Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria

by Julia P. Gelardi

  During her October visit to London, a telephone call interrupted Marie’s visit to old friends. On the line was the Romanian ambassador to Britain with news that the queen’s son-in-law, King Alexander of Yugoslavia, had been assassinated in Marseilles—along with France’s foreign minister, Louis Barthou—while on an official visit. Marie wrote: “I was in my beloved home-country, England…I was drinking a cup of tea in an old friend’s house…then the news…Sandro killed…Mignon a widow…little Peter; King!”29

  She was grateful to be in England at the time, “so that poor little Peter could be brought to me from his school, that I could break the news to him and take him to Paris to meet his mother.” Marie was once again the grandmother of a boy-king in the Balkans. The regency of her other grandson, King Michael, had proven ineffective and allowed for Carol’s comeback. Would the same kind of political mess be young King Peter’s fate? Marie’s heart filled with compassion when she saw her newly widowed daughter facing the flag-draped body of King Alexander in France. “She took it standing, like a soldier’s wife,” wrote the proud mother, “and my heart was crying out all the time—Mignon, Mignon! My child—Mignon.”30

  Upon returning with Mignon to Belgrade, Marie wrote of the tragedy still fresh in their hearts: “We are deeply shaken & the country groans with grief— big & small—the dastardly deed has put an end to a great and good man’s life. We bend our heads, we accept but we do not understand.”31

  Queen Marie was compelled to describe herself to her young American friend, Ray Baker Harris, as “one who lately has been living through too much—whose heart is sometimes so intolerably heavy that she would like, occasionally, to take it out of her breast and lay it on the table beside her for a rest.”32 But there was to be no respite.

  Twenty-nine

  “I BLESS YOU WITH MY LAST BREATH”

  NOT ONLY HAD KING CAROL BEHAVED WRETCHEDLY TO HIS MOTHER and siblings, he had also embarked upon a program of repression toward Romania’s restless peasants. Moreover, Carol surrounded himself with corrupt yes-men whose main qualifications were that they were approved by Lupescu. Nor was he immune from lining his pockets and those of Lupescu’s intimates to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

  Marie bemoaned her son’s failures—the sordid adventures, the opportunities he had thrown away; there were so many it was hard to enumerate them.

  He wasted & smashed, & tore up by the roots, he worthlessly set aside, changed; persecuted & humiliated those who had worked before him—out of jealousy he set his family aside, hurt their feelings, sacrificed them to a horrible set of low adventurers who had grouped around him & who in his name made havock [sic] of his royalty, his honour, his chances, of the hope others had put in him…he hurt us all so much that we feel numb, we do not today know how to approach him in his mood…today he is master & a jealous one, & worse still, a man who will not shoulder his own mistakes but who tries to throw every fault on others, so there is no health in anything he does.1

  What was most pitiful was the mother’s suffering. “It is abominably difficult,” a dejected Marie confessed. “I ought to be with him much more, because when together, the pathetic side of him softens me—when I see him I like him better than when I think of him. My brain rejects him, but my heart is still a mother’s heart.” The queen desperately wanted to help Carol, but he refused all overtures, prompting her to comment warily, “whichever way I turn, there is danger. I always hoped that patience & kindness would win the day; but whilst I remain silent, the danger grows. It is an appalling situation for a woman of my power of action.”2

  Yet she continued to exude good humor and warmth. Ileana remembered how Marie’s “presence radiated life and light.…Everyone loved her.”3 Whether it was the peasant children near Ileana’s Austrian home or the countless friends around the world, Queen Marie had ample space in her aching heart for others. Never—if she could help it—did she let others down. Her dear friend George V saw the old spirited Missy of many years before when she visited him in 1934. “George has always kept an especial affection for me,” Marie noted. “I stimulate him, my uncrushable vitality makes the blood course more quickly through his veins. May feels it also. She likes being with me, and then I am never heavy on their hands. I know so perfectly how to look after myself and be happy over everything, finding interests everywhere.”4

