Marie of Edinburgh

Princess Marie of Edinburgh (Marie Alexandra Victoria; later Queen of Romania; 29 October 1875 – 18 July 1938) was a member of the British Royal Family who became the queen consort of Ferdinand I of Romania.

Early life
She was born on October 29, 1875, at Eastwell Park in Kent, the eldest daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. Her father was the second-eldest son of Victoria of the United Kingdom 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 December 15 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 time abroad, particularly in Malta.

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. Both Marie's father and George's father approved of the marriage. However, Marie's mother felt deep disdain for the British Royal Family, and was keen to see her daughters marry outside its Court.

In 1893, a few months before her father became Duke of Coburg-Gotha, Princess Marie married Crown Prince Ferdinand of Romania, nephew of King Carol I of Romania. The marriage, which produced three daughters and three sons, was not a happy one. Her correspondence with her longtime secret confidante, the American dancer Loie Fuller, revealed "the distaste, which grew to revulsion" that Marie felt for her husband. (Easterman, 1942, 58) 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, unlike Marie and Ferdinand), while Ileana's paternity is under discussion. The two eldest children, Carol and Elisabeth, were quite certainly biologically Ferdinand's.

Queen and Queen Mother


In 1914, Carol I died and Ferdinand ascended the throne of Romania. Crown Princess Marie then became styled Her Majesty Queen Marie of Romania. Due to World War I, they were not crowned as monarchs 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 Roumania." He credits Marie's sympathies for the Allies as being "the major influence in bringing her country to their side" in the war. (Easterman, 1942, 28–29)

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. In 1917, 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 Loie 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.)

After the war ended, the Great Powers decided to settle affairs at Versailles. The Romanian objective was to regain its territories from the now-defunct Austria-Hungary and also from Russia, thereby uniting all Romanian-speakers in a single state. With the Romanian delegation losing ground in the negotiations, Prime Minister Ion 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. 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 40%, gaining Transylvania, Bessarabia as well as parts of Bukovina and the Banat.

Ferdinand and Marie's son, the Crown Prince Carol (later King Carol II), was never close to his father&mdash;by the time Carol was an adult, their antagonism became an "open breach" (Easterman, 1942, 29)&mdash;but there continued to be a "deep bond of affection and sympathy" between Carol and Marie. (Easterman, 1942, 30–31) 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. (Easterman, 1942, 31–32) During Carol's exile in Paris, Loie 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. (Easterman, 1942, 58–61) Eventually, when Carol became King and did not seek her counsel, the breach between mother and son became complete. (Easterman, 1942, 31, 86–87)

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 on July 18, 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.

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 Monarch to have declared her belief in Bahá'u'lláh.

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.'"

Titles

 * 1875-1893: Her Royal Highness Princess Marie of Edinburgh
 * 1893-1914: Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess of Romania
 * 1914-1927: Her Majesty Queen Marie of Romania
 * 1927-1937: Her Majesty Dowager Queen Marie of Romania

Literature

 * Marie was famously mentioned 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 Roumania.


 * She 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 also explores the relationship between Marie, her son King Carol II and his mistress Magda Lupescu.