EXILED QUEENS.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 June 1926, Page 23

EXILED QUEENS.

THRONELESS WOMEN LIVING IN POVERTY. Six exiled .queens are now living in comparative obscurity in Europe. Almost all have lost their thrones witinn the last ten or fifteen years, and ni some cases their life to-day is one oi anxious privation. Some are reeonei'lcd to their position by now; others still long for their regal state and their former splendid Courts. Once Consort of the Czar of All the Russias, the Dowager Empress Marie, sister of Queen Alexandra, lives at Copenhagen. She Iras woefully earned her title of “the Lady of Tears?’ Hei story is one of the most tragic in modern history. Even in her young days tragedy overshadowed her. She was to marry the Czarevitch Nicholas, who, on his deathbed, pledged her io wed his successor. THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW. The assassination of Alexander II brought her and her husband to power. When her husband died and her son came to the throne she fought with an iron will against the influences of Rasputin and tw other evil factors of the imperial circle. Then came the culminating tragedy ot the revolution. Since then she lias been a fugitive queen, and mow she lias lost her one great friend—her sister Alexandra. Sandringham was always a sure refuge and sanctuary for her. She first took refuge at Livadia, in the Crimea, when the revolution broke out, and always she burned a light in her window’, “that my son Nicholas may know I am awaiting his return.” When Wrangel’s army at last broke before the onslaught of the revolutionists she "was finally persuaded to leave in.a British battleship. The 1 tragedy of the Grecian royal family is a comparatively recent event. Constantine was always swayed irresistibly by the strong-willed Sophie, sister of the German Kaiser (says a writer in The Sunday Express). Twice exiled, he died in exile; and his mother and sister still figure in the holocaust of post-war Europe. Queen Amelie of Portugal, perhaps more than any of the ill-starred queens, came into direct contact with the tragedy of her house. HAPSBURG HOPES. On the fateful day of 1908, in Lisbon, she drove with her husband, King C’ar'los, when he was shot down, and his son with him. She and her younger son, Mqnoel, escaped; but only, later, to be the victims of a more merciful revolution. They were driven out of Portugal, and first, found refuge in England. Now, at Versailles, Queen Amelie awaits—what ? Zita, the ex-Empress of Austria, has established a stronghold of the Hapsburgs in the little Spanish village of Lequito, ’ where Karlist banners still fly from the windows, and emissaries of the Hungarian Monarchy are to be found in the streets. Optimistic even ir her poverty, Zita still declares that her son will occupy the Hapsburg throne. Twice already has she tried, with her late consort Karl, to regain power. Their last attempt, in a fast-flying aeroplane, started with the desperate gallantry of old romance, but it ended only in capture and renewed exile. Karl died in Madeira, a broken and disappointed m'an, and there, too, the Empress bore a posthumous child. Earth from Hungary was spread about the room. “My child,” she said, “shall be born on Hungarian soil.” The jewels they had carried away in their first flight—worth, perhaps, £10,000,000 —had been pledged to finance their abortive attempts to regain the throne. THE FIRING SQUAD.

For months Zita and her eight children suffered actual want. Then the King of Spain eame to her assistance. Undaunted, she still is fired with the determination tc win back what to her is her and her son’s divine right.

Charlotte, the beautiful “mad Empress’ of Mexico, is eighty-six years old now. The very Empire over which she reigned has disappeared for more than fifty years. Her mind mercifully failed before that tragic day when her husband faced a firing squad of Jaurists against a wall in Mexico City. She now leads a gentle and a simple >life.

She does n.t even realise that her husband is dead. Even the Great War passed her by, for the Germans showed a strange sympathy for her sorrow, and her chateau was unmolested.

“This habitation is occupied by her Majesty of Mexico, Arhduchess of Austria, and sister-in-law of the Emperor Francis Joseph. The invading hosts honoured it.

Napoleon 111 of France, in an effort to set up a European throne in troubled Mexico, made the Archduke Maximilian of, Austria Emperor. Soon, however, Napoleon recalled his troops, and the Jaurist forces threatened Maxieo City. It was then that Charlotte flamed out into heroic greatness. She refused to aEow Maximilian to abdicate. and sailed for Europe, there to beseech aid for Napoleon, and the Pope. THE MAD EMPRESS.

The French Emperor, whose adventure it really was, refused her petition. For two long days nd nights, agonised and tortur- I in mind, she waited in Paris, hop?, against hope that he would alter that decision. Then, still troubled and suffering from nervous strain, she. -went on to Rome.

The Pope also failed her. A fewdays later she was mad—a mad woman wandering about the streets of Rome, washing her hands at the public fountains, knowing nothing. She has never read the letter that Maximilian wrote to her on the eve of his execution:—

You took with you not only my heart, but my good fortune. J shall die gloriously, like a soldier, like a monarch, vanquished, but not dishonoured. Adieu.” Perhaps of all the royal exiles of Europe, Charlotte of Mexico is the most pathetic.