[1] As Michael was still a minor, a regency council was instituted, composed of his uncle Prince Nicolas, Patriarch Miron Cristea and Chief Justice Gheorghe Buzdugan.

In November 1947, Michael attended the wedding of his cousins, the future Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark in London.

In 1992, Michael was allowed to visit Romania for Easter, where he was greeted by huge crowds;[1] a speech he gave from his hotel window drew an estimated one million people to Bucharest.

[4][5] A regency, which included his uncle, Prince Nicolae, Patriarch Miron Cristea, and the country's Chief Justice (Gheorghe Buzdugan, and from October 1929, Constantin Sărățeanu [ro]) functioned on behalf of the five-year-old Michael, when he succeeded Ferdinand in 1927.

[8] Just days after the Second Vienna Award, the pro-Nazi anti-Soviet regime of Prime Minister Marshal Ion Antonescu staged a coup d'état against Carol II, whom he claimed to be "anti-German".

[10] Although King Michael was formally the Supreme Head of the Army, named Conducător ("Leader of the people"), and entitled to appoint the Prime Minister with full powers, in reality he was forced to remain a figurehead for most of the war, until August 1944.

[15] Under the terms of the armistice, Romania recognized its defeat by the USSR and was placed under occupation of the Allied forces, with the Soviets, as their representative, in control of media, communication, post, and civil administration behind the front.

In response to Soviet, British, and American pressures,[24] King Michael eventually gave up his opposition to the communist government and stopped demanding its resignation.

Michael returned to Elisabeta Palace in Bucharest, to find it surrounded by troops from the Tudor Vladimirescu Division, an army unit completely loyal to the Communists.

On 3 January 1948, Michael was forced to leave the country, followed[35] over a week later by Princesses Elisabeth and Ileana, who collaborated so closely with the Soviets that they became known as the King's "Red Aunts".

[39] According to a few articles in Jurnalul Naţional,[40][41] Michael's abdication was negotiated with the Communist government, which allowed him to leave the country with the goods he requested, accompanied by some of the royal retinue.

He was allowed to leave the country accompanied by some of his entourage and, as confirmed also by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev recounting Gheorghiu-Dej's confessions,[42] with whatever properties he desired, including gold and rubies.

There are reports[45][46][47][48][49] that Romanian Communist authorities allowed King Michael to depart with 42 valuable Crown-owned paintings in November 1947, so that he would leave Romania faster.

According to declassified Foreign Office documents that were the subject of news reports in 2005, when he left Romania, the exiled King Michael's only assets amounted to 500,000 Swiss francs.

[56] Recently declassified Soviet transcripts of talks between Joseph Stalin and the Romanian Prime Minister Petru Groza[57][58] show that shortly before his abdication, King Michael received from the communist government assets amounting to 500,000 Swiss francs.

King Michael, however, repeatedly denied[59][60][61] that the Communist government had allowed him to take into exile any financial assets or valuable goods besides four personal automobiles loaded on two train cars.

Instead, she planned to stay behind, go alone to the Paris railway station and, pretending to be a passerby in the crowd, privately observe the king as his entourage escorted him to his London-bound train.

Upon arrival in London, she stopped by Claridge's to see her parents, and found herself being introduced unexpectedly to King Michael I. Abashed to the point of confusion, she clicked her heels instead of curtseying, and fled in embarrassment.

Charmed, the king saw her again the night of the wedding at the Luxembourg embassy soirée, confided in her some of his concerns about the Communist takeover of Romania and fears for his mother's safety, and nicknamed her Nan.

A few days later, she accepted an invitation to accompany Michael and his mother when he piloted a Beechcraft aeroplane to take his aunt Princess Irene, Duchess of Aosta, back home to Lausanne.

[64] Although Michael gave her an engagement ring a few days later, he felt obliged to refrain from a public announcement until he informed his government, despite the fact that the press besieged them in anticipation.

[63] As a Bourbon, Anne was bound by the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, which required that she receive a dispensation to marry a non-Catholic Christian (King Michael I was Orthodox).

Helen, Queen Mother of Romania and her sister Princess Irene, Duchess of Aosta (an Orthodox married to a Catholic Prince) met with the fiancée's parents in Paris, where the two families resolved to take their case to the Vatican in person.

In December 2003, allegedly to the "stupefaction of the public opinion in Romania",[84][85] Michael awarded the "Man of The Year 2003"[86] prize to Prime Minister Adrian Năstase, leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), on behalf of the tabloid VIP.

[87] The daily Evenimentul Zilei subsequently complained that 'such an activity was unsuited to a king and that Michael was wasting away his prestige', with the majority of the political analysts 'considering his gesture as a fresh abdication'.

[94] On 2 March 2016, the Royal Council announced King Michael's retirement from public life;[95][96] with tasks assumed by Crown Princess Margareta, his daughter.

[100][101][102] His coffin, draped by his Royal Standard, was brought back to Romania on 13 December, arriving at the Otopeni Airport in Bucharest from Lausanne, via Payerne Air Base, escorted by his second daughter, Princess Elena with her husband Alexander Nixon, fourth daughter Sophie and also members of the Royal Household, were transported by the Romanian Air Force's Alenia C-27J Spartan transport aircraft, which was flanked by four Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 jet fighters.

King Michael I was buried on 16 December with full state honours in the Mausoleum of the Royal Family, on the grounds of the Curtea de Argeș Cathedral together with his wife Queen Anne who died in 2016.

[citation needed] According to the succession provisions of the Romanian kingdom's last democratically approved monarchical constitution of 1923, upon the death of King Michael without sons, the claim to the Crown devolves once again upon the Hohenzollern family.

[120][121] Shortly after the Second World War, Michael became interested in Moral Rearmament, which was introduced to him by his first cousin Prince Richard of Hesse-Cassel,[122] and as Swiss residents after 1956 he and Queen Anne paid numerous visits to the MRA conference centre of Caux, where he found solace for the loss of his country and his émigré status as well as new hope for future reconciliation.