ROYAL EXILES IN EUROPE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5250, 12 March 1928, Page 1

ROYAL EXILES IN EUROPE

QUEEN IN ALIEN TERRITORY.

In the picture of post-war life, stands the pathetic shadow of five throneless queens, Marie of Russia, Zita of Austria, Amaiie of Portugal, Sophia of Greece, and the little Elizabeth Pu Yi, whose Chinese subjects will have no more of her or of her boy husband. In some respects the fate of these women who kept their heads but lost their crowns is far sadder than that of those others who lost both heads and crowns. Marie Antoinette, Mary, Queen of Scots, Anne Boleyn, went to the scaffold,’but their .troubles were over. They became celebrated in song and story, .whereas few poets or novelists bothered themselves about those queenly woinet who are but shadows of themselves.

In a simple estate in the land of her birth there sits an old woman, whose busy fingers still occupy themselves with knitting. If her thoughts keep pace with the cilicking of her needles, they must run some-, thing like this “I am the daughter of a king. I was the wife of a Tsar ; I was the mother of a Tsar. But now I am only a poor old woman. Always the shadow has lain across the path of my years. Allways there has been 1 more tragedy than gladness. There is nothing any more to: hope for or live for. And yet at tlie beginning no life seemed more full of promise than hers. As the Princess Dagmar, the lovely daughter of the King of Denmark, she seemed ma.de for sunshine and roses. As a mere girl she was betrothed to the Trasevitch cf Russia, but she saw him on his deathbed, and was married to his brother. I,n 1881 an anarchist's bomb caused the death of her father-in-law, and she became Tsarina. Her husband possessed the fine quafit’es that her son lacked, and she lived to see her huSband cut off in the prime of life, and her son with all. his weakness fall victim to the revolution. The Empress Marie—for she was christened Marie in the Russian Church —escaped only with her life, and what she was wearing. Now all she has left are sad memories and the stubborn and desperate hope that her son and grandson still! live and will some day be restored to the throne, for mo one dares to destroy her castle of illusions.

Amalie of Portugal (looked a queen when, as , a tall, stately, black-eyed Bourbon, princess she married the dashing Carlos, King of Portugal. Her ntew country was a 'land of fruit and flowers and mandolins, and floooded with golden sunshine. On nine occasion the beautiful queen was driving through the streets of Lisbon with her husband and eldest son. Lisbon on that beautiful day of 1908 had given' no sign of what was impending. But suddenly the sharp fire of guns was heard. Her husband and son fell dead at .her side. For two brief years she stMI lived in a royal palace, anxiously watching over her remaining son, who had jnPunted the throne unexpectedly as King Manoel. Then, lest they, too, should be murdered, they had to flee for their lives. Queen Amalie is. now a restless woman, spending her time between England and France.

The story of Zita, of Austria, is perhaps the best known of all. She and her husband dreamed only of a home life, happy with their children. Then suddenly they were projected into the 'limelight as. the future sovereigns of Austria. Karl was not a strong man, but lie.dreamed of finding a place for himself In history as a peacemaker. When revolution broke out in Vienna he was forced to flee, and he made but one unsuccessful attempt to regain his throne, and fled Back to Switzerland. Hfe moved' on to Madeira, where he died. The fam-ily-was then exceedingly poor, and the widowed Zita was glad to find a haven of refuge in the little Spanish fishing town of .Lequcitio. There, even now, she barely ekes out an existence with w.hat various friends send her. The,once pretty Empress is no,w a haggard woman, still clinging to the hope that her son, Otto, will one day mount the vacant thnone of Hungary.

Sophie, of Greece, has had a fate more unenviable than some of the others. She. is- not ohly disliked in the country of her adoption, but is even an unwelcome guest in the land of her father’s.—Germany. The favourite sister of the ex-Kaiser, she was the wife of Constantine of Greece. She ruled Constantine, and was swayed by her brother, and this fact caused her husband’s exile twice, and finally he died in exile, and she is an exile.

Then there is the pathetic little Elizabeth Pu Yi. Life was to be a fairy tale for the little Empress; porcelain palaces were hers, and beautiful gardens and an army of retainers. But with the shaking of the revolution the flowers were gone, and in their place machine-guns. Gone was the kingdom, and now the onetime Emperor is simply Henry Pu Yi and the one-time Empress Elizabeth Pu Yi. They would like to travel!., but they are too poor; they live humbly and simply like other poo.r people, and they no longer dream of restoration and of the throne.