed and with it the beginnings of a more republican form of government.
The five members of the regency council grew in popularity throughout King Alexander’s childhood. King Alexander and his five sisters [2] were kept from the public eye, and so by King Alexander’s eighteenth birthday no one wanted him to rule.
As such the Mountbattens were summarily turned out. But by this point, the homeless Royals of Europe knew where to go. Young King Alexander III, his mother, his five sisters and their husbands all headed to England.
Conscious of the fact that they were not invited, the Mountbattens brought a plethora of artifacts and artwork. [3] While we believe they initially planned to sell the items, they very quickly learned they could offer tours of their collection and home for a fee.
Several years later King Alexander would wed the daughter of Grand Duchess Catherine Romanov, Lady Anne Percy. The two would bond over their religious faith—Eastern Orthodox—and their shared situation. Due to the couple’s seven children and sixty-one grandchildren, there are plenty of Mountbattens alive and well today.
Ascanians
Queen Eleonore Sophia was the sixth Queen of Saxony. She was a queen from a by gone era; Queen Eleonore Sophia was a hard uncompromising woman who saw the Diet as an unnecessary speedbump. She was determined to get her way, and most of the time her way was actually quite good for Saxony.
But good intentions only bought her ten years of rule, after that the people had had enough. War erupted. She lost.
As the Revolutionary Army marched on palace, Queen Eleonore Sophia had to be physically dragged to safety by her Uncle, Johann Victor. [4] After several arguments where it sounded like Queen Eleonore Sophia intended to win back Saxony barehanded, the Ascanians decided that England was their best bet.
Conveniently, Queen Eleonore Sophia’s husband was an Englishman, the son of the Duke of Buckingham. While William Stafford, Duke of Buckingham wasn’t particularly excited with his in-laws coming to stay, he was excited with his grandchildren coming to stay. So, he would allow them to stay in one of the more minor properties.
While most of the Ascanians were quite happy to settle in, Queen Eleonore Sophia was determined to regain her throne. Seven years later, she would depart England and rendezvous with various support for a martial attempt at retaking Saxony.
Instead of retaking Saxony, she would gain notoriety has the last European monarch to die in battle, after being hit by a stray bullet.
The death of Queen Eleonore Sophia galvanized her son Augustus Victor into declaring himself the of Saxony in exile; it had previously been thought that Augustus Victor would allow the claim to die. King Augustus Victor would wed one of the minor Saxon nobles that accompanied the Ascanians and their decedents are still living off the Buckinhams.
Avis
King Joao Leander II wasn’t a particularly bad King, he simply had very bad public relations. He was seen as old and out of touch, and to be fair, he was 82 years old. And the situation worsened, his son Prince Joao Sebastiao grew concerned for his father’s health. So, late in 1903, the House of Avis traveled to England, supposedly to see a particular doctor.
While they were there, revolutions broke out in Portugal and Castile. Since King Joao Leander was absent, he was burned in effigy.
With King Joao Leander’s health continuing to worsen and the revolutions growing in strength, his children made the decision to stay in Engalnd. They would remain in England from 1903 to 1910."
Gregory Trent, Homeless Royals.
[1] The Mountbattens weren’t actually the Mountbattens when they arrived. They were the Orestes-Battens or the Battenbergs—depending on who you asked. They changed their name in an effort to fit in.
[2] Prince Alexander (son of Alexander II and father to Alexander III) and his wife tried very hard for a son.
[3] The Mountbattens maintain that their collection is not stolen, and each and every item was part of the royal treasury, so they do have so legal backing. And as Princess Helena was fond of pointing out: “The new government neither searched us nor instructed us on what to pack, so how were we to know what they wanted to keep when they kicked us out?”
[4] Johann Victor was apparently the only person brave enough to manhandle the Queen. Henry Stafford, the Prince Concert, apparently stood around wringing his hands.
Out of Universe Footnotes
* Not quite the Mountbattens of OTL, but I was feeling sad about the death of Prince Philip.