Queen Maria of Romania is possibly the most "visible" historical person who lived in Romania, but who had fame outside of Romania. She is an interesting person, but there are ten points that make her all the more interesting.
1) She was born in England: Her father was Prince Alfred the second son of Queen Victoria and her mother was Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, the daughter of Tsar Alexander II (known to people as the Tsar Liberator.) The marriage of her parents was supposed to join the royal houses together. This did not happen, and her parents marriage was a failure after many years.
2) She was engaged at sixteen to the Crown Prince of Romania: After a failed romance with Prince George of Wales (Later King George V.) Her mother worked hard to promote the engagement of Marie to Ferdinand of Romania.
3) Her father was Duke of Edinburgh: She was known in her childhood as Her Royal Highness Marie of Edinburgh. Although she had an older brother, the dukedom ended with the death of her father, by then also Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburg. Her brother Alfred died before his father. The current Duke of Edinburgh is Prince Phillip, and he is a great-great uncle of both Phillip and Queen Elizabeth.
4) Officially Marie had six children: Three sons, Carol, Nicholas, Mircea, and three daughters, Elizabeth, Marie, and Illeana. She did have a seventh, but nothing is known of this child. According to some, it was because of an affair with an officer in the Romanian army.
5) The Romania she was Crown Princes of was small: The territory which Romanian would gain only came after the end of the Great War. (This was also known as World War One, 1914-1918.) After the war, Romanian would gain possession of: Bessarabia, and Transylvania, which were the two main territorial gains.
6) She was crowned in Transylvania: Although she became Queen of Romania in 1914, her and her husband Ferdinand were not crowned until 1922. This was because of the war, but also because Romania itself would side with the French and British and be overrun by the armies of Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria.
7) She had many unique friends, many of them men: One of these friends was Waldorf Astor, and the rumor had it that he was the father of her second son Nicholas. Nicholas would resemble Ferdinand's family. The reason for this speculation was because Marie was famous for her many affairs. In the end most historians agree that the undisputed father of Carol, Nicholas and Elizabeth was Ferdinand. The three other children, all of whom were acknowledged by Ferdinand to be his own, are subject to debate.
8) Her sister was also at the heart of a scandal: her sister, Princess Victoria of Edinburgh also caused a major scandal. It began with her divorce, and then her remarriage to a member of the Russian Imperial family-- to her first cousin. Through it all Marie and her sister remained close until Victoria's death in 1936. Marie would also help her sister after the Russia Revolution.
9) She was known as the mother-in-law of the Balkans: Her daughter would marry into the Greek Royal House, the Yugoslavian Royal House, and into a branch of the Hapsburg Royal family. Her eldest son would become King of Romania.
10) She would see two of her grandchildren become kings: Her grandson Micheal would become twice King of Romania, once as a five-year old in 1927 after her husband's death and her other grandchild, King Peter became King of Yugoslavia in 1934 at the age of 11. Marie died in 1938.
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