page_title: Marie of Romania
section_title: Public figure
hierarchical_section_title: Marie of Romania / Legacy / Public figure
caption_attribution_description: English: Celebrates Queen Marie's (Queen Victoria's granddaughter) birth at Eastwell Park, Ashford, Kent. Română: Marcheaza nasterea Reginei Maria (nepoata a Reginei Victoria) la Eastwell Park, Ashford, Kent, Regatul Unit al Marii Britanii.
context_page_description: Marie of Romania, also known as Marie of Edinburgh, was the last Queen of Romania as the wife of King Ferdinand I.
  Born into the British royal family, she was titled Princess Marie of Edinburgh at birth. Her parents were Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. Marie's early years were spent in Kent, Malta and Coburg. After refusing a proposal from her cousin, the future King George V, she was chosen as the future wife of Crown Prince Ferdinand of Romania, the heir apparent of King Carol I, in 1892. Marie was Crown Princess between 1893 and 1914, and became immediately popular with the Romanian people.
  After the outbreak of World War I, Marie urged Ferdinand to ally himself with the Triple Entente and declare war on Germany, which he eventually did in 1916. During the early stages of fighting, Bucharest was occupied by the Central Powers and Marie, Ferdinand and their five children took refuge in Moldavia. There, she and her three daughters acted as nurses in military hospitals, caring for soldiers who were wounded or afflicted by cholera.
context_section_description: Even before becoming queen, Marie had succeeded in establishing her public image as that of "one of the best-looking and richest princesses in Europe". She was known primarily for her talent in horse-riding, writing, painting, sculpting and dancing, as well as for her beauty. Her popularity was dimmed by two slanderous campaigns: that conducted by the Central Powers during World War I; and that led by Communist officials after Romania's transition to a Socialist Republic in 1947.
  During Romania's 42 years under Communist rule, Marie was alternately depicted as either an "agent of English capitalism" or as a devoted patriot who believed that her destiny was intertwined with that of Romania. In the 1949 Adevărata istorie a unei monarhii ("The True History of a Monarchy"), author Alexandru Gârneață refers to orgies that supposedly were held by Marie at Cotroceni and Balchik and claims that her cirrhosis was caused by her heavy drinking, even offering examples of instances when a drunken Marie needed to be carried off a yacht by her fellow drinkers. Marie's supposed extramarital affairs were brought forward as evidence of promiscuity, which contravened Communist values. In 1968, Communist officials vandalised the chapel sheltering Marie's heart, opening the sarcophagus and taking the boxes as well as the heart into Bran Castle. In 1971, these were transferred to Bucharest's National Museum of Romanian History. It was not until the late period of Nicolae Ceaușescu's regime, the last years before the Romanian Revolution, that Marie's merits came to be acknowledged.
  In Romania, Marie is known by the nickname Mama Răniților ("Mother of the Wounded"), or simply as "Regina Maria", while in other countries she is remembered as the "Soldier Queen" and "Mamma Regina". Marie is also nicknamed "the mother-in-law of the Balkans", due to her children's marriages into the region's ruling houses. By the time of her death, Marie's children had ruled in three of the four Balkan countries, Bulgaria excepted, although her descendants no longer occupy any European throne. Marie was called "one of the greatest figures in Romanian history" by Constantin Argetoianu, and in her memory, the Order of the Cross of Queen Marie was established in Romania.
  A statue of Queen Marie was unveiled in Ashford, Kent, in December 2018, to mark her birth and childhood at the nearby Eastwell Park.
caption: Statue celebrating Queen Marie's birth at Eastwell Park, Ashford, Kent.
exif: {"Image Make": "Wileyfox", "Image Model": "Wileyfox Swift", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Wileyfox Camera", "Image DateTime": "2018:12:16 11:01:52", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "212", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "2", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[11, 1, 52]", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "M", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "57", "GPS GPSDate": "2018:12:16", "Image GPSInfo": "748", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "962", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3303", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/179", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2018:12:16 11:01:52", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2018:12:16 11:01:52", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "3741/500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "132/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "23/20", "EXIF SubSecTime": "657814", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "657814", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "657814", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3120", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "4160", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "708", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "142", "EXIF SensingMethod": "0", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "-7"}