Prince Nicholas of Romania


Prince Nicholas of Romania, later known as Prince Nicholas of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was the fourth child and second son of King Ferdinand I of Romania and his wife Queen Marie.
In 1927 after the death of his father, Nicholas was appointed as one of the three regents for his minor nephew King Michael I. His position as regent ended in 1930 with the return of his older brother Prince Carol to Romania to take over as King of Romania.
In later 1930 he was stripped of his titles and privileges and exiled from the Royal Court, due to King Carol II's disapproval of his marriage. In 1942 after the removal of King Carol II from the throne and King Michael's second reign, Nicholas had also been stripped of his Romanian honours and therefore started using the title of Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen of the house to which he belonged.
He died in exile on 9 July 1978 in Madrid, Spain.

Early life

Birth

Nicholas was born on 5 August 1903 in Peleș Castle, Sinaia as the son of Crown Prince Ferdinand of Romania and his wife Princess Marie of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Edinburgh. His siblings were Carol II of Romania, Elisabeth of Romania, Queen Maria of Yugoslavia, Princess Ileana of Romania and Prince Mircea of Romania.
and the Yugoslav regent Prince Paul in Bucharest in 1936.

Biography

Nicholas was the younger brother of Carol, heir apparent, who renounced his rights of succession on 12 December 1925. When Ferdinand died in 1927, he was succeeded as king by Carol's five-year-old son, Michael; Nicholas himself had been proposed as heir-apparent when Carol married the commoner Zizi Lambrino in 1918. Given Michael's youth, a regency council had to be formed, and Prince Nicholas was forced to abandon his career in the British Royal Navy in order to return home to serve on the council, alongside Gheorghe Buzdugan and Patriarch Miron Cristea.
Although unofficially referred to as "the first-ranking regent", Nicholas resented having to abandon his naval career and had no interest in politics. He tried to continue his father's cooperation with the National Liberals, and to contain the opposition of the National Peasants' Party to the regency by appointing a national government under Ion I. C. Brătianu. Refused by Brătianu, he witnessed a change in Carol's stance in mid 1927, when the latter argued that he had been forced to give up his throne. The cooperation between Carol and the PNŢ was successfully neutralized by the PNL, but Brătianu's death in 1927 restored contacts and increased the appeal of the PNŢ. By then, the regency was widely perceived as consisting of figureheads, and, after Constantin Sărăţeanu succeeded the deceased Buzdugan in 1929, it was believed to be torn apart by contrasting political ambitions. According to Nicolae Iorga, Miron Cristea himself had said:
"The Regency does not work because it has no head. The Prince smokes his cigarettes, Sărăţeanu looks through his books, and I, as a priest, can only try to reconcile."

Nicholas was at first delighted when Carol returned home to Romania on 8 June 1930. He welcomed the Parliament session that voted to repeal the 1926 legislation, and accompanied his newly arrived brother from Băneasa Airfield to Cotroceni Palace.
However, the cordial relations between Nicholas and Carol were short-lived. Nicholas wanted to marry Ioana Dumitrescu-Doletti, a divorced woman, but was aware that it might be embarrassing for the king to have to authorize such a marriage. Carol himself suggested that the couple should marry without first seeking his consent. Carol had intimated that in these circumstances he would accept the marriage as a fait accompli, but after the wedding Carol promptly used it as an excuse to deprive Nicholas of his royal privileges and titles and to exile him from Romania. He left for Spain, and ultimately settled in Switzerland.
Nicholas was married twice. His first marriage took place in Tohani, Romania, on 7 November 1931, the bride being Ioana Dumitrescu-Doletti. Dumitrescu-Doletti's first husband had been Radu Săveanu, whom she married on 11 December 1924. Nicholas' second marriage took place on 13 July 1967 in Lausanne. His second wife was a Brazilian, Maria Thereza Lisboa Figueira de Mello, the daughter of Col. Jerónimo de Ávila Figueira de Melo and his wife Cândida Ribeiro Lisboa, and the sister of Francisco Lisboa Figueira de Melo, former ambassador of Portugal to Germany. Figueira de Mello's first husband was Andrés Boulton Pietri, whom she married in Caracas on 2 July 1936, a union that produced four children: Roger, Maria Thereza, Andres and William.
The Prince also took an interest in motor racing, competing in the 1933 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 1935 24 Hours of Le Mans driving his own Duesenberg Model SJ.

Honours

National

;Honorary Military Rank and other awards