The New York Times is reporting that Princess Ileana of Romania and Count Alexander of Hochberg will probably marry on April 27. Queen Marie will "entertain the diplomatic corps at Cotroceni" during the next few days and it is expected that she will officially announced the wedding date during one of the receptions.
The Queen and Princess Ileana are expected to visit Cairo on February 20 to meet with Count Alexander, who is known as Lexel. In the meantime, the count will spend time in England with his family.
Princess Ileana has already received several wedding gifts, including the "beautiful diamond ring" from her fiance and the "deed to a country house in Cotroceni," a present from her older brother, Prince Nicholas.
Prime Minister Maniu is expected to confer with Queen Marie on the government's wedding gift. It is expected that the this gift will be financial: $240,000 to "make the Princess' fortune total $500,000."
Being stubborn, I continued looking up about Ileana's first fiance. The strange thing is that I only found one photogrpah of the two, skiing in Predeal, but no article mentions their engagement... I guess that, once the engagement broken, the story became top secret ! In any case, she must not have "grieved" him very long since she got married the following year...
ReplyDeleteI cannot write "she got married for good" since she divorced her two husbands before becoming a nun and establishing a monastery in the United States !
Anastasie there are a number of photos of the couple that were released at the time of the engagement. It was well covered by the US and British press ...It is mentioned in bios of Marie as well as in the bio of Lexel's brother, Hansel and a bio of Lexel himself ... and his obituary... I am sure the Romanian archives have more photos.
ReplyDeleteYes, she did marry again to a poor archduke -- a marriage pushed by her mother to get her out of the country (she was popular). It was a marriage made in love. They were largely estranged by the time she returned to Romania in the mid-1940s - and she got involved and had an affair with one of the senior communists Emil Bodnaras
Marriage pushed by her mother to get her out? Was Queen Marie jealous of Ileana's popularity?
ReplyDeleteWas this the only Habsburg + QVD marriage?
that should be Brother, King Carol, not mother
ReplyDeleteJohn mentioned of QVD marriage. Not being of English mother tongue (it is French), what does it mean ? Gooogle did not help me. Many thanks for clarifying.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I hate abbreviations... just because there are so many and I cannot follow... It is difficult enough in French, but in other languages it is even worse !
I coined the abbreviation QVD in the late 80s as I wrote three books QUEEN VICTORIA'S DESCENDANTS .. QVD
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification...and at the same time I learned a new expression "to coin" = "to invent"... I had never heard of in the past. Just hope that I shall remember everything !!!
ReplyDelete