Nicholas Medforth-Mills (formerly His Royal Highness Prince Nicholas of Romania)

[Gaudete]

I'm not entirely sure how Radu's popularity is of consequence in this discussion. I don't doubt that Nicholas is more favourably seen than Radu is. Nicholas is a handsome young man who seems to know his way around an interview. He offers gossip and he plays the wounded lion very well indeed. But are we supposed to sanction Nicholas' behaviour simply because Prince Radu isn't well liked?

[LadyFinn]

Some photos of Nicholas and Alina Maria at Astra Film Festival in Sibiu in October. Nicholas is still the honorary citizen of Sibiu.
http://okmagazine.ro/wp-content/uplo...a-Binder-6.jpg
http://okmagazine.ro/wp-content/uplo...a-Binder-4.jpg
http://okmagazine.ro/wp-content/uplo...a-Binder-5.jpg

[MissByrd]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

Yes, there are more elements that you do not know about, but it is probably best that way, because otherwise you would lose the respect that you have for Crown Princess Margarita (which I used to have, too). I could refer you to the author (who is a personal friend of mine) of a book on the King for more on the behind-the-scenes dynamics in this family, which the author witnessed and experienced first-hand. But, then again, you seem to have already made up your mind about the situation.

As I wrote before, this is a story about which there are two camps.

Hello, Benjamin:
I appreciate your contributions to this commentary about King Mihai and his family. I would really like to read the book to which you refer if it is available in English. Would you mind telling me the title? Thank you for your consideration.

[Somebody]

Originally Posted by Cory

Nicholas de Roumanie Medforth Mills does not seem to believe his grandfather had anything to do with what happened in August 2015.

That's what he is saying now when the king was no longer in a position to refute that.

If he never believed it to be the king's decision, why did he accept the money, keep silent, and, more importantly, why didn't he raise the issue in his personal conversation with the king?

And why didn't his mother stand up for him? All in all, him playing the victim seems self-serving and not necessarily a correct representation of what happened.

This is not to say that I have full confidence in Margareta en Rady. Her use of 'majesty' adds to that but monarchues depend on having heirs and currently I don't see a clear succession plan in place.

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by MissByrd

Hello, Benjamin:
I appreciate your contributions to this commentary about King Mihai and his family. I would really like to read the book to which you refer if it is available in English. Would you mind telling me the title? Thank you for your consideration.

Hi Miss Byrd,

Thank you for your question.

I think my post might have been slightly misinterpreted, but that is my fault for not wording it more succinctly.

What I was referring to was the author's experience with the Royal Family in the course of publishing a book on His Majesty for a special occasion in the King's life. I am not going to publish a name, but I will mention one of the books that I will be referring to in the course of this post, and then one can connect the dots from there.

In the late 1990s/early 2000s, an American author was aided by Queen Anne, Princess Margarita of Romania, and then-Prince Radu of Hohenzollern-Veringen in putting together a publication to celebrate King Michael's 80th birthday. Thus, this book appeared in 2001. The author embarked on several trips to Versoix, where the King, Queen, Princess Margarita and her husband where then living, as well as to London, in order to interview family members for the preparation of the book. The trips to Versoix also allowed the author access to family photographs to supplement the ones he already possessed in order to make the tribute more special. King Juan Carlos and the Prince of Wales both contributed dedications for the book, and Princess Margarita penned the foreword. It was one of the first photo albums (if not the first) on the King and his family, and it is quite lovely. The book was launched at a party for the King held in Switzerland, which the author attended, having become close to the family. He has a deep admiration for King Michael and Queen Anne to this day. King Michael was delighted with the finished product as he had had no idea that this is what the author and the Queen, Margarita and Radu were up to when the author was at Versoix during his various visits. The copyright to this book was held by the author, who I consider a very close friend.

That same year, in Romania, the book Mihai al României was published by Humanitas in Bucharest. Guess who was the author of this book? Principele Radu de Hohenzollern-Veringen! Although translated into Romanian, the dedications by King Juan Carlos and the Prince of Wales were included as was the foreword by Princess Margarita; all of these are identical to those that appeared in the original publication, besides the fact they are in another language. Many of the photographs that appeared for the first time in the original publication were included in the unauthorised Romanian version. The author of the original version tried to contact "Bunny" (if we are going to use nicknames for this family, then that is what Margarita is known as en famille) to find out why this happened and possibly resolve the issue, but he never received a response. Ergo, Radu engaged in plagiarism and violated copyright; he broke the law. He even reissued the book in 2008 once he became Principele Radu al României and Margarita had become Principesa Moștenitoare.

