LONDON (AFP) - Princess Alice, aunt to Queen Elizabeth II and the longest-living member of the royal family, died at the age of 102, Buckingham Palace announced.
The palace said in a statement that "Princess Alice died peacefully in her sleep at Kensington Palace in the presence of her immediate family."
A spokesman added that the queen had been "greatly saddened" by her aunt's death.
Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, was the widow of Prince Henry, the third son of King George V and Queen Mary. The young Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret were bridesmaids at her wedding in 1935 in the private chapel in Buckingham Palace.
Born Lady Alice Christabel Montagu Douglas Scott on Christmas Day 1901, she was the third daughter of the seventh Duke of Buccleuch, who served in the navy with George V before he became king.
The couple had two sons. The eldest, Prince William, a pilot, was tragically killed in a crash at an air show in 1972.
Two years later her husband died after suffering a series of strokes and their younger son, Prince Richard, inherited the title.
She spent most of her life in the family home in Northamptonshire, in an Elizabethan manor set deep in the countryside in central England.
But since 1995 she had lived in London's Kensington Palace with her son, the present Duke of Gloucester, and his family and had been seen very rarely in public.
"Over the last few years Princess Alice has ... become increasingly forgetful which greatly reduces her ability to communicate in the way she would wish," the duke said in a statement in 2000.
"For this reason, my mother no longer feels confident in carrying out official engagements away from Kensington Palace or in coping with the clamour of social gatherings."
Princess Alice was 17 months younger than the late Queen Mother, her sister in law, who died in 2002 at the age of 101.
She set a new record of longevity for the British royal family in August last year when she reached 101 years, seven months and 26 days.
Princess Alice held a passion for travel and spent time in Kenya, India, Afghanistan and Australia. She was also an accomplished watercolourist.
10/30/2004 - 11:49 GMT - AFP