Life
Born in the former Byzantine imperial Rangabe-Lambrino family, the daughter of Romanian Colonel later General Constantin Lambrino and Euphrosine Alcaz, Joanna Lambrino met the Hohenzollern prince Carol, son of King Ferdinand of Romania and Queen Marie of Romania, in Iaşi, Romania, in 1918, during World War I. The Romanian court had adjourned from Bucharest to Iaşi to keep its distance from a German invasion. Journalist A.L. Easterman would later write that "Carol fell violently in love and was at no pains to dissemble it", despite the obvious disapproval of the royal court for his bestowing his affections on a commoner. Even so, there are several photographs with Zizi Lambrino and Carol II at the Royal Family residences or together with other members of the Romanian Royal Family. Lulu, Zizi's brother, was one of Carol's best friends and exchanged mail throughout their lives.
Some say their union was opposed by his parents, but Carol "smuggled" her across the Ukrainian (former Russian) frontier and they married in the Orthodox Cathedral Church of Odessa, Ukrainian State on 31 August 1918, in the presence of witnesses.
Carol's parents were furious. The king ordered him kept seventy-five days in close confinement in Bistriţa Monastery. Prime Minister Ion I. C. Brătianu practically accused him of treason. Carol threatened to renounce his right of royal succession and, indeed, when the Romanian Supreme Court ruled the marriage unconstitutional and illegal, and annulled it, in 1919, he signed documents of renunciation.
However, as Easterman describes it, "intriguers... cunningly... other young and attractive women in his view and society" and eventually "corroded his relations with his wife..."
King Carol II and Zizi Lambrino had one son, Mircea Gregor Carol Lambrino (8 August 1920 – 27 January 2006). Carol and the Romanian government continued to pay Lambrino's maintenance and that of her son in their French exile.
She died in Paris, France on 11 March 1953.
Read more about this topic: Zizi Lambrino
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In Ulysses, James Joyce wrote, “Greater love than this ... no man hath that a man lay down his wife for his friend.”