Marie of Edinburgh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Marie of Edinburgh | |
|---|---|
| Queen consort of Romania | |
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| Consort | 10 October 1914 – 20 July 1927 |
| Spouse | Ferdinand I of Romania |
| Issue | |
| Carol II of Romania Elisabeth, Queen of the Hellenes Maria, Queen of Yugoslavia Prince Nicholas Princess Ileane Prince Mircea |
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| Full name | |
| Marie Alexandra Victoria | |
| House | House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha |
| Father | Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha |
| Mother | Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia |
| Born | 29 October 1875 Eastwell Park, Kent |
| Died | 18 July 1938 (aged 62) Sinaia |
| Burial | Curtea de Argeş Cathedral, Romania |
Queen Marie of Romania (Marie Alexandra Victoria; 29 October 1875 – 10 July/18 July 1938) was a member of the British Royal Family who became the queen consort of Romania as spouse of King Ferdinand I of Romania.
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[edit] Early life
She was born on 29 October 1875, at Eastwell Park in Kent, the eldest daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia. Her father was the second-eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Her mother was the only surviving daughter of Alexander II of Russia and Maria Alexandrovna of Hesse. She was baptised in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle on 15 December 1875 and her godparents were the Empress and Tsarevitch of Russia, the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the Princess of Wales and the Duke of Connaught. As her father was in the Royal Navy she spent much of her early childhood abroad, particularly in Malta.
[edit] Marriage
In her youth, Princess Marie was considered a suitable match for marriage to the royalty of Europe. Her first cousin, Prince George of Wales, later King George V, fell in love with her and proposed marriage. Marie's father and George's father approved of the marriage, but Marie's mother disdained the British Royal Family and was keen to see her daughters marry outside its court.
Princess Marie married Crown Prince Ferdinand of Romania, nephew of King Carol I of Romania in Sigmaringen, Germany on 10 January 1893. The bride was 17 years old and the groom was 10 years her senior. (Marie's father did not become Duke of Coburg-Gotha until a few months later.) The marriage, which produced three daughters and three sons, was not a happy one.[1] Her correspondence with her longtime secret confidante, the American dancer Gerte Fuller, revealed "the distaste, which grew to revulsion" that Marie felt for her husband.[2] The last two children were born after Marie met her long-time lover, Barbu Ştirbey, and historians generally agree that Prince Mircea was his son (having brown eyes like Ştirbey, unlike Marie and Ferdinand),[3] while Ileana's paternity is under discussion, as was her second daughter, Princess Maria,the future Queen of Yugoslavia (known as Mignon)[1] Their eldest sons, Carol and Nicholas, and eldest daughter, Elisabeth, were quite certainly biologically Ferdinand's.[citation needed]
[edit] Affair with Cantacuzene
In 1897, while still Crown Princess, Marie began a romantic liaison with Lieutenant Zizi Cantacuzene.[1] The affair and subsequent scandal became widely known and was quickly terminated by King Carol I. However by autumn 1897, during the height of the scandal, Marie became pregnant. After fleeing back to her mother in Coburg, Marie mysteriously gave birth to a child who has disappeared from history.[1] It has been suggested that the child was either stillborn or quickly placed in an orphanage. Whatever the truth, 'the story of this mysterious child of Marie of Romania was one secret "she ... took ... to the grave."'[clarification needed]
[edit] Birth of Maria, future Queen of Yugoslavia
In 1899 Marie, pregnant with Mignon, pleaded with King Carol I to allow her to give birth to her daughter in Coburg, where her father was Duke. After he refused Marie declared, 'right to his face' that the child she was carrying was in fact Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich of Russia's.[1] The horrified King relented and so Marie gave birth to her daughter, also called Marie though always known as Mignon, in the peaceful surroundings of Coburg. Following this, whether in earnest or merely to deflect criticism from the dynasty is unknown, Crown Prince Ferdinand officially recognised the child as his.
[edit] Birth of Prince Nicolas
Marie's fourth child and second son, Prince Nicolas, was born in August 1903. The appearance of Pauline Astor, the sister of Marie's close friend and confidant Waldorf Astor, along with an Astor family doctor during the birth fanned speculation that the father of Prince Nicolas was in fact Astor and not Crown Prince Ferdinand. As with Mignon, Ferdinand accepted the child as his own and as he grew up Nicolas came to resemble his Hohenzollern relatives rather than the Astors.[1]
[edit] Queen and Queen Mother
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In 1914, Carol I died and Ferdinand ascended the throne of Romania. Crown Princess Marie then became styled Her Majesty The Queen of Romania. Due to World War I, they were not crowned as king and queen until 1922.
