Once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea, a handsome 24-year-old king married a beautiful 18-year-old princess, and the people of the kingdom rejoiced, and the king and queen lived in a golden palace in the capital, surrounded by royal gardens.
The king in this fairy tale was Constantine II of Greece. His teenage bride was Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark. But in 1967, three years after their wedding, after a coup and a failed countercoup, the young couple and their two small children were driven out of Greece, making a harrowing escape that forced the family into more than four decades of exile. In 1974, while Constantine was living in England and forbidden to speak on his own behalf, the king's subjects abolished the monarchy and stripped the royal family of its palaces, titles, property, and passports.
Now, almost 50 years after he left Greece, at a moment when the eyes of the world regard the country with pity and sorrow, when wealthy Greeks have long since stashed their money in other countries, and when young Greeks are desperately seeking ways to go anywhere else to find work, Constantine, no longer young, has chosen to move back to his native land, investing heavily in a new home for his remaining years and living as a commoner.