The Queensland girl who married into royalty but was never officially recognised as queen
By Jo Abi|
When Crown Prince Leka II announced he and wife Crown Princess Elia were divorcing, it turned attention to a little-known European monarchy fraught with conflict.
The Albanian royal couple were married for eight years before announcing their divorce this week via an official statement by the prince.
They share one child, daughter Princess Geraldine, three จC named after Crown Prince Leka II's grandmother, Queen Geraldine of Albania.
What many don't realise is the Albanian royal family has an Aussie link.?
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Long before Queen Mary met King Frederik in a bar in Sydney, Queensland woman Susan Cullen-Ward met Crown Prince Leka I and married into the Albanian royal family while the royal was still living in exile.?
Cullen-Ward grew up in the affluent Sydney suburb of Waverly and then on her father's sheep station.
Her parents were Phyllis Dorothea Murray-Prior and her father was pastoralist Alan Robert Cullen-Ward.
Cullen-Ward was also a great-granddaughter of Queensland politician Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior.?
She was also reportedly a descendant of Edward I of England and his first wife Eleanor of Castile.
Her cousin, Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, wrote the poem The Man from Snowy River, embedding her family's roots in the country's folklore.
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Following the couple's divorce, Cullen-Ward met and married Crown Prince Leka I of Albania, the only child of King Zog of Albania.
He became King Leka I of Albania upon his father King Zog's death in 1961. Fun fact: King Leka I was 6'9" tall.
Following their meeting, King Leka I reportedly invited Cullen-Ward to Spain, where he was living, where she studied tourism. They began dating and were engaged in 1974.
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The couple married a year later in October 1975 in a civil ceremony, and again shortly after in a religious ceremony in Madrid.?
Upon their marriage, Cullen-Ward was styled as Her Majesty Queen Susan of the Albanians however this was not officially recognised as they remained living in exile.
The history of the Albanian royal family is complicated. The country's monarchy was founded by Zogu Pasha during the early 13th century, when Zog I proclaimed himself King of the Albanians.
He ruled until 1939 when Italy invaded the country and King Zog was deposed by fascist Victor Emmanual II of Italy.
King Zog I was forced to leave the throne and flee to England. He lived in exile until his death in 1961.
King Leka I of Albania died in 2011, however by this time Albania no longer recognised a monarchy, and so his son remains Crown Prince Leka II of Albania.?
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?Upon their marriage, his parents King Leka I and Queen Susan moved from one country to the next, with no fixed residence.
At first they resided in Spain and then Rhodesia, which is now known as Zimbabwe. Next they moved to South Africa, which is where Crown Prince Leka II was born in 1982.
King Leka I and Queen Susan considered themselves to be the heads of the Albanian monarchy despite their exile, and continued to work for the Albanian people, which won them some favour.
King Leka I first returned to Albania in 1993 but was in the country less than 24 hours before he was told to leave by the Albanian National Informative Service or SHIK.
They returned again in 1997 after 58 years in exile and were greeted by 10,000 supporters at the airport. This was during a time of great unrest for Albania which was experiencing an economic collapse as well as the collapse of law and order. The country was in need of strong leadership and were happy to embrace the monarchy.
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A referendum was held for the people to choose between the Constitutional Monarchy and a Republic. The vote for the Constitutional Monarchy won although the controversy over the country's royal family continued.
King Leka decided to leave the country once more to prevent a civil war and returned gain in 1998 with the support of the Legality Movement.
Crown Prince Leka II was 19 when he first arrived in Albania, where he now resides.
In 2004, Crown Princess Susan died of lung cancer at the age of 63.
Upon her death the royal lay in state in a chapel outside Tirana and was buried at the Mausoleum of the Albania Royal Family, next to her mother-in-law, Queen Geraldine and her husband, Crown Prince Leka, as well his father.
?In her eulogy, friend Mixael De Kock spoke of her loneliness during her time in Africa.
"Two years after their arrival in Johannesburg, Crown Prince Leka was born," he shared.
"For her and her son there were to be no royal luxuries ? available funds were reserved for the bare necessities."
It was a sad end for the Queensland girl.
Queen Susan was never officially recognised as such in Albania and the future of her son Crown Leka II remains uncertain.