  In May 1935, Queen Marie made another trip to England for the Silver Jubilee of King George V’s reign. Reminiscing about that visit, she wrote:

  England was a joy, a deep joy. I love it with the love the roots of a tree have for their own soil, something deeper than reason, something fundamental, so to say—basic. Something deep down within me responds to England as it does to nothing else. To the soil, the people…a sort of delicious, warm pride bubbles up from my depths when I think of England. Everything in me agrees with it, feels at home, at peace.…My love for Roumania in no way makes me less proud of being English, of feeling English, with every drop of my blood.5

  Another royal guest at George V’s Silver Jubilee was his youngest sister, Queen Maud of Norway, who was thrilled to have been there. Upon her return to Norway, she scribbled an exuberant letter to Queen Mary:

  I was very sad leaving “Home” and you all, but I was so delighted to have been present at the Jubilee, I loved the enthusiasm and devotion which the people have for dear George and you, it is so touching—and in no other country I am sure it is like that! One is proud to be British. I was glad to have been in London for G[eorge]’s birthday and could see you all once more.—I do hope both you and George are not too tired, with all you have to do. It is wonderful, all you have got through.6

  Age had not taken away the bantering relationship Maud and George V enjoyed since they were children. As neighbors on the Sandringham estate, the place they both loved best, they had had ample opportunity to see each other when Maud was in residence at Appleton. One day during a walk, the King of England kept teasing his sister. When he noticed that Maud had a special handkerchief for her spaniel, he ribbed her with questions: “Where are its galoshes?” “Don’t forget its cough drops.”7 Sadly, there would be not much more of that kind of bantering as his health slowly gave way. Maud’s brother had almost died in 1928. When he recovered, a relieved Queen Sophie wrote to him:

  It was the greatest joy—to see your picture in the papers again to see you up about & about. It all brought you, if possible, still nearer to your people who showed such touching loyalty. It was splendid.8

  The Jubilee celebrations were one of the last happy spectacles Maud would attend in England.

  Queen Sophie kept busy in her years of exile, traveling whenever she could afford to. One particularly poignant visit was to Doorn, in the Netherlands, where her brother, the former Kaiser, lived in exile. Sophie visited Wilhelm for his seventieth birthday celebrations there in 1929. The festivities were described by the ex-Kaiser to an old American friend: “a great joy to be surrounded by children & grandchildren of all ages—19 in number!—& my sisters.”9 Here the sisters appear to be almost an afterthought. As it turned out, Sophie’s reunion with her brother did not bring them any closer. The ex-Kaiser made no effort to mend bridges, showing neither remorse for his past cruelty toward Sophie nor interest in her future. A photograph taken to commemorate the event shows a sad-faced and veiled Sophie, looking pensive, even melancholy. But Sophie was not always melancholy. When she met with Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who had fought against King Constantine years before, the two had much to discuss. In fact, it was difficult to separate them after lunch. Asked what they had talked about, Sophie replied, “Why old times, of course.” Prince Christopher marveled at how Sophie seemed surprised by his question and by the fact that “there was no bitterness in her voice or on her face.”10

  During her years of exile, Queen Sophie also tried to see as much of Mossy as she could. During one visit to Sophie, Mossy wrote, “to be with my sister was joy & I found her much better than last year.”11

  A
nother relative Sophie delighted in seeing was her only granddaughter, Princess Alexandra of Greece. As a living link to Sophie’s beloved dead son, Alexandra had a special bond with her grandmother. Their meetings were not as frequent as the doting grandmother would have liked, but they did maintain an affectionate relationship. “My little granddaughter Alexandra is in school in England Westfield—Alass [sic], I cannot see her which makes me very sad,” Sophie once admitted.12 And when the princess was scheduled to visit, Sophie could not help but let out her excitement: “My darling little granddaughter Alexandra will come & join us—during her holidays—which is a great joy to look forward to.”13

