Marie of Romania
Marie was the last queen of Romania from 10 October 1914 to 20 July 1927 as the wife of King Ferdinand I.
Marie was born into the British royal family. Her parents were Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. Marie's early years were spent in Kent, Malta and Coburg. After refusing a marriage proposal from her cousin, the future King George V, she was chosen in 1892 to marry Ferdinand, then crown prince of Romania, and they wed the next year. Marie was crown princess between 1893 and 1914, and became immediately popular with the Romanian people.
Upon the outbreak of World War I, Marie urged Ferdinand to ally himself with the Triple Entente and declare war on Germany, which he eventually did in 1916. During the early stages of fighting, the national capital Bucharest was occupied by the Central Powers. Marie, Ferdinand and their five children took refuge in Western Moldavia. There, she and her three daughters acted as nurses in military hospitals, caring for soldiers who were wounded or afflicted by cholera. After the war, on 1 December 1918, the historical region of Transylvania, following Bessarabia and Bukovina, united with the Old Kingdom of Romania. Marie, now queen of Greater Romania, attended the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, where she campaigned for international recognition of the enlarged Romania. In 1922, she and Ferdinand were crowned in a specially-built cathedral in the ancient city of Alba Iulia in an elaborate ceremony which mirrored their status as queen and king of a united state.
As queen, Marie was very popular, both in Romania and abroad. In 1926, she undertook a diplomatic tour of the United States, alongside her children Nicholas and Ileana. They were received enthusiastically by the people and visited several cities before returning to Romania. There, Marie found that Ferdinand was gravely ill and he died a few months later. Now queen dowager, Marie refused to be a member of the regency council that ruled over the country during the minority of her grandson, King Michael. In 1930, Marie's eldest son, the father of King Michael, Carol, who had been forced in 1925 to renounce his rights to succession, deposed his son and usurped the throne, becoming King Carol II. He removed Marie from the political scene and strove to crush her popularity. As a result, Marie left Bucharest and spent the rest of her life either in the countryside or at Balchik Palace, her summer residence in Southern Dobruja by the Black Sea. She became ill with cirrhosis in 1937 and died the following year.
Following Romania's transition to a People's Republic, the monarchy was excoriated by communist officials. Several biographies of the royal family described Marie as a drunkard or as a promiscuous woman, referring to her many alleged affairs and to orgies she had supposedly organised before and during the war. In the years preceding the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Marie's popularity recovered and she was presented to the population as a model of patriotism. She is primarily remembered for her work as a nurse, and is also known for her extensive writing, including her critically acclaimed autobiography.
Early life (1875–1893)
Birth
Marie was born at 10:30 am on 29 October 1875 at her parents' residence, Eastwell Manor in Kent, with her father present. She was the eldest daughter and second child of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and the former Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, respectively the son of Queen Victoria and the daughter of Emperor Alexander II. Her birth was celebrated by firing the Park and Tower guns. She was named Marie Alexandra Victoria after her mother and grandmothers, and she was informally known as "Missy". The Duke of Edinburgh wrote that his daughter "promises to be as fine a child as her brother and gives every evidence of finely developed lungs and did so before she was fairly in the world". As a grandchild of the reigning British monarch in the male line, Marie was formally styled "Her Royal Highness Princess Marie of Edinburgh" from birth.Marie's baptism took place in the private chapel at Windsor Castle on 15 December; Arthur Stanley and Gerald Wellesley, Dean of Windsor, officiated. The baptism, "of a strictly private nature", took place one day after the ceremony marking the anniversary of the death of her paternal grandfather, Prince Albert. Marie's godparents were Empress Maria Alexandrovna, the Princess of Wales, the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the Tsarevich of Russia and the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn.
Upbringing
Marie and her siblings, Prince Alfred, and Princesses Victoria Melita, Alexandra and Beatrice, spent much of their early life at Eastwell Park, which their mother preferred to Clarence House, their official residence. In her memoirs, Marie remembered Eastwell fondly. The Duke of Edinburgh was largely absent from his children's lives due to his position in the British Royal Navy, and their life was governed by their mother. Marie later stated that she did not even know the colour of her father's hair until she looked at later portraits of him, believing it to be much darker than it actually was. When he was at home, the Duke would often play with his children, inventing many games for them. Of all her siblings, Marie was closest to her sister Victoria Melita, who was one year younger, but whom everyone believed to be the older girl because of her stature, much to the princesses' dismay. The Edinburgh children were all baptised and raised in the Anglican faith; this upset their Russian Orthodox mother.The Duchess of Edinburgh was a supporter of the idea of separating generations, and Marie deeply regretted the fact that her mother never allowed chatting between the two "as if were equals". Nonetheless, the Duchess was independent-minded, cultured, and "the most important person" in her children's lives. At the behest of their mother, Marie and her sisters were taught French, which they detested and rarely spoke. Overall, the Duchess neglected her daughters' education, considering them not very bright or gifted. They were permitted to read aloud, but in the fields of painting and drawing, areas in which they had inherited Queen Victoria's talent, the girls received only a "pedestrian instruction". The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh frequently received members of the royal family at Eastwell Park, inviting them for breakfast nearly daily, and in 1885 Marie and Victoria Melita served as bridesmaids at the wedding of their aunt Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg. Among Marie's playmates were her maternal cousins Grand Dukes Nicholas, George, and Grand Duchess Xenia of Russia; their siblings, Michael and Olga, were too young for the Edinburgh girls. Other playmates included the children of Marie's maternal uncle Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia.
