Scapegrace No. 2

The Chief of the Rumanian Air Force, Admiral of the Fleet, Inspector General of the Army and President of the Supreme War Council, His Royal Highness Prince Nicholas picked up the Official Gazette one day last week and learned that his bitterest personal enemy, General Paul Angelescu, had been appointed President of the Supreme War Council.

Promptly Prince Nicholas issued an order of the day advising Rumanian troops that he, Nicholas, remained President of the Supreme War Council. This order of the day was suppressed by command of toothy Prince Nicholas' even toothier elder brother, King Carol II. His Majesty was also graciously pleased to convene the Crown Council so that it might deal with what was obviously a national emergency.

Although matters touching highest offices of State thus hung in the balance, what seemed to be the trouble was a spat between "Rumania's two Mrs. Simpsons," for in this respect the little kingdom has doubled up on Great Britain. Bucharest's potent Mrs. Simpson No. 1 is titian-haired, curvesome Mme Magda Lupescu, the Jewish companion and adviser of the King. His Majesty feels that his "sacrifice" in not marrying his Mrs. Simpson No. 1 is one which leaves all Rumania under a debt of gratitude to the Throne. In holding this opinion King Carol glosses over or forgets that in his youth he took a morganatic wife, Mme Zizi Lambrino, put her aside to marry Princess Helen of Greece and Rumania, who is the mother of Rumanian Crown Prince Mihai, and not only was divorced but actually abdicated as Crown Prince prior to his triumphal restoration as King (TIME, June 16, 1930). This behavior by King Carol led his brother Prince Nicholas to suppose he would find His Majesty sympathetic when Nicholas too made a morganatic marriage, running off with a beauteous divorcee, Mme Jana Lucia Deletj, who today is Rumania's Mrs. Simpson No. 2. Instead of proving sympathetic, scapegrace King Carol flew into towering rages about scapegrace Prince Nicholas, and soon the Rumanian Supreme Court decided that the marriage of His Royal Highness Prince Nicholas is "non-existent"' --despite the fact of his bonny little son.

All this Rumania has been winking at for years, while high Bucharest society has been obliged to entertain its Mrs. Simpson No. 2 as though she were a royal princess, because of the insistence of Prince Nicholas. Recently, however, Mrs. Simpson No. 1 became suspicious that anti-Semitic plots against her were hatching with the knowledge of Mrs. Simpson No. 2. Last week the mutual fury of these two more-or-less scorned women gave Rumania jitters not relieved by the fact that Queen Mother Marie is still abed with a case of what many Rumanians believe to have been poison--presumably administered by Iron Guard agents as a warning to King Carol that he may be next, unless he puts aside Mrs. Simpson No. 1. This white-hot atmosphere of strife suddenly and superficially cleared up last week as Premier George Tatarescu essayed at Bucharest the role played to such perfection recently by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. It was soothingly announced in London that the friendship of Edward VIII and Mr. Baldwin was "a friendship of perfection" on the day the latter obtained the former's abdication (TIME, Dec. 21). Last week Premier Tatarescu sent Vice Premier Ion Inculet with a beautifully engrossed parchment for Prince Nicholas to sign, renouncing all his rights (he is second in line for the Throne) and even depriving himself of membership in the Rumanian Royal Family, sinking to be no royal Duke of Windsor but an ordinary untitled subject. According to the Rumanian Government, Nicholas said he was "satisfied" to sign this parchment, and everything had been settled at Bucharest as beautifully as at London.

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