  In her autobiography, Alexandra left a touching portrait of Queen Sophie as a grandmother—“Amama” to the young girl. Of her time in Florence with the queen, Alexandra recalled: “I had a wonderful time with Amama, who adored me, and spoiled me outrageously.” Princess Alexandra had wonderful memories, too, of Queen Marie of Romania. She remembered sitting at Marie’s feet and being mesmerized by the fantastic fairy tales Marie created, told in a “melodious” voice with a “bell-like quality” while her maids tended her silver-gold hair. Alexandra remarked that these fairy tales were enhanced as the queen gestured animatedly with “her lovely expressive hands.”14

  Of Sophie of Greece, Alexandra recalled, “She was tall, slim, and very elegant. She always wore mourning colours for King Constantine, and the black, pale mauve, or silver grey of her widow’s weeds greatly became her.”15 Like the widowed Queen Marie of Romania, Sophie took to wearing flowing veils, which suited her far better than they did the flamboyant Marie. Sophie’s veils framed a soft, melancholy face and gave her an aura of tranquility.

  But what made Sophie stand out above all was her goodness. “She never complained,” noted her youngest daughter, Lady Katherine. “She always thought about other people: the governesses, the nurses—that they had everything that they wanted, very thoughtful.” Being thoughtful of others did not mean that Queen Sophie was devoid of humor. On the contrary, “she was quiet [but] she had a terrific sense of humor.” Queen Sophie appears to have passed this on to the next generation. Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia, who knew all of Queen Sophie’s children, said that they all admired their sense of humor.

  The lives of three queens—Sophie, Marie, and Maud—were drawing to a close. First to succumb was Sophie of Greece. For some years, she had not been well. She brought up her physical ailments to her friend, the Reverend Cole. In 1929, the queen admitted: “I was not well for a long time—nerves—& that painful ac-cidity [sic]—then I saw a French specialist who did me a lot of good & now I feel much better—& able to eat more.” By 1930, her problems were getting more serious: “I was not very well—& had to go to a clinic in Frankfurt to have myself thoroughly examined. That lasted a fortnight & now I am back with my sister—feeling much better.”17 Sophie had grown so weak and tired that it became easier for her to write letters in pencil than in ink—a fact which she continuously apologized for, just like her mother, who had done the same thing years before.

  But there were also respites in her illness, for which Queen Sophie was always grateful. She wrote the Reverend Cole in October 1928, “I am beginning to feel much better—the quiet & mountain air did me a lot of good—besides a strict diet—so the pain is practically gone!! which is a great relief, which I cannot thank God enough for.” And in December 1930: “At last I am beginning to feel much better & stronger after having gone through a cure in a clinic in Germany. I have to keep a strict diet which is the chief thing. I cannot say how thankful I am to God for allowing me to be better again.”18

  Within a year, however, Sophie was at death’s door. Mossy noted that “it all came so suddenly. She enjoyed herself in England & later in Munich, so much & seemed so well. Only in Venice in Sept: did she begin to feel less well & said the heat as usual did not agree with her.”19 In Frankfurt, Sophie was operated on. The doctors found that cancer had advanced so far she was given only weeks to live. Sophie was never told of her fatal illness.

  That December, Mossy wrote to their friend, Hilda Cochrane:

  You can imagine what I feel like! I try not to think. It is all too, too awful my darling sister is growing weaker from day to day, to witness this is almost more than I can bear.—She is not in pain, thank God, & some times she is still very cheerful, but she cannot understand why she is so weak, a sign that it has been possible to keep the truth from her, for wh. we are grateful. It is difficult to find the right nourishment as all food disgusts her, & she often suffers from sickness. The Drs. give her every sort of injection wh. are a great help & she sleeps a great deal. All her children are at Frankfort & to be with them & try to help them enables me to fight down my own misery…I am afraid there can no longer be a question of taking her back to Florence, as the Drs. first thought, & she herself said she prefered [sic] to remain where she was as she feels so well cared for.20

  It was only a matter of time. After a slight improvement between Christmas and New Year’s Day, Sophie, unable to eat, grew much weaker. Queen Sophie of the Hellenes died on 13 January 1932 in Frankfurt, at the age of sixty-one. The queen’s body was taken to Friedrichshof to lie in state, and then brought to Florence. There, it was placed to rest in the crypt of the Russian Church beside her husband’s and that of Queen Olga.

