Romania: exiled King Michael will miss funeral of wife Anne

BUCHAREST, Romania – Romania’s royal house says former King Michael, who has cancer, will miss his wife’s funeral on the advice of medics.

The Royal House said Monday five doctors had recommended that Michael, 94, not travel to Romania to attend the Aug. 13 funeral of Anne of Romania, his wife of 68 years.

Michael, who was forced to abdicate by the communists in 1947 and went into exile, will remain at his home in Switzerland. Anne died in Switzerland on Aug. 1, aged 92.

Anne’s body will be flown to Bucharest Tuesday and will then lie in state at Peles Castle in the mountain resort of Sinaia, and later in Bucharest.

Four of Anne and Michael’s five daughters will attend the funeral which is the biggest royal funeral in Romania since Queen Marie, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria who died in 1938.

The Royal House said Anne’s grandson Nicholas Medforth-Mills, whom Michael stripped of his title in August 2015 in unexplained circumstances, will attend. Medforth-Mills had been third in line to the throne after his aunt and his mother.

The names of other royal families attending the funeral will be published on Thursday.