Greek Royals

[Deleted]

Yep, Olga Konstantinovna. She was only sixteen when she married George I, and included in her luggage was a trunkload of her favorite dolls.

[Mouse]

How popular have other Greek queen consorts been? Frederica? Anne-Marie?

[kelly9480]

Frederica was and is despised for her interference in politics. I've heard some Greeks say they liked Anne-Marie, though.

[Deleted]

Sophie (wife of Constantine I) might have been more popular had WWI not occurred and had she not been the younger sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Sadly, the country assumed she was a traitor, accusing her of collaborating with her brother. Funny thing was, Sophie had never been close to Willy, who had basically banished her from Germany when she converted to Orthodoxy.

Funny, three of Sophie's sons would be Kings-George, who was the oldest; Alexander, who was chosen after his father died and married morganatically; and Paul, father of Sophie of Spain and Constantine II.

Alexander's story was tragic-none of his family were allowed back into the country when he reigned, and he married a local Greek girl morganatically. Unfortunately, he was bitten by a monkey that a staff member kept as a pet and died of infection. His wife, Aspasia, was then pregnant with their only child. When he was dying, they didn't even allow his mother or siblings back into the country-they did allow his grandmother, Queen Olga.

Alexander's only daughter, Alexandra, would marry King Peter of Yugoslavia. Their son, Alexander, is the current Crown Prince of Serbia.

And that concludes our history lesson for today!


(God, I LOVE royalty)

ETA: I forgot a queen: Elisabetha of Roumania, the eldest daughter of the notorious Queen Marie of Roumania. She married George II. Now, as to her popularity, I really don't know, but I'd bet it wasn't very high. She was an A Number One B.I.T.C.H. She and George later divorced, before he was restored to the throne. Even her siblings hated her, and IIRC, the present King Michael, her nephew, has nothing good to say about her.

A quote of her's: "I've committed every vice in my life except murder, and I don't want to die without doing that either."

[Mouse]

Queen Marie of Romania was actually supposed to be a kindly, charismatic if somewhat pompous person.

[Deleted]

She was. She's one of my favorites. Yeah, she was conceited as all get out, but she was truly generous and loving and very patriotic.

Unfortunately, her first two children were mostly raised by her husband's aunt and uncle, the King and Queen at the time, and they turned out completely rotten. I think by the time she was pregnant with her third, she put her foot down and insisted she have a say.

They don't make Queens like her anymore, sadly.

[Mouse]

kelly9480 said:

Frederica was and is despised for her interference in politics.

How did she interfere? I've just heard a lot of negativity about her.

I've heard some Greeks say they liked Anne-Marie, though.

Anne Marie seems like a decent person. Not her fault her husband's a buffoon.

[kelly9480]

Greece is a very patriarchal society and Friederike made the mistake of showing that she had influence over her husband and son in public. She had feuds with her son's first PM over money that didn't go over well. When Constantine took the throne, he was 24, and desperately needed guidance -- Friederike should not have allowed it to become public knowledge that she was providing that guidance. Her German background didn't help manners, even though I don't think any member of her immediate family did anything too terribly heinous (for Nazi Germany, of course).

Anne-Marie's nice enough, and she doesn't have the bad reputation other members of the family have.

[Deleted]

I have a copy of Frederike's mother's memoirs, The Kaiser's Daughter. She definitely doesn't seem to be sympathetic to the Nazis, and I doubt her husband was, either.

What was King Paul like? From what I gather, Constantine was pretty bad-almost fascist, if you will. (Although he was DAMNED good looking!)

[kelly9480]

Friederike's parents made sure their children didn't get involved with the Nazis, but there are photos of at least one of the sons in uniform, so they may have served in the war. But the fact that she was German and Germany invaded Greece brought the same kinds of criticisms Queen Sophie had to deal with.

I've never really heard anything bad about Paul. He'd been trained to be king for a while, and really was well-liked, almost loved from what I can tell. Unfortunately, he'd had this plan to introduce Constantine slowly to the workings of government, and up and died when his son was 24, the same way Tsar Aleksandr III had planned to train Nikolai II and ended up dying before his son was trained. Friederike was basically his child bride, and he apparently let her do whatever -- in her sphere, but did take the time to ask her opinion (even if he went and did exactly what he'd planned to do beforehand). The fact that he asked her opinion was taken as a sign of weakness.

I haven't read anything about Constantine being anything worse than stupid. He didn't like the colonels, and thought that because he was known as "the smiling king" for his constant happy demeanor, a picture of him with the colonels where he was frowning would make it clear to the people that he didn't support what they were doing. Yeah. That backfired. And then his counter-coup failed miserably and he fled the country. People accused him of not staying to try to protect the people. He was advised to return to Greece by Hussein of Jordan, even if that meant getting assassinated, because that would allow the people to cling to the hope of democracy being restored, and would enshrine his family in their hearts. He obviously didn't do that, and is despised.