About Marie of Romania
Marie (Romanian: Maria; born Princess Marie of Edinburgh; 29 October 1875 – 18 July 1938) was the last queen consort 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 (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 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. It was in Malta that Marie found her first love, Maurice Bourke, the captain of the Duke's ship, whom Marie called "Captain Dear".
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