Princess Marie of Edinburgh
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Template:House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
Marie Alexandra Victoria became Crown Princess of Romania and then its Queen.
- styled Her Royal Highness Princess Marie of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, later Her Majesty Queen Marie of Romania
She was a member of the British Royal Family. She was born October 29, 1875, at Eastwell Park in Kent, the eldest daughter of His Royal Highness Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Grand Duchess Marie 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 a daughter of Alexander II of Russia and Maria Alexandrovna of Hesse.
As her father was in the Royal Navy she spent much of her time abroad from Britain, particularly in Malta.
In her youth, Princess Marie was considered a suitable match for marriage to the royalty of Europe. Her first cousin, His Royal Highness Prince George of Wales, later King George V, fell in love with her and proposed marriage. However, Marie's mother did not believe in marriage between first cousins as it was strictly forbidden by the Russian church. She also harbored a deeply-felt disdain for the British Royal Family in general, 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 produced three daughters (at least one of them not the King's issue) and three sons:
- the future Carol II of Romania
- Elisabeth
- Marie (Grand Duke Boris of Russia was her biological father, according to her mother)
- Nicholas
- Ileana
- Mircea
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 till 1922.
During the war, Queen Marie volunteered as a Red Cross nurse to help the sick and wounded. She wrote a book, My Country to raise funds for the Red Cross. After the war ended, she represented Romania at Versailles, gaining back territory lost by Romania during the war. 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 Arges, in Sinaia. She is held in high esteem by members of the Bahá'í Faith as she was the first royalty to declare faith in that religion.
Marie was famously mentioned in Dorothy Parker's poem "Comment".
See Also
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