Queen Of Rumania Marie Popular Books

Queen Of Rumania Marie Biography & Facts

Marie (born Princess Marie Alexandra Victoria of Edinburgh; 29 October 1875 – 18 July 1938) was the last queen of Romania as the wife of King Ferdinand I. Marie was born into the British royal family. Her parents were Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (later Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha), and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. Marie's early years were spent in Kent, Malta and Coburg. After refusing a proposal from her cousin, the future King George V, she was chosen as the future wife of Ferdinand, then crown prince of Romania, in 1892. Marie was crown princess between 1893 and 1914, and became immediately popular with the Romanian people. After 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. 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 part of the regency council which reigned over the country under the minority of her grandson, King Michael. In 1930, Marie's eldest son Carol, who had waived 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 moved away from 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. In 1937, she became ill with cirrhosis 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 either 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 offered as a model of patriotism to the population. Marie is primarily remembered for her work as a nurse, but is also known for her extensive writing, including her critically acclaimed autobiography. Early life (1875–1893) Birth Marie 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. She was born at her parents' residence, Eastwell Manor in Kent, England, on 29 October 1875, at 10:30 a.m., in the presence of her father. Her birth was celebrated by firing the Park and Tower guns. She was named Marie Alexandra Victoria, after her mother and grandmothers, but 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 of Windsor Castle on 15 December 1875 and was officiated by Arthur Stanley and Gerald Wellesley, Dean of Windsor. 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 (her maternal grandmother, for whom Queen Victoria stood proxy), the Princess of Wales (her paternal aunt), the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (her great-aunt, for whom Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein stood proxy), the Tsarevich of Russia (her maternal uncle, for whom Count Pyotr Andreyevich Shuvalov stood proxy) and the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (her paternal uncle, for whom the Duke of Albany stood proxy). Upbringing Marie and her siblings, Prince Alfred (b. 1874, known as "Young Affie"), and Princesses Victoria Melita (b. 1876, known as "Ducky"), Alexandra (b. 1878, known as "Sandra") and Beatrice (b. 1884, known as "Baby Bee"), spent much of their early life at Eastwell Park, which their mother preferred instead of 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 [they] 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 se.... Discover the Queen Of Rumania Marie popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Queen Of Rumania Marie books.