Special Sub-Topic: Queen Marie of Romania Click Here To Play: Queen Marie of Romania

Queen Marie was the grand-daughter of two illustrious personalities of the 1800s. Her paternal grandmother was Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Who was her maternal grandfather?

Czar Alexander II of Russia. Queen Marie was the daughter of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria, and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, the only daughter of Czar Alexander II. Alexander III was Alexander II's son, whereas Nicholas I and Paul I were the latter's father and great-grandfather, respectively.

The Queen's charming memoirs begin with an evocation of her place of birth. In which castle or stately home, demolished in 1926, was she born?

Eastwell Park. The royal memoirs begin as follows: "I was born in Eastwell, Kent, in 1875. A big grey house in a huge, beautiful English park; woods, great stretches of grass, wide, undulating horizons, not grand or austere, but lovely, quiet, noble — an English home." Balmoral and Sandringham are properties of the British Royal Family. Bran Castle is a property of the Romanian Royal Family. Princess Ileana's descendant recently put it up for sale. It is famous as most obvious "Dracula" castle, as it appears in Bram Stoker's novel.

After a happy childhood spent in England and Malta, where her father was sent as an officer, Princess Marie of Edinburgh married, at age 17, Ferdinand of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, the heir apparent to the throne of Romania. His uncle, the new king of the country, was a man of strict Prussian discipline and efficiency, and the young princess felt this very early. What did King Carol I wish to the young couple?

I wish you a good honeyweek.. Both Carol I and his nephew, the future King Ferdinand I, were educated as Prussian officers. Carol I allowed the young couple only one week of honeymooning before they assumed their royal duties.

The manners, the youth, and the vitality of the young princess were much appreciated by the Romanians and made her the object of interest within the ranks of the aristocracy. What was the new princess called at the French-speaking court?

La princesse lointaine (the Faraway Princess). Sometimes the young princess faced sheer boredom in the country, but the sequence of children born to her helped her to get over this time. "The Last Romantic" is the book which the American writer, Hannah Pakula, has dedicated in 1984 to the Queen. All the other options are my invention. Mary Tudor, also called Bloody Mary, is Queen's Marie cousin 12 times removed, but the two royals could not be more different in temperament and, indeed, reputation.

Princess Marie bore six children, three boys and three girls. One boy died young. What was his name?

Mircea. Queen Marie bore Carol, Elisabeta, Maria, Nicolae, Ileana, and Mircea, all of them before she became queen, on the death of Carol I, in 1914. Mihai is Queen Marie's grandson, Carol's son. He reigned from 1927-1930, and again from 1940-1947, although many think that his abdication in 30 December 1947 was unconstitutional and that remains the king.

In 1917, during the First World War, Romania had to face the invasion of half of its territory and an epidemic of typhus, plus the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution on its doorstep. Marie did her best to encourage and motivate her people, going to the front and caring for the wounded. What was the name the country gave to her this time?

Mother of the Wounded. Queen Marie acted on behalf of the Romanian Red Cross for a while. Holy Mary (the Blessed Virgin Mary) is very much venerated in the Romanian Orthodox Church (87% of population), but neither this happy name coincidence, nor "Saviour Queen", were ascribed to Anglican-born Queen Marie. I made up the "Mother of Romania" title.

The first part of Queen Marie's life is narrated in her memoirs. What is the title of this work?

The Story of My Life. The memoirs were written in English, a language in which Queen Marie was most fluent, and translated into Romanian by a very poor and blind woman, Margarita Miller-Verghi, whom the Queen wanted to help. "Crown against sickle, the story of King Michael of Rumania", by Arthur Stanley Gould Lee (1950), depicts the circumstances in which Romania became a Communist republic, under the Soviet control. "My Country" is a book written by Queen Marie in 1916, in which she presented Romania to the British public. "The Last Romantic. A Biography of Queen Marie of Roumania" (1984), is a biography of the Queen written by Hannah Pakula.

In 1926 Queen Marie visited United States and dedicated a museum in rural Washington State, the creation of a railroad magnate, Sam Hill, who initially intended to build there a residence for his wife and his daughter, Mary. What was the name of this museum, which can still be visited?

Maryhill. Located in south-east Washington, in a picturesque hilly region, the museum includes a replica of the Stonehenge megalithic monument, memorabilia belonging to the Royal Houses with which Queen Marie came in contact, works of Auguste Rodin, as well as a great collection of chess sets. Maryhill Museum is located near Goldendale, Washington State, and was named after Sam Hill's daughter, Mary. It exhibits art from a wide range of sources, including, but not limited to, Romania.

King Ferdinand died in 1927, but the now Dowager Queen Marie died just before the Second World War started. In her last 15 years, she was keen on the Bahá'í religion, brought to her by an American missionary, Ms. Martha Root. Did Queen Marie of Romania convert to the Bahá'í faith?

n. Queen Marie wrote in favour of the Bahá'í Cause in syndicated North American newspapers, and helped to publish a pamphlet ("Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era", by John E. Esslemont) in Romanian, by recommending Ms. Root the same Ms. Miller-Verghi for the translation. She even tried to reach the Bahá'í spiritual leader, Shoghi Effendi, in Haifa (in the then British Mandate for Palestine, now Israel), but Romanian politicians prevented her. They invoked the constitutional custom for the foreign princes who enter the Romanian Royal Family to either keep their faith, or opt for the faith of the country (Eastern Orthodox Christianity). Queen Marie was allowed to keep her Anglican religion. Romanians had had to fight Muslims for centuries, and the Bahá'í faith was viewed as a Muslim offshoot. The body of the Queen rests in an Orthodox church, the Cathedral of Curtea de Arges.

The tumultuous life of beautiful Queen Marie could not escape the usual gossip. It is assiduously suggested that she had a long-term romantic involvement with a Romanian aristocrat, and even that some of the children she bore were his. Who was this man?

Prince Barbu Stirbey. There is a persistent rumour, which has found its way into Wikipedia, that Princess Ileana was Stirbey's daughter. Alexandru Marghiloman was a Conservative politician. Prince Antoine Bibesco was a Romanian diplomat. Viscount Astor was a British politician of American origin who might have met the Queen.