I have both the original publication and the Romanian version, and I looked over them to make sure I was correct on what is and is not the same. I did not know the story behind them until a couple of years later.

The point is that Bunny and Radu are not saints. Far from it. I admire them for how they have managed to promote the Royal House in Romania, even if I have come to know more about how they did so and not necessarily approve of it.

Likewise, Nicholas is not perfect either. Yet, the criticisms of him on this board revolve totally around allegations [even if there might be truth to one - the child] and vagaries, whereas the criticisms of Bunny and Radu are based in fact. There are plenty of well-done exposes by Romanian journalists to support these.

It is ridiculous to pretend that Bunny and Radu have not engaged in questionable activities to get to where they are today. King Michael would not have approved of many of these actions, as he did not trust the politicians that emerged in the democratic Romania. He felt that they were all simply Communists who had changed their labels. However, it is these same politicians that Bunny and Radu have courted in order to make a place for themselves in the Romanian society. And, they have succeeded, so good for them, I guess, if morals mean nothing.

Obviously, I believe that Margarita is the next Head of House, and I could care less if she styled herself "Her Majesty Custodian of the Crown." That is fine, I feel she has earned it - her father and especially her mother wanted the daughters and grandchildren to succeed to the Headship of House, not the Hohenzollerns. At the same time, given the liabilities that her own husband has posed, it is extremely hypocritical of them (and I do mean "them," because I feel that Radu is the stronger character of the two) to not reintegrate Nicholas into the Royal House so that it has an actual future. He did as fantastic a job as they did in representing the Royal House in his role as Prince of Romania.

Otherwise, if they continue to ignore him, all their work will have been for naught...unless that is the point, and they wish to be the period to this story. Which would be foolish. Neither Princess Helen nor Karina de Roumanie nor Princess Sophie nor Elisabeta Biarneix speak Romanian fluently. Princess Marie is surely making headway, but she has no heirs. Nicholas is the only future of the foundation that was created by King Michael and built upon by Crown Princess Margarita.

I firmly believe that it is in the Royal House's best interests to sort itself out (even though it *is* highly inclined to dysfunction) and figure out a way to make sure that the Romanian royal family has a future beyond the Custodian of the Crown. The only future can be Nicholas. Thus, Margarita and Radu and Nicholas need to come to a truce and move on with it - but the ball is in Margarita's court as she literally holds court now.

[Andy T]

Originally Posted by Somebody

That's what he is saying now when the king was no longer in a position to refute that.

If he never believed it to be the king's decision, why did he accept the money, keep silent, and, more importantly, why didn't he raise the issue in his personal conversation with the king?

And why didn't his mother stand up for him? All in all, him playing the victim seems self-serving and not necessarily a correct representation of what happened.

This is not to say that I have full confidence in Margareta en Rady. Her use of 'majesty' adds to that but monarchues depend on having heirs and currently I don't see a clear succession plan in place.

and why is he side-stepping the issue of his alleged paternity? and why is he announcing publicly an engagement to a marriage which had aleady taken place (but which he'd hushed up)? and why is he provoking a scene outside his grandfather's house and making sure the media know all about it?

I wish deeply that the family would heal its rifts because through unity I believe they could achieve a lot for Romania. However, the only way that is going to happen is for them to come together and work it out.

The more Nicholas feeds the vipers, the deeper the divisions will go and the longer they will last. The vipers don't want the family to reconcile: they want to oust Margareta, Radu and Elena from the picture completely and either set up Nicholas as the "true" heir or wait for the Hohenzollern prince on a white charger to claim the throne. And when he distances himself from them, as he inevitably will, they will turn on him, too. In the end, all this will result in the entire notion of monarchy in Romania being discredited and destroyed.

[Andy T]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

Let’s be candid: Radu was unpopular way before anyone could have dreamed that King Michael would make Nicholas a prince and a dynast.

He was not trusted when he married Margarita because some Romanians who knew the Royal Family were already aware of his and his family’s political associations.

He was not popular in his former role as Special for the Romanian Government for his tendency to overshadow his wife, who is the real royal.

He is not popular because he fluffed up his CV and rose through the ranks of the Romanian military in a fashion that has never been properly explained.

He is not popular because he has cultivated, by his own actions, the reputation as the éminence grise of the Royal Family, holding sway over not only his wife but her parents as they aged, and then over her sisters and nephews and nieces.