Marie had become a Romanian patriot, and her influence in that country was large. A.L. Easterman writes that King Ferdinand was "a quiet, easy-going man, of no significant character… it was not he, but Marie who ruled in Romania." He credits Marie's sympathies for the Allies as being "the major influence in bringing her country to their side" in the war.[4]
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During the war she volunteered as a Red Cross nurse to help the sick and wounded and wrote a book, My Country to raise funds for the Red Cross, but these were by no means her most notable contributions to the war effort. With the country half-overrun by the German army, she and a group of military advisers devised the plan by which the Romanian army, rather than retreating into Russia, would choose a triangle of the country in which to stand and fight; and through a letter to Loïe Fuller she set in motion the series of events that brought a timely American loan to Romania, providing the necessary funds to carry out the plan. (Fortuitously, the young woman from the U.S. embassy who delivered the letter to Fuller was the former ward (legal) of Newton D. Baker, by this time serving as U.S. Secretary of War. Fuller and the young woman traveled from Paris to Washington, DC and secured an audience with Baker who, along with U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Carter Glass, arranged the loan.)
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After the war ended, the Great Powers decided to settle affairs at Versailles. The Romanian objective was to secure the Romanian-inhabitted territories from the now-defunct Austria-Hungary and Russian Empire, thereby uniting all Romanian-speakers in a single state. Romanian diplomats at the Peace conference sought to achieve recognition by the Allies of the Unions of Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transylvania with Romania, proclaimed during 1918. With the Romanian delegation losing ground in the negotiations, Prime Minister Ionel Bratianu called upon the Queen to travel to France. Marie famously declared that "Romania needs a face, and I will be that face," astutely calculating that the international press was growing tired of the endless negotiations and would be unable to resist the glamour of a Royal Visit. The arrival of the so-called Soldier Queen was an international media sensation and she argued passionately that the Western powers should honour their debt to Romania (which had suffered a casualty rate proportionately far greater than Britain, France or the USA). Behind the scenes, she alternately charmed and bullied the Allied leaders into backing the Romanian cause.[1] As a direct result of her charismatic intervention, Romania won back the initiative and successfully achieved all its pre-conference aims, eventually expanding its territory by 60%, gaining Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transylvania, as well as parts of the Banat, Crişana, and Maramureş.
Ferdinand and Marie's son, the Crown Prince Carol (later King Carol II), was never close to his father—by the time Carol was an adult, their antagonism became an "open breach"[4]—but there continued to be a "deep bond of affection and sympathy" between Carol and Marie.[4] Their relationship, however, deteriorated. The initial conflict came over Carol's objections to Marie's relationship with Prince Ştirbey; the breach was exacerbated as Marie attempted to steer Carol toward a dynastic marriage rather than allow him to choose his own bride.[4] During Carol's exile in Paris, Loïe Fuller had befriended Carol and his mistress Magda Lupescu; they were unaware of Fuller's connection to Marie. Fuller initially advocated to Marie on their behalf, but later schemed unsuccessfully with Marie to separate Carol from Lupescu.[2] Eventually, when Carol became King and did not seek her counsel, the breach between mother and son became complete.[5]
After the death of her husband in 1927, Queen Marie remained in Romania, writing books and her memoirs, The Story of My Life. She died in Peleş Castle on 18 July 1938, and was buried next to her husband in the Monastery of Curtea de Argeş. In accordance with her will, her heart was kept in a cloister at the Balchik Palace which she had built. In 1940, when Balchik and the rest of Southern Dobrudja were returned to Bulgaria in accordance with the Treaty of Craiova, Queen Marie's heart was transferred to Bran Castle. This had been her principal home for much of the early 20th century, and the artifacts with which she chose to surround herself (traditional furniture and tapestries, for example) can be seen by visitors today. Many of her other personal effects can be seen at the Maryhill Museum, formerly the home of Sam Hill, an American railroad businessman with whom Queen Marie corresponded much of her life. The famous museum, which lies in Washington State (U.S.A.) on the north side of the Columbia River, displays much of Queen Marie's regalia, furniture, and other possessions, including her crown.
She was the 1,007th Dame of the Royal Order of Queen Maria Luisa.
[edit] Religious beliefs
She is held in high esteem by members of the Bahá'í Faith as she was the first Royal to declare faith in that religion. Her religious background was of the Church of England, although she is known to have incorporated herself into the Orthodox Christian beliefs of Romanian nationals. In her late years, she was approached by Martha Root, a well-recognized traveling teacher, on the topic of the Bahá'í Faith. Bahá'ís recognize Queen Marie of Romania as the first royal to have declared her belief in Bahá'u'lláh.[3][6][7]
In regard to the Bahá'í Faith, Queen Marie stated:
"It is like a wide embrace gathering all those who have long searched for words of hope… Saddened by the continual strife amongst believers of many confessions and wearied of their intolerance towards each other, I discovered in the Bahá'í teaching the real spirit of Christ so often denied and misunderstood."[8]
[edit] Titles, styles, honours and arms
[edit] Titles and styles
- 29 October 1875 – 10 January 1893: Her Royal Highness Princess Marie of Edinburgh, Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duchess of Saxony
- 10 January 1893 – 10 October 1914: Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess of Romania, Princess of Hohenzollern
- 10 October 1914 – 20 July 1927: Her Majesty The Queen of Romania
- 20 July 1927 – 18 July 1937: Her Majesty Queen Marie of Romania
[edit] British arms
As a male-line grandchild of a British Sovereign, Marie bore the arms of the kingdom, with an inescutcheon for Saxony, differenced by a five-point label argent, the outer pair of which bore anchors azure, the inner roses gules, and the central a cross gules. In 1917, the inescutcheon was dropped by royal warrant from George V.[9]
[edit] Issue
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carol II of Romania | 1893 | 1953 | married fistly married Zizi Lambrino - add details Elena of Greece and Denmark, sister of King George II of Greece |
| Elisabeth | 1894 | 1956 | married King George II of Greece |
| Marie | 1900 | 1961 | married King Alexander I of Yugoslavia |
| Nicholas | 1903 | 1978 | married Ioana Dumitrescu-Doletti then Thereza Lisboa Figueiroa de Mello |
| Ileana | 1909 | 1991 | married Archduke Anton of Austria, Prince of Tuscany |
| Mircea | 1913 | 1916 |
[edit] Quote
She once encountered a proselytizer from a religious group. She said "I have met ..... I did not like him. He seemed to me to be a snob. He spoke of God as if He were the oldest title in the Almanach de Gotha. And all that business about telling one's sins in public -- He wanted me ... me ... to get up before my children and confess everything I had ever done! It is spiritual nudism! Ça se ne fait pas."[10]
[edit] Legacy
[edit] Literature
- Marie was famously parodied in Dorothy Parker's poem "Comment":
- Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
- A medley of extemporanea;
- And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
- And I am Marie of Romania.
- The interaction of the queen and the Bahá'í faith--interviews with Martha Root, correspondence with the latter and other Bahá'í representatives, articles on Bahá'í faith's behalf, etc--is discussed in Her Eternal Crown: Queen Marie of Romania and the Bahá'í Faith, by author Della L. Marcus.
- Science fiction author Joanna Russ also mentions Marie of Romania in her 1975 novel, The Female Man.
- In The Romanian: Story of an Obsession, Bruce Benderson soliloquizes, among other things Romanian, on the relationship between Marie, her son King Carol II and his mistress Magda Lupescu.
- The Romanian Navy Type 22 frigate Regina Maria (formerly HMS London in the Royal Navy) is named after her.
[edit] Ancestry
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[edit] References
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Marie of Edinburgh |
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- Fotescu, Diana (1998). Americans and Queen Marie of Romania. Portland, Oxford: Iasi.
- Mandache (Fotescu), Diana (2004). Later Chapters of My Life. The Lost Memoir of Queen Marie of Romania. Sutton. ISBN 978-0750936910.
- Mandache (Fotescu), Diana (2007). Marie of Romania. Images of a Queen. Rosvall Royal Books. ISBN 9197567124. http://www.tkinter.smig.net/QueenMarie/RecentBooks/MarieImagesOfQueen/index.htm.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ a b c d e f g Julia Gelardi (2005). Born to Rule, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria, Queens of Europe. Headline Book Publishing. pp. 91–93&115. ISBN 0755313925.
- ^ a b Easterman, 1942, 58–61
- ^ a b Pakula (1985). The last romantic: a biography of Queen Marie of Romania. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 337. ISBN 0297785982.
- ^ a b c d Easterman, 1942, 28–32
- ^ Easterman, 1942, 31, 86–87
- ^ Marcus, Della (2000). Her Eternal Crown. Oxford: George Ronald. ISBN 0853984425.
- ^ Hassall, Graham; Fazel, Seena. "100 Years of the Baha'i Faith in Europe". Baha'i Studies Review 8 (3): pp. 35–44. http://bahai-library.com/file.php5?file=hassall_fazel_100-years_europe&language=All#N_26_. Retrieved on 2007-04-26.
- ^ Effendi, Shoghi (1944). God Passes By. Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. pp. 392. ISBN 0877430209. http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/GPB/gpb-26.html#pg392.
- ^ Heraldica – British Royalty Cadency
- ^ Nichols, Beverely (1952). All I could Never Be. Dutton. pp. 255–256.
[edit] External links
- Ducal House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
- Royal House of Great Britain
- Royal House of Romania
- Princely House of Hohenzollern
- Maria, Queen of Romania (1875-1938)
- Queen Marie of Romania
- Find A Grave
- Maria`s palace in Balchik, Bulgaria
| Awards and achievements | ||
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| Preceded by William Sproule |
Cover of Time Magazine 4 August 1924 |
Succeeded by John J. Pershing |
