“A PLEASANT QUEEN.”

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2645, 14 May 1923, Page 7

“A PLEASANT QUEEN.”

MILENA OF MONTENEGRO. HER WORK FOR COUNTRY WOMEN, The death of ex-Queen Milena of Montenegro at Antibes on March IG, removes an interesting ligure from the European stage. For some time previous she had been suffering from arterial sclerosis and chronic nephritis. The ex-Queen’s death occurred one hour after her daughter, Queen Helena, of Italy, had left Antibes for Rome. When the Royal carriage reached Genoa, the Queen, who had hastened t'o her mother’s bedside a day or so before, received a message announcing the death. King Nicholas of Montenegro died on March 21, 1921, at Antibes, where the family had taken up its residence soon after the King’s abdication in 1918. Mliena, the daughter of an army captain, was known to her countrymen as "peasant queen.” At the age of 13 years she was married to Prince Nicholas, to whose family her father was distantly related. She was born in 1847, at Cevo, Montenegro. Four of Queen Milena's seven daughters made notable marriages, Fruitless Helena became Queen of Italy, while Princess Zorka, her firstborn, married Petes Karageorgcvitch, the late King of Serbia. Princess Mllitza and Princess Anatasia married respectively Grand Duke Peter of Russia, and the Duke of Leuchtenberg. Upon the death of King Nicholas and the abdication of his eldest son, Prince Danilo, Michael, a grandson of Minela and sou of the late Prince Mirko, was proclaimed King. He was a minor, and therefore Queen Milena undertook to share the regency with Pre. mier Plamanatz. The latter, in the summer of 1922, seized the Montenegrin Consulate in Rome, declaring Milena’s position illegal. Queen Milena was assiduous for many years in her efforts to bring about an improvement in the position and standing of women of Motencgro. It was through her initiative that a French institute for girls was established at Cettinje. This school did much to raise the mental standing of Montenegrin women, and helped to a large degree to strike from them the chains of submission and igorance. The former queen, although seriously ill for some time, evinced great interest in the approaching marriage of her granddaughter. Princess Yolanda of Italy. “You might have been a queen,” she wrote the Princess, "but you prefer to marry for love. I entirely approve your decision.” •