People on this board might have forgotten or been unaware that King Michael, Queen Anne and their daughters were involved in an insular cult called the Moral Re-Armament Movement while living in exile in Switzerland. Anne wrote about this in her memoirs, which were published in English. She admitted that she became bitter against the world for what had happened to her husband, and that Michael was often overcome (understandably) by moroseness due to losing his country. They did not have a social life, so the MRA helped with that. They only saw close relatives like the Greeks. The family was not well off. Michael was not made to be a businessman - he was raised to be a constitutional monarch. Only Margarita went to university, and the fees for the boarding schools for the four younger princesses were all paid for by Romanian monarchists in exile. The daughters were not taught Romanian, aside from the Lord’s Prayer, which their father used to recite every night. Essentially, the family was shut off from the happenings of the outside world, and they were vulnerable, and then the floodgates opened in 1989. The family were sitting ducks for a strong personality, which they surely got when Radu married Margarita. The Queen was a force to be reckoned with, too, but in the last several years of her life she was ill with lung cancer and what seems to have been dementia. Michael’s health was not great either. In addition to the cancers, he also had issues with his memory, which may have been dementia. The Royal Household was wise not to issue actual medical bulletins provided to them by doctors. This is why there are those who feel that Margarita and Radu issued the August 2015 decision in his name. I do not believe an actual copy of it has been seen bearing the king’s signature, but forgive me if I am wrong on that.

They’ve done the best they could, but they were and are by no means the model of a functional family.

Benjamin, this post and your following one lead me to think that our perspectives are not really that far apart. I think we both recognise that Margareta is the present and Nicholas the future of the Royal House of Romania, and that it is the Royal House of Romania, not their distant Hohenzollern cousins, who are the natural heirs in the country.

Margareta's commitment to the country over the last 25 years is, as you say, to be admired, and I admire her deeply for what she has achieved. This has required the building of relationships with the various institutions of the state as it exists, and with the Parliament in particular. Critics may argue that these compromises with the "establishment" have gone too far, that mistakes have been made but there has been no sell-out. Nicholas too has a role to play and, as you say, has already shown his potential during the time before the recent troubles, and without him on board, the Royal House will fade into oblivion. However, if the current strife continues, the work of the last 25 years will be undone and there will be no

Margareta, as Head of House seems to be the one who needs to make the first move. She could perhaps open a dialogue but I'd argue that it is Nicholas who needs to unblock the situation by removing the obvious obstacles to his reinsertion in the succession, and, if he is smart, he'd try to do this before any bill is passed in the Parliament concerning the status of the Royal House. He needs to sort it out anyway, for his own personal peace of mind. If he is not the father, the matter is closed and if he is, then he must come to an arrangement.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Somebody

That's what he is saying now when the king was no longer in a position to refute that.

If he never believed it to be the king's decision, why did he accept the money, keep silent, and, more importantly, why didn't he raise the issue in his personal conversation with the king?

And why didn't his mother stand up for him? All in all, him playing the victim seems self-serving and not necessarily a correct representation of what happened.

This is not to say that I have full confidence in Margareta en Rady. Her use of 'majesty' adds to that but monarchues depend on having heirs and currently I don't see a clear succession plan in place.

The King did not seem to have mentioned anything about august 2015 when he met his grandson little bit later in the same year. Why?

[xenobia]

Just a few cents on the issue of Nicholas marriage (if the rumors are correct). I have a close friend who isn't royal but certainly has a dysfunctional family situation - and I think we all agree that the family situation in this case is dysfunctional. She and her husband chose to get married in a small, civil ceremony for that reason alone. Having a big wedding is difficult enough when you have a great family. They simply chose to opt out.

I think there is a real possibility that Nicholas chose the same here. He is a private citizen, and if he wants to get married he are certainly allowed to do so. I would say that choosing a private ceremony made things easier for everyone involved in this situation.

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by Andy T

Margareta, as Head of House seems to be the one who needs to make the first move. She could perhaps open a dialogue but I'd argue that it is Nicholas who needs to unblock the situation by removing the obvious obstacles to his reinsertion in the succession, and, if he is smart, he'd try to do this before any bill is passed in the Parliament concerning the status of the Royal House. He needs to sort it out anyway, for his own personal peace of mind. If he is not the father, the matter is closed and if he is, then he must come to an arrangement.

Indeed, we are probably more on the same page than not - I just cannot help sticking up for the one who it seems is the underdog in situation. Plus, as my own maternal grandfather played a big role in my development and I had him die rather unexpectedly (even though he was eighty-four, it still felt too soon), I also feel deeply for Nicholas in a personal way as well. I would have moved heaven and earth to be by my grandfather's bedside as he lay dying if a family member had tried to block me, and, fortunately, I was able to be at his side in the hospital almost every day over the course of the three months he was there until he expired. I cannot conceive what it must have been like for Nicholas to have been rebuffed on not just one, but seven, unsuccessful attempts to see his grandfather before Michael died. I do not care what happened between he and his aunt and uncle - that kind of behaviour just strikes me as so inhumane and cruel, and I will concede that is an emotional reaction on my part.

