Princess Marie de Croÿ and the Resistance
Princess Marie was born in London on 26 November 1875 as the daughter of Prince Alfred Emmanuel de Croÿ and his wife Elizabeth Mary Parnell. She was thus a member of the House of Croÿ . Duty When the First World War broke out in 1914, the princess was visiting a friend, Violet Cavendish-Bentinck, at the home of her mother, Mrs Louisa Scott; she immediately set out for France. She worked as a nurse, at the family home of Chateau de Bellignies, which was in use as a hospital and assisted Edith Cavell in helping allied servicemen to escape to Britain via the Netherlands. For this she was arrested in 1915 along with Nurse Cavell and a number of others, but escaped the death penalty. At their trial in October, she asked for clemency for her fellow prisoners, claiming that she and her brother were solely responsible. She was condemned to ten years' hard labour, and sent to a prison at Siegburg in Germany. The Kaiser, Wilhelm II , offered to free her, but she declined because she did