His Majesty King Simeon II

King Simeon II was born on June 16th, 1937 in Sofia, the son of King Boris III and Queen Ioanna. His birth was celebrated across Bulgaria with church bells, 101 cannon salvos, a broad amnesty for 4,000 prisoners, and tax forgiveness. On August 28th, 1943, upon the sudden death of King Boris III, the 6-year-old prince ascended to the throne as Simeon II, King of the Bulgarians, with a three-member Council of Regency governing on his behalf. 

Following the communist coup of September 9th, 1944, the royal regents were replaced and eventually executed after a staged political trial. The Royal Family was effectively held hostage at Vrana Palace until September 16th, 1946, when King Simeon II, his sister Princess Maria Louisa, and Queen Ioanna were forced to leave Bulgaria without the King abdicating. They settled first in Alexandria, Egypt, where Simeon attended the elite Victoria College, and later in Madrid, Spain, where he studied law and political sciences and graduated from the prestigious Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania in 1959. 

Throughout his 50 years in exile, King Simeon maintained extensive international relations - visiting European royal families, meeting world leaders such as Chiang Kai-shek and Pope John Paul II, and tirelessly supporting Bulgarian emigrants worldwide through charitable initiatives and even an informal Red Cross office at his Madrid home. On January 21st, 1962, he married the Spanish aristocrat Doña Margarita Gómez-Acebo y Cejuela, with whom he had five children.

King Simeon returned to Bulgaria for the first time on May 25th, 1996, to an extraordinary reception - nearly one million people took to the streets of Sofia. After being denied the opportunity to run for President due to a residency requirement, he founded a National Movement in his name in 2001, won the parliamentary elections that June, and served as Prime Minister from July 2001 to August 2005, guiding Bulgaria toward NATO membership and EU accession. 

In 2009, he stepped back from active politics to focus on cultural preservation and support for young Bulgarians. In October 2010, the Royal Family established the King Boris and Queen Giovanna Royal Heritage Fund, and in 2011 began restoring Vrana Palace as a cultural and historical center. King Simeon holds over thirty state and dynastic decorations from around the world, and following the death of Romanian King Michael, he became the senior living monarch by date of accession - from August 28th, 1943.