I also agree that it is Margarita that must make the first move. In theory, I concur that the paternity issue should be cleared up. But, if you have followed that situation, as I suspect you have, you know fully well that both Nicholas and Nicoleta have claimed to desire a paternity test (not one, but two, actually). For whatever reason, one has not occurred. That may be due to him or due to her. If it is the latter, then what on earth can Nicholas do about it? I've read some of Nicoleta's statements (i.e. Facebook statuses), and at this point it does not really seem like she may even desire that the father of her child be involved.

Overall, I think this family has made a big mess of things on an interpersonal level. From everything I have heard, King Michael and Queen Anne were wonderful people, and the King would have made an excellent constitutional monarch...but they were not great parents, and it has shown in the way their descendants have acted towards each other over the decades. I would almost argue that the royal family is itself a pit of vipers. Yet, concurrently, they have also somehow been blessed with extremely good fortune due to the progress of that bill, in particular. Hopefully the Good Lord gives them all wisdom on how to act with humility to heal their self-inflicted fractures.

[Cory]

Those that were involved in the sad events of August 2015 should explain what happened and reconcile with Nicholas de Roumanie Medforth Mills. The image and the credibility of the Family will gain a lot from such a reconciliation.

[Somebody]

Originally Posted by Cory

The King did not seem to have mentioned anything about august 2015 when he met his grandson little bit later in the same year. Why?

That's what nicholas says now but not when the king was still in a position to give his own version of that conversation. If he indeed didn't bring it up, he probably figured that was done and he'd rather part with Nicholas on a positive note, so why bring it up?

It was Nicholas who apparently was not on board with the decision, so he is the one to blame for not even raising the issue. Especially, if he thought his grandfather was not involved in the decision. So his story about 'we didn't even talk about it and nobody knows what we talked about' isn't very strong.

[Cory]

It is rather strange the King did not discuss such a change with his grandson . The Sovereign was a very fair and direct person and he was very close to Nicholas. Why take a decision like that one and avoid speaking about it with his grandson?It makes no sense.

[MissByrd]

Benjamin:
I've found the "tribute" book; quite expensive. I also saw the "plagiarised" version. Interesting. I will keep looking. I often find books in a variety of places.
I appreciate your remarks in hopes that the Good Lord will give this family wisdom. I must say that I don't remember seeing a family look so miserable and in so much obvious pain. I felt moved to pray for them for wisdom, mercy, grace, healing and reconciliation.

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by Somebody

That's what nicholas says now but not when the king was still in a position to give his own version of that conversation. If he indeed didn't bring it up, he probably figured that was done and he'd rather part with Nicholas on a positive note, so why bring it up?

It was Nicholas who apparently was not on board with the decision, so he is the one to blame for not even raising the issue. Especially, if he thought his grandfather was not involved in the decision. So his story about 'we didn't even talk about it and nobody knows what we talked about' isn't very strong.

1) It is quite possible that King Michael was not in a mental state where he could have actually made the decision.

2) Nicholas was repeatedly not allowed to see his grandfather after September 2015, when some members of the family were in Switzerland to celebrate Anne's birthday, so he hardly had the chance to discuss it afterwards.

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by MissByrd

Benjamin:
I've found the "tribute" book; quite expensive. I also saw the "plagiarised" version. Interesting. I will keep looking. I often find books in a variety of places.
I appreciate your remarks in hopes that the Good Lord will give this family wisdom. I must say that I don't remember seeing a family look so miserable and in so much obvious pain. I felt moved to pray for them for wisdom, mercy, grace, healing and reconciliation.

Sometimes a copy pops up on eBay for a reasonable price. Then there is always addall.com/used. I do not know how many copies were printed... Good luck!

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

1) It is quite possible that King Michael was not in a mental state where he could have actually made the decision.

2) Nicholas was repeatedly not allowed to see his grandfather after September 2015, when some members of the family were in Switzerland to celebrate Anne's birthday, so he hardly had the chance to discuss it afterwards.

If the King did not take that decision who took it on his behalf and Why?

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by Cory

If the King did not take that decision who took it on his behalf and Why?

I think that I have spelled it out pretty clearly in this thread and others.

[Cory]

If this is the case no wonder Nicholas de Roumanie Medforth Mills is more and more popular. Even some of the English press speak about his growing popularity:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...Bucharest.html

[LadyFinn]

Originally Posted by Cory

If the King did not take that decision who took it on his behalf and Why?

Nicholas told to the press he would tell in December who took the decision. Obviously he isn't telling it now when the family is in mourning. We have to wait some time now.