In later 1930, he was stripped of his titles and privileges and exiled from the Royal Court, due to King Carol II's disapproval of his marriage.

Nicholas was born on 5 August 1903 in Peleș Castle, Sinaia as the second son of Crown Prince Ferdinand of Romania and his wife Princess Marie of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Edinburgh.

Given Michael's youth, a regency council had to be formed (20 July), and Prince Nicholas was forced to abandon his career in the British Royal Navy—in which he held the honorary rank of sub-lieutenant[5]—in order to return home to serve on the council, alongside Gheorghe Buzdugan and Patriarch Miron Cristea.

By then, the regency was widely perceived as consisting of figureheads, and, after Constantin Sărăţeanu (an appointee of PNŢ leader Iuliu Maniu) succeeded the deceased Buzdugan in 1929, it was believed to be torn apart by contrasting political ambitions.

He welcomed the Parliament session that voted to repeal the 1926 legislation, and accompanied his newly arrived brother from Băneasa Airfield to Cotroceni Palace.

Nicholas wanted to marry Ioana Dumitrescu-Doletti, a divorced woman belonging to a Tohani landowning family, but was aware it might prove embarrassing for the king to authorize such a marriage.

His first marriage took place in Tohani, Romania, on 7 November 1931, the bride being Ioana Dumitrescu-Doletti (24 September 1910 in Bucharest – 19 February 1963 in Lausanne).

[6] There is also correspondence of Prince Nicholas preserved in the "Mother Alexandra Papers" collection, also in the Hoover Institution Archives (Stanford, California, USA).