  Mossy was shattered by the death of her beloved sister. “You know what she was to me,” she wrote to Hilda, “& that I shall never get over this loss. Sometimes I try hard not to think, but it is a useless struggle. She is always present wherever I am or whatever I do, as she always was, ever since I exist[ed]. Those terrible two months & all that followed afterwards, still haunt me.” Nearly a year after Sophie’s death, Mossy still felt the loss keenly: “All the terrible time of last year weighs on me, & I try to get away from the many sad thoughts. Life can never be the same without my dear sister.” And when, in 1935, Sophie’s son, King George II, was called back to reign once more in Greece, Mossy, though pleased to see the dynasty again on the throne, admitted that their reversal of fortune “makes me so sad to think of all my darling sister & her husband were made to suffer.”21 The Infanta Eulalia had similar views, describing Sophie as a “much-maligned consort”22

  The death of Queen Sophie may have been hard for Mossy to bear. But for Sophie’s children, the loss was even more heartbreaking. “She was so sweet and kind and good,” recalled Lady Katherine.23 And when it came to writing the news, Princess Irene, still raw with grief, confessed that “The loss of our beloved Mother & the agony of the past months was almost more than one could bear & I am still quite stunned from the cruel blow, my heart is a wound that will never heal, only time can ease the pains. Having lost both our beloved parents life doesn’t seem worth living any more & one misses them every day more. The only consolation is that at least they are happier on the other side without all the trials & difficulties of this hard life.”24

  In the last years of their lives, Queens Sophie, Maud, and Marie watched in dismay as the world situation deteriorated. The Great Depression had wreaked havoc on millions of lives. Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini was on the march, as was Nazi Germany under the increasingly belligerent Adolf Hitler. Marie, who had watched in horror as the Bolsheviks plundered Romania years before, was particularly anxious and highly critical of the USSR and the menacing role the Soviet Union played in world affairs. It was an understandable reaction, as Marie lived beneath the shadow of the Communist leviathan. “I resent the ugliness of their conceptions,” wrote the queen in 1934, “the murdering of all beauty, personality, initiative.…And it is all a vast delusion. Tzarism was also a delusion no doubt, but it had its beautiful and sacred sides…horror fills my very soul when I think of their sinister creed, the hideousness of the fear and destruction they have spread around them. To me their creed appears to be the very negation of life and all that makes life worthwhile!”25 Three years later, she still held to her views. “Bolshevism,” she wrote in 1937 when Jo
seph Stalin, bent on oppressing his people, was sending tens of millions to their deaths, “is the levelling of everything.…Every drop of my free blood rises up in protest against such an abominable conception of life.”26

  Of the few joys Queen Marie found in Romania, one was the ever faithful General Zwiedineck, who carefully watched over the queen and read many books to her. Marie’s appetite for reading remained high. She even had time to tackle Gone With the “Wind, and enjoyed it. Then there was her precious Black Sea home of Tenya-Yuvah (“the Nest”) in Balcic, where Marie continued to cultivate her gardens with their magnificent lilies and roses. Perhaps most precious of all was the growing understanding with her grandson, Prince Michael. Toward the end of her life, Marie rejoiced in this. “I have made great friends with Michael,” she noted; “he wants comprehensive sympathy, senses that I can give it, so has a longing for my company. He is a darling and I anxiously watch his progress.”27

  King Michael later recalled how, in Bucharest, they used to go out together at Cotroceni—“in an old, old park, that’s where [we] used to meet. We used to go for a drive. She [Queen Marie] always let me drive her car—a big, big Chrysler, I remember that.” These meetings took place on Sundays; “mostly we went there for lunch then for a drive for two or three hours. But when she was in Bran, the same thing. She used to invite me for lunch. And then go [for] local drives around there. She was always very nice, and not at all strict.” But King Michael also saw Queen Marie at other times. “I remember, she always used to go to the official ceremonies, the National Day or Easter, all that, she was always with us.”28