Thousands of Romanians lined the street of Bucharest for the funeral of their former King. King Michael of Romania ruled Romania twice, once when his father abdicated and moved to Paris with his mistress and once after his then-restored father was deposed. King Michael was forced into exile after the communists took over in 1947.
He spent several years in exile working as a chicken farmer and aircraft pilot, living in the United Kingdom and finally settling in Switzerland. He finally got his Romanian citizenship back in 1997, eight years after the collapse of communism.
He died in Switzerland on 5 December at the age of 96.
King Michael’s five daughters and his estranged grandson Nicholas Medforth-Mills, who was stripped of his title for allegedly fathering a child out of wedlock, walked behind the coffin.
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Other royals who attended were Spain’s former King and Queen, The Prince of Wales, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and his wife Queen Silvia, Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Princess Astrid of Belgium and her husband Prince Lorenz and Princess Muna al-Hussein, mother of King Abdullah II of Jordan. King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg joined the late King’s daughter Her Majesty Margareta, Custodian of the Crown and her husband, Prince Radu, for a brief Honor Guard around the coffin.
King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden saluted as King Michael’s coffin was placed on a dais.
The service was led by the head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Daniel. A funeral procession carrying his coffin drove slowly through Bucharest to a railway station. King Michael’s coffin was then taken by royal train to the central Romanian city of Curtea de Arges where he was buried next to his wife, Anne of Bourbon-Parma, who died last year at the age of 92.
The Royal House of Romania posted a summary of the day’s proceedings on YouTube, which you can view below.
