Royalty in Exile

The bartenders at Rome's Eden Hotel, near the walls of Villa Borghese Park, have an unusual customer. He drinks little, but stays around for long, amiable conversations with them. He seems lonely and a little forlorn. One night recently he reached across the bar and poured his own drink. "I never had a chance to pick up a bottle for myself before," he explained. He is Constantine II, King of the Hellenes--restless and a bit bored by his extended exile from Greece.

Constantine, 27, who fled to Rome after his abortive countercoup last December, spends his days waiting and watching Greece from a two-room business suite at the Eden. He lives with the increasing fear not only that he will not be invited to return to his throne but that Greece's ruling junta might do away with the monarchy altogether. The Greeks are not notoriously pro-monarchy to begin with, and the junta has skillfully kept Constantine in an ambivalent position as to his eventual fate. This situation has caused the King to remain silent and mostly out of sight even as his country slips farther from his grasp. With no pressures of his own to apply, he can only hope not to antagonize the junta; he thus speaks with no Greek politicians, grants no press interviews. He is, in effect, a prisoner in exile.

But the lines of communication between the King and the regime, though exceedingly taut, remain open. Constantine has two aides with him in exile, and they shuttle between his headquarters and Athens with messages concerning such sensitive subjects as money. So far, the junta has continued to pay 150 servants and drivers who have been kept on at the palace in Athens and at various residences since the King's departure. The junta has put no limit on any personal funds the King might want to take out of Greece. For his own part, though, the King seems eager to show that he is living a relatively frugal existence.

Country Life. His current abode is a four-bedroom, ochre red house 15 miles from Rome, where he lives with Queen Anne-Marie and their two children; he pays about $500 a month for it. In contrast to his Athens stable of flashy cars, he makes do with a blue Mercedes 280 S, which he uses for commuting to town. Up the road a few hundred yards, and overlooking the royal couple's home, are the more sumptuous quarters of Queen Mother Frederika and Princess Irene: a ten-bedroom mansion provided rent-free by Greek Millionaire Felix Mechoulam. Country life for the royal family has had its drawbacks. The dearth of servants is particularly perturbing. The royal court has been trimmed to three, a lady-in-waiting for the Queen and the two business aides for the King. On Saturday afternoons and Sundays, the household help are off, and the family often go to the nearby Olgiata Club for dinner. Other nights they are apt to seek out one of Rome's simple trattorias.

To the distress of Rome's dolce vita set, the King and Queen have failed to live up to their advance billing as swingers. After they turned down an invitation to the Colonna ball, one of the year's biggest social flings, party-givers shied away from sending invitations for fear of being rejected. While the royal ladies recently ordered 15 gowns from the famed salon of Princess Irene Galitzine, the King has yet to appear in Rome in formal dress. Most of the royal family's social activity has been limited to the King's first love--sports events. Last week he escorted the Queen and Princess to the international horse show at Piazza di Siena. He recently took up golf. He has not set foot in a sailboat, though, and was disappointed to find that Rome does not have a single squash court.

Protecting the Throne. This quiet regimen has given the King ample opportunity to reflect about what is happening at home. He knows that the longer he stays away the slimmer become his chances of regaining the throne. As things now stand, the ruling colonels are free to build a government to their own liking, without palace interference, yet with an "absent King" to protect their legal position as servants of the monarchy. The junta still professes loyalty to the monarchy, but it has a different kind of monarchy in mind. Its members are unlikely even to consider Constantine's return until they draw up a new constitution that will severely limit his powers and make him a figurehead. Last week Deputy Premier Stylianos Pattakos told a Dutch journalist: "We aspire to have a monarchy in which the monarch has no political power--a modern King such as there is in England, Sweden and The Netherlands. A King standing apart and above political parties."

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