BY ROGER WATSON
A good friend lent me The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning. For a while, it sat untouched by my bedside as I worked through Neville Shute’s novels (I’m almost done). But with a long-haul flight looming, I finally began reading—and was hooked from the first chapter. Rather than lug the hefty book to the Far East, I downloaded it on Kindle and kept reading.
The story begins in Bucharest, Romania, in 1939, as the Germans advanced across Europe. The Romanian monarch at the time was King Carol, who had returned from exile in 1930 to replace his son, the unfortunate King Michael—a cousin of our late Queen Elizabeth. Michael had first ascended the throne aged five in 1927 due to his father’s scandalous behaviour.
King Michael returned to the throne in 1940, but the post-war Communist regime forced him to abdicate in 1947. He lived in exile in Switzerland with his wife, Queen Anne. Their marriage was controversial: Pope Pius XII had refused permission for Anne, a Roman Catholic, to marry the Orthodox Michael, as he would not agree to raise their children Catholic. Romanian constitutional law required them to be raised Orthodox. Nonetheless, they married.
While the Romanian royals faded from international attention, their legacy was kept alive by their eldest daughter, Princess Margareta. During her time at the University of Edinburgh, she dated student activist Gordon Brown. I once saw her at a Fabian Society meeting and can vouch for her beauty. Today, she is Custodian of the Romanian Crown.
The ‘Queen’ in the title refers to Queen Anne (above left next to Margareta), with whom I watched the French Open in 1986. That year, Henri Leconte reached the semi-finals—his best performance at Roland Garros, though he never made a Grand Slam final.
King Michael had been approached in exile by Frank Buchman, founder of Moral Re-Armament (MRA), and became involved with the movement. My wife and I, to our regret, were also briefly drawn in. Once dubbed ‘The Salvation Army in Dinner Jackets’, MRA blended spiritualism with social elitism and held influence in the post-war years. By the time we encountered it, it was a shadow of its former self.
It was during this time that I first met King Michael, who would visit the MRA centre in London while staying with his cousin near The Mall. MRA, proud of its League of Nations ties, loved supranational institutions. As an aspiring journalist, I was assigned to attend the annual meeting of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva—a UN agency fostering global dialogue between workers and employers.
One Sunday, our small group of journalists was invited to visit the Romanian royal family at their villa overlooking Lake Geneva. As we arrived, we saw a man in a boiler suit tinkering with a military jeep. It turned out to be King Michael himself, who was passionate about such vehicles. A shy man and quite hard of hearing, he exchanged brief greetings with us before we were driven up the long driveway to the house. It felt like a scene from a Somerset Maugham novel.
We had afternoon tea, then played pétanque under the blazing sun. Queen Anne was a gracious hostess. Princess Margareta made a brief appearance but did not engage with us. Later, Queen Anne invited anyone interested to join her in watching the tennis. Grateful for the shade, I accepted—only to find I was the only guest to do so.
Worried I’d breached some kind of etiquette, I was relieved by her kindness. She asked about my work in Geneva, my wife, and our family. She offered me a cigarette (which she smoked using a holder) and a glass of wine. I declined both—MRA frowned on alcohol and tobacco—but enjoyed the tennis. When it ended, it was time to leave.
I never saw the royal family again. After the execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu in 1989, King Michael returned to Romania, only to find his services unwelcome. To avoid embarrassment, he was given a quasi-diplomatic role and an office in Bucharest. Queen Anne died in 2016, followed by King Michael in 2017.
Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.