In 1886, when Marie was eleven years old, the Duke of Edinburgh was named commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet and the family took up residence at San Antonio Palace in Malta. Marie later described her time in Malta as "the happiest memory of my existence". It was in Malta that Marie found her first love, Maurice Bourke, the captain of the Duke's ship, whom Marie called "Captain Dear". She was prone to fits of jealousy when Bourke would pay more attention to one of her sisters than to her. The Duke and Duchess were greatly loved in Malta, and San Antonio Palace was frequently full of guests. Marie and Victoria Melita received white horses from their mother and went to the local hippodrome nearly daily, apart from Saturday. During their first year in Malta, a French governess oversaw the princesses' education, but due to her failing health, she was replaced the following year by a much younger German woman. At San Antonio, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh always maintained a room ready for Prince George of Wales, the second son of the Prince of Wales, who was in the Royal Navy. George called the three elder Edinburgh girls "the three dearests", but favoured Marie most of all.
Their sojourn in Malta ended in 1889, when the Duke of Edinburgh became heir presumptive to his childless paternal uncle, Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, upon the Prince of Wales's renunciation of his rights to the duchy, and the family relocated to Coburg. Marie later came to view this moment as "truly the end of a life that had been absolute happiness and joy without clouds, of a life with no disappointments or delusions and without any discordant note". The Duchess, who was pro-German, hired a German governess for her daughters, bought them plain clothing and even had them confirmed in the Lutheran faith. The family spent their summers at Rosenau Castle. Duke Ernest was described by Marie as "having his oddities"; his court was less strict than other German courts of the time. In Coburg, the princesses' education was broadened: more emphasis was placed on painting and music, which were taught by Anna Messing and Mrs. Helferich respectively. On Thursdays and Sundays, Marie and her sisters went to the Coburg Theatre, an experience which they enjoyed greatly. Marie and Victoria Melita often observed their brother's friends and made comments on whom they liked better, an aspect which Marie believed was inevitable in the lives of girls who have brothers. Another activity which the girls enjoyed at Coburg was attending winter parties organised by their mother, where they would ice-skate and play different games, such as ice hockey.
Marriage
Marie grew into a "lovely young woman" with "sparkling blue eyes and silky fair hair"; she was courted by several royal bachelors, including Prince George of Wales, who in 1892 became second in line to inherit the throne. Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh all approved, but the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Edinburgh did not. The Princess of Wales disapproved of the family's pro-German sentiment, while the Duchess of Edinburgh did not wish her daughter to remain in England, which she disliked. In addition, the Princess of Wales was higher than she in the order of precedence. The Duchess of Edinburgh was also opposed to marriage between first cousins, which was not allowed by her native Russian Orthodox Church. Thus, when George proposed to her, Marie informed him that the marriage was impossible and that he must remain her "beloved chum". Queen Victoria would later comment that "Georgie lost Missy by waiting & waiting".Around this time, King Carol I of Romania was looking for a suitable bride for his nephew, Crown Prince Ferdinand, in order to secure the succession and ensure the continuation of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Possibly motivated by the prospect of removing tensions between Russia and Romania on the subject of control over Bessarabia, the Duchess of Edinburgh suggested that Marie meet Ferdinand. Marie and Ferdinand first became acquainted during a gala dinner, where they conversed in German. She found him shy but amiable, and their second meeting went just as well. Once they were formally engaged, Queen Victoria wrote to another granddaughter, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, that " is nice & the Parents are charming–but the country is very insecure & the immorality of the Society at Bucharest quite awful. Of course the marriage will be delayed some time as Missy won't be 17 till the end of October!" German Empress Frederick, Marie's aunt, wrote to her daughter, Crown Princess Sophia of Greece, that "Missy is till now quite delighted, but the poor child is so young, how can she guess what is before her?" In late 1892, King Carol visited London in order to meet the Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Victoria, who eventually agreed to the marriage and appointed him a Knight of the Garter.
On 10 January 1893, Marie and Ferdinand were married at Sigmaringen Castle. During the evening before the wedding, Marie's father Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh reportedly summoned Marie to his rooms to inform her that he and her mother had settled a dowry of 1,000,000 French francs on Marie, before bursting into tears and declaring that he had hoped for a different destiny for his daughter. The couple were married in three ceremonies: one civil, one Catholic and one Anglican. The civil ceremony was performed in the Red Hall of the castle by Karl von Wendel, the German Emperor being the first of the witnesses present to sign the marriage act. At four o'clock, the Catholic ceremony took place at the Town Church, with Marie being led to the altar by her father. The Anglican ceremony was more modest and was conducted in one of the chambers of the castle. Although King Carol granted the couple "Honigtag", Marie and Ferdinand spent a few days at the Castle of Krauchenwies in Bavaria. From there, they left for the countryside, interrupting their journey briefly to stop at Vienna, where they visited Emperor Franz Joseph. Due to growing tensions between Austria and Romania, the couple's visit was brief, and they arrived in the border town of Predeal following a nighttime crossing of Transylvania by train. Marie was warmly welcomed by the Romanian people, who were longing for a more personal monarchy.