Queen Anne of Romania, who has died at the age of 92, was queen of a country whose language she did not speak and on whose soil she did not step until she was nearly 70. Related to most of the royal families of Europe, and wife of the exiled and troubled King Michael of Romania, she was content to live the life of a Swiss housewife.Her great simplicity and adaptability were invaluable attributes in her marriage to a serious-minded man who had been dispossessed of his country and the duties that gave his life purpose.His career took her from a chicken farm in Britain to suburban life in Switzerland, and then threw the pair both back into the public eye after the overthrow of Ceausescu in Romania in 1989.Princess Anne Antoinette Françoise Charlotte Bourbon-Parma was born in Paris on September 18 1923, the only daughter of Prince René of Bourbon-Parma and Princess Margrethe of Denmark.Her childhood holidays were spent at the Villa Pianore in Lucca with the dowager duchess of Parma, and at Castle Bernstorff, Copenhagen, with Prince Waldemar of Denmark.After the German invasion of France, her family fled to New York and had to earn a living. Her father found employment with a domestic gas company while her mother made hats.Anne worked for a time as a shop assistant. Later she enlisted as an ambulance driver in the Free French army and saw service in North Africa and Italy before landing at St Maxime in the south of France and following the Allied advance. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre.She met her future husband in London in November 1947, at the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip of Greece. Their introduction was arranged. One of her brothers took Michael to the cinema and afterwards returned to the family suite at Claridge's where the princess was waiting to receive him.Despite the formality of their meeting, Michael said he was charmed by her frank regard, her bold smile and her simplicity.He proposed to her within days. Michael, who could not marry without the consent of Romania's parliament, returned to Bucharest in December 1947.When the communist leader, Petru Groza, sought an audience with Michael and his mother to discuss "an intimate family matter", they presumed he wished to discuss the marriage. In fact he had come to force the king to abdicate, and on December 30 1947 Michael fled to exile in Switzerland.Anne's family was mostly Catholic, while Michael's was Orthodox and t he Vatican insisted that any children must be brought up Catholic, while the Romanian constitution decreed that all royal children should be brought up in the Orthodox Church. T he Pope remained inflexible and the plight of the young couple captured the imagination of the press .Further Vatican pronouncements brought hesitations, postponement of the wedding - and Anne to the edge of nervous breakdown. She was eventually married to Michael on June 10 1948 in Athens . As Catholics her parents could not attend the ceremony.Twenty years after their first wedding, Anne was able to marry her husband in a simple private ceremony following Catholic rites.After their first marriage they rented a house in Hertfordshire. They became market gardeners, then started a poultry farm.In 1956, they moved to Versoix on Lake Geneva. Michael worked first as a test pilot for Learjet, then started an electronics company; he also became a stockbroker.Anne brought up their five daughtersto speak English and French and essentially lived the life of a suburban housewife. She wrote a book with her husband on growing gentians.When the revolution came in 1989, she and her husband were allowed to return to his country .In 1992, Anne and Michael visited Romania for three days; it was her first visit to the country.Anne's husband and daughters survive her.1923-2016..