Margareta, Custodian of the Crown of Romania (; born 26 March 1949) is the eldest daughter of King Michael I and Queen Anne of Romania. She assumed her father's duties in March 2016, upon his retirement, and has claimed the headship of the House of Romania since his death on 5 December 2017. She also heads the Margareta of Romania Royal Foundation.
Until 2011, Margareta also used the style of a princess of Hohenzollern. Margareta has four sisters and no brothers or children. Her heir-presumptive is her next sister, Princess Elena of Romania. According to the defunct royal constitutions of 1923 and 1938, women were barred from wearing the crown, and Margareta and her sisters would not be in the line of succession to the throne.
On 30 December 2007, King Michael designated Margareta as heir presumptive to the defunct throne by an act that is not recognized by the Romanian government and lacks legal validity without approval by Romania's Parliament. On the same occasion, Michael also requested that, should the Romanian Parliament consider restoring the monarchy, the Salic law of succession not be reinstated, allowing female succession. According to the new statute of the Romanian Royal House as declared by Michael, no illegitimate descendants or collateral lines may claim dynastic privileges, titles or rank and any such are excluded from the Royal House of Romania and from the line of succession to the throne.
Early life
Birth
Margareta was born on 26 March 1949 at Clinique de Montchoisi in Lausanne, Switzerland, as the first of King Michael I and Queen Anne's five daughters. She was baptised in the Romanian Orthodox Church; her godfather was Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Her godmother was her maternal grandmother Princess Margaret of Denmark who was also her namesake. She was followed by four sisters: Princess Elena (born 1950), Princess Irina (born 1953), Princess Sophie (born 1957) and Princess Maria (born 1964).
Childhood
Margareta spent her childhood at family homes in Lausanne and at Ayot House, St Lawrence, in Hertfordshire, England. During holidays she and her sisters spent time with their grandparents; paternally with Helen, Queen Mother, at Villa Sparta in Italy and maternally, with Princess Margaret and her husband Prince René of Bourbon-Parma in Copenhagen. She and her sisters were told "fascinating tales of a homeland they couldn't visit" by their father. She also spent time with relatives in Greece, Italy, Denmark, Luxembourg and Spain.
Margareta met Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom for the first time in the summer of 1952 at Balmoral Castle, when she was three years old. In her childhood, she spent holidays with Prince Charles and his sister, Princess Anne, who were close to Margareta, as well as Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta (her cousin), and the Greek, Danish and Luxembourg royal families.
Queen Helen's interest in horses influenced Margareta to become an equestrian.
In 1964, along with five other princesses, Margareta was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark to King Constantine II of Greece.
Education
Early education
In 1956, Margareta lived with Queen Helen for six months at her villa in Florence, attending kindergarten until returning to Switzerland, where she attended a primary school, with Princess Sophie, from age six to nine.
Secondary education
In 1960, she was sent to a boarding school in Old Basing, Hampshire, where she stayed until she was 13; she found it difficult to be away from home but was glad that she became more mature, noting that her English improved later.
Her favourite subjects were: art, riding and natural sciences (she learned how to grow plants) and also piano lessons.
In 1964, she began secondary education at a French school in Switzerland, where she studied philosophy.
"I did my baccalaureate in Switzerland, got my driving licence the next day and I left very fast. I really didn't enjoy the baccalaureate, I didn't enjoy school, I didn't enjoy Switzerland" Margareta said in an interview in 2007.
After her Swiss-French baccalaureate, rather than heading straight for Paris and studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, her preferred destination, she was persuaded to return to Florence to spend a year with her Romanian grandmother, whom she described as "my spiritual guide, my mentor, guiding star. She taught me a lot about life, opened my eyes to all that is beautiful and good in the world". Her dreams of art school were soon replaced by a determination to go to university.