Maurice Collis, in his book on Nancy Astor, reports that Marie was "tall, handsome and strongly built, a good-hearted, affectionate woman, an old friend of Waldorf Astor: before he married, he often stayed at the Rumanian court. Lady Astor [said]: 'Marie of Rumania used to write to Waldorf every day when I first met him. I thought this too much on our honeymoon and I said I'd go home if it went on' ……. Actually, she never took Marie over-seriously, she was far too clever for that. Though she had not much opinion of her, they became excellent friends." King Ferdinand of Bulgaria talked to Hector Bolitho of Marie. "Dear Missie, the most beautiful of them all. And always so clever." Mrs. Woodrow Wilson is quoted as saying she liked the Infanta of Spain very much."She was not so pretty as her sister [Marie] but had more dignity and was very clever." She also quoted Marie describing the young Ileane as her "love child". Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart was more forthright - in reply to Queen Marie's saying: "What did I do to deserve children like this?" he replied "Never brought them up properly."

Randolph Churchill was at Sandroyd, a boarding school near Cobham, Surrey, when Marie came to visit, as another cutting indicates. Accompanied by Mr. Hornby [the Headmaster], she inspected the boys. "She naturally embraced her three nephews, the Princes Alvaro, Alonza and Atalfo: she also embraced me. I was flattered but surprised and supposed that she had done this because I was the son of a famous man …. What made us giggle very much was when she embraced Rattigan, which could not have been due to consanguinity or to the fame of his parents, but was purely a testimonial to his personal charm and good looks."

Rosita Forbes, in a piece reproduced from Gypsy in the Sun, loved her visit to the Queen at Sinaia: "Her smile was like a flame. She had no small irritating poses. It may be that all her life was an act for which she staged a suitably dramatic background ….. Above all, she was the sort of queen the peasants loved. They looked upon her as a fairy-tale and, when she wanted to build another Hans Andersen castle, they used to cut and haul the timber for it as a gift." She criticised her son-in-law King George for leaving Greece. "Once you leave a country you are forgotten. The great thing is to stay in the capital and do things …… Kings have got to be seen and talked about. It doesn't much matter what they do so long as it's a lot. Half our business in life is to provide conversation for our subjects." There is obviously hope for our Royal Family yet.

Slightly disproving the notion that her unfortunate experiences with her husband had led the beautiful queen into an aversion to men, Miss Grey quotes Countess Larisch and Clare Sheridan stating that Princess Ileana was the daughter of Prince Stirbey, her reputed lover. Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, saw her dancing a quadrille with George V and Queen Mary "got up in a scarlet cloak and a gold helmet like a fireman's - but I was forgetting, firemen don't wear gold helmets any more."

Viscount Mersey lunched at Petworth with the Romanian Queen in July 1936: "I sat on one side of H.M. who told me about her memoirs, which she said had done well, particularly the serial rights. She talked a little of politics and was evidently most anxious for Anglo-German friendship. She speaks English easily but with a slight German accent; she asked if I noticed it."

Hector Bolitho was ushered into Marie's bedroom on a visit, unaware that she was dying. "There must have been fifteen big vases of orchids and crimson lilies forming a splendid fan of colour above and on each side of the bed. Queen Marie was sitting up against a bank of loose cushions. I did not know that she was dying. The Queen had the rare qualities and talents that stir men to immediate chivalry. Even the mistakes of her life had been majestic and the gold room with the great flames of lilies and the heavy gold furniture made the setting that was natural to her. To this day I can visualize the oval of her face, the warming sympathy of her eyes, and a string of big, creamy pearls that lost themselves in a foam of shell-pink silk. One hand, with an enormous turquoise and diamond ring rested on a small lace cushion, no bigger than a lady's handkerchief."

A Miss Newbery saw Marie on her death bed. "What a strong face the dead Queen had! Her iron-grey hair sprang thick and wavy from her forehead and her finely-modelled features, even in the repose of death, showed tremendous character." She also attended the funeral: "King Carol himself, in his long white ceremonial cloak of Michael the Brave, stroke along staring about him to the right and left and, whatever he may have felt privately, evincing not the slightest show of grief." Marie's secretary, Miss Galitzi, often spoke to Miss Newbery "of the new book the Queen was writing as a sequel to The Story of My Life. After the Queen's death, Carol ordered the manuscript to be destroyed."

Meriel Buchanan wrote a touching tribute to her: "Whatever mistakes she may have made, she was never petty or trivial or ungenerous. If she brought sorrow to some, she brought joy to thousands of others by her gaiety and magnetic personality. When she came into a room, she seemed to bring light and animation with her, stimulating by her appearance even the most elderly and weary statesmen and Court attendants, making them forget their aching feet and straighten their tired backs in a sudden alacrity." That is how we should remember her. Bolitho reprints an extract from a letter concerning King Constantine I and Queen Sophie from Marie of Romania, written to an American friend in 1936. "Yes, I think King Constantine and Queen Sophie were unfairly treated. I think also that both had very great limitations ……. Sophie always complained, life seemed for her a weight, a losing battle: her conventionality, her preconceived ideas, tastes and prejudices withered all joie de vivre in her. She always felt defeated, so she attracted defeat …. I confess she bored me. I felt stifled in her company. She made me feel as though I had corners, as though I were too healthy, too big for her over-tidy rooms, her over-labelled ideas. We were quite good friends. As a widow, she spent months and months in Rumania."

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