Queen Maria of Romania is perhaps the most "visible" historical person who lived in Romania, but who had fame outside of Romania. She is an interesting person, but there are ten points that make her all the more interesting.
1) she was born in England: her father was Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria and her mother was Grand Duchess Maria of Russia, the daughter of Tsar Alexander II (known to people as the Tsar Liberator.) The marriage of her parents was supposed to joint the Royal houses. This has not happened, and her parents ' marriage was a failure after many years.
2) She was engaged on her sixteenth to the Crown Prince of Romania: after a failed romance with Prince George of Wales (Later King George V.) Her mother worked hard to promote the involvement of Marie Ferdinand of Romania.
3) her father was the Duke of Edinburgh: she was known in her youth as her Royal Highness Princess Marie of Edinburgh. Although she had an older brother, the Margraviate ended with the death of her father, by then also Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburg. Her brother Alfred predeceased his father. The current Duke of Edinburgh is Prince Phillip, and he is a great-great-uncle of Phillip and Queen Elizabeth.
4) Officially Marie had six children: three sons, Carol, Nicholas, Mircea, and three daughters, Elizabeth, Marie and Illeana. She had a seventh, but nothing is known about this child. According to some, it was because of an affair with an officer in the Romanian army.
5) she was Crown Princes of Romania was small: the territory that Romanian advance came only after the end of the great war. (This was also known as World War One, 1914-1918). After the war, Romanian possession of would get: Bessarabia, Transylvania, and those were the two major territorial gains.
6) she was crowned in Transylvania: while she was Queen of Romania in 1914, her and her husband Ferdinand were not crowned until 1922. This was due to the war, but also because Romania itself with the French and British side and would be inundated by the armies of Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria.
7) they had a lot of unique friends, many of them men: one of these friends Waldorf Astor was, and rumor had it that he is the father of her second son Nicholas was. Nicholas would be similar to Ferdinand's family. The reason for this speculation was because Marie famous for her many Affairs. Ultimately, most historians agree that the undisputed father of Carol, Nicholas and Elizabeth Ferdinand was. The three other children, who were all his own by Ferdinand to be approved, are subject to debate.
8) her sister was also the core of a scandal: her sister, Princess Victoria of Edinburgh also caused a major scandal. It began with her divorce, after which her remarriage to a member of the Russian Imperial family--with her first cousin. All this by Marie and her sister remained close to Victoria's death in 1936. Marie would also help her sister after the revolution of Russia.
9) She was known as the mother-in-law of the Balkans: her daughter would marry the Greek Royal House, the Yugoslav Royal House, and a branch of the Haps burg Royal family. Her eldest son would be King of Romania.
10) They would see two of her grandchildren Kings: her grandson Micheal would be King of Romania twice, once as a five-year-old in 1927 after the death of her husband and her other grandson, King King Peter of Yugoslavia was in 1934 at the age of 11. Marie died in 1938.
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