'We reigned in darkness'

King Michael of Romania talks to Simon Sebag Montefiore about dining with Hitler, and other grim duties

'RESTORATION', I say to the old King of Romania, `is rather a beautiful word, is it not?'

`Restoration? That's for my country to say. But I would like it not for me, because I am old, but for Romania,' says King Michael, the last living Commander-inChief in the second world war - Allied or Axis, and he was both! He is a tall, handsome, grey-haired and austere man of 75 who, by the time he reached 30, had been King of Romania twice, overthrown twice, lunched with, and defied, Hitler, dined with Mussolini, been betrayed by Churchill, launched a successful coup d'etat against Hitler's stooge, and finally been forced to abdicate at gunpoint by Stalin's henchmen. King Michael's extraordinary life of glory, adventure, tragedy and now resurgence features in the novels of The Balkan Trilogy but also belongs in the Ruritanian romances of Anthony Hope.

The monarchs of eastern Europe dynasties often recruited from German royalty - are suddenly popular again, symbols of freedom before Stalinism: King Simeon of Bulgaria, the Coburg descendant of 'Foxy' Ferdinand, and King Leka of Albania, son of that local adventurer Zogu, are both reconciled to the governments of their former kingdoms. The Karageorges are favoured by Serbia's opposition; the Romanovs by President Yeltsin; even in Georgia, President Shevardnadze considers restoring the Bagrations after he retires. But King Michael remains the most likely monarch to succeed. Now, the only man alive to have reigned twice (except for Cambodia's King Sihanouk) is the once, twice - and future - king.

`Now I've been asked to negotiate for Romania to enter Nato,' says the dignified King Michael. `The only thing I can say is that I'm happy; the Elisabeth Palace has been returned and I can go back. I've got a passport that says Michael I.'

The King of Romania is both a curiosity of history and, suddenly, a new living political force in Romania: after having been excluded by the communists since 1947, he has been appointed by the Romanian President as a special ambassador to Nato. As such, he was recently in London with an official driver and a reception at the Romanian embassy. I met him at the Chelsea house of his daughter, Princess Margarita. He looks surprisingly Romanian for a product of Anglo-German royalty. In the 50 years of exile, he was distinguished only by a sepulchral silence. Indeed, he was one of the most silent men in Europe. But since he has returned to the service of his country and received a wildly enthusiastic welcome to Bucharest, the old king has become positively loquacious: he talks to me in an accent that I can only call `Ruritanian English'.

'I believe in constitutional monarchies, it's not so old-fashioned, you know. It has proved itself in seven or eight democracies in Europe today. Presidents are elected politicians who change every few years no continuity, while a king sees every side and every interest and there's a continuous line. It works well. I understand it after all, my grandmother was Queen Victoria's granddaughter, Queen Marie.'

`Is there an ex-kings' club?'

`They gave me moral support but they couldn't give financial or political help.' King Michael first became king in 1927 when he was five. His own father, King Carol II, deposed him three years later. He became king again in 1940 for seven desperately stormy years in which the boy-king performed with remarkable courage and honour. Therefore he knows something about the art of kingship. What lessons has he got for the modern king?

`When I became king, it was in a Europe already half in flames. Quite different from today. But I would say to a young king today in a constitutional monarchy like yours in Britain or Scandinavia: listen to the people, always keep in direct contact with them. Remain on good terms with politicians of every party. You can't help being rich because dynasties have often ruled for such a long time. But live simply and never show off except on big official occasions. Lastly, the King is head of state but he is also the first servant of the people. Never forget that.

'I lived by these rules in the war and when I threw out the Nazis the people knew me, sensed how I was feeling - and they backed me. My philosophy of kingship comes from my great-uncle, King Carol I: "Nothing without God." '

`Do you remember being king for the first time?'

`No, not really, I didn't realise what was going on. It's all very vague to me now.'

Perhaps King Michael's story should begin with King Carol I, a HohenzollernSigmaringen cousin of the German emperors: he travelled as a youngster in disguise to Bucharest where he had been chosen as prince of the new kingdom of Romania, formed by the Great Powers out of the Ottoman provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia. Carol, who ruled Romania from 1866 and was officially recognised as King in 1880, ruled with Spartan rigour for almost 50 years. He died early in the first world war, having managed to lay the foundations of Romania as a state. His successor was his nephew King Ferdinand. Married to Marie, daughter of Queen Victoria's son Prince Alfred, he brought Romania into the first world war beside the Allies, which led to its defeat and occupation by the Germans. When the Central Powers collapsed, the Allies created a greater Romania. But King Ferdinand had problems with his heir, the disastrous, overweening, confused Carol II, who was finally excluded from the succession. It was thus in 1927 that Carol's five-year-old son Michael (Mihai in Romanian) from his unhappy marriage to Princess Helen of Greece was crowned King of Romania: