Tender Moments

Two pictures taken by the royal photographer Robert Marchand capture some moments of family tenderness.  Above, we see Queen Astrid with one of her children.  Below, Astrid's daughter, Josephine-Charlotte, and her half-brother Alexandre, play with their baby sister Marie-Christine. 

Graceful

An elegant picture of the daughter of Leopold and Astrid. She was certainly a beauty, although perhaps too often overshadowed by the elegance of her mother and step-mother.

Another New Princess

Another grandson of Princess Josephine-Charlotte of Belgium was just married. Here is footage of the wedding of Prince Guillaume, heir to the throne of Luxembourg, and Belgian noblewoman Stephanie de Lannoy.

A New Archduchess

On September 8, 2012, the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Imre of Habsburg-Lorraine, a grandson of Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium, married Miss Kathleen Walker at St. Mary's Church in Washington, D.C.  We wish the Archduke and his beautiful bride every blessing.

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Marie-Astrid, Princess of Wales?

Gareth Russell comments on the rumors that Princess Marie-Astrid of Luxembourg, grand-daughter of King Leopold III of the Belgians, might once have been considered a possible bride for the Prince of Wales. (Given the treatment of the Belgian monarch by Winston Churchill during World War II, it might have been an interesting historical revenge for Leopold).

That the government considered it possible that Prince Charles might one day want to marry Princess Marie-Astrid is shown by the fact that there were several committees set-up to see if it was constitutionally possible to repeal the ban on British royals marrying Catholics. There was soft opposition, from the beginning, including from Charles's beloved grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who was not only a devout Protestant but was also naturally opposed to change. Concerns about how such a marriage would affect the already-volatile situation in Northern Ireland were also voiced. Early in 1980, the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, set up a small committee to discuss the issue. According to her future biographer, Hugo Young, the Prime Minister herself was strongly opposed to changing the law or to encouraging the Prince's marriage to Marie-Astrid. And her objections rested squarely on the idea that the princess's religion was problematic and undesirable. Some of the committees other members later told Young that they had been shocked by "the extreme anti-Catholicism" of the Prime Minister.

Eventually the rumours about Charles and Marie-Astrid faded away. Maybe that's all they ever were. Neither Charles, nor Marie-Astrid, ever went firmly on the record about how much truth there had been in the idea that they could quite married. Evidently, Mrs. Thatcher considered it a possibility, but we don't know how sold on the idea Charles himself ever was. Charles soon announced his forthcoming marriage to the beautiful Diana Spencer - young, virginal, British, aristocrat and Protestant. And Marie-Astrid married a member of the deposed Austrian royal family, Archduke Carl-Christian, in 1982. (Read entire post)

Royal Scouts

Piet Kroonenberg discusses the involvement of two generations of Belgian royal children in the Scouts and Guides. Prince Baudouin, pictured above, was given the scouting name of "De Trouwe Eland," or "The Loyal Elk". 

King Albert I was killed during a rock climbing exercise in 1934 and as King Leopold III the Crown Prince took over. [1934-1951] -1983). He may never have been a Scout but he took a great interest in the movement. For his sons Boudewijn/Baudouin (1930 – 1993) and Albert (1934-today) a special Scout group was founded, as was a special Guide Company set up for this daughter the Princess Josephine-Charlotte. The official languages being Dutch, French and German and Belgium Scouting also being divided along religious lines, the men attracted to lead this group came from all the Belgium Scout Associations as did the Guiders. The boys and girls were collected from the nation’s all sections and classes. The Scout meetings were held in a hut in the Royal Park belonging to the Palace of Laeken, to the north of Brussels.

On May 1940 during World War II (1939-1945) the Armies of Nazi-Germany once more violated Belgium’s neutrality. Despite brave resistance the Belgium Army was no match to the motorized Germans and Belgium had to end the unequal struggle and had to surrender. Whereas the Netherlands, this time also attacked, got an SS administration, Belgium got a German army one, which was more lenient. Whereas the SS in the Netherlands banned, disbanded and persecuted all Scouting and Guiding activities from April 1941 onwards, the Belgium Scouts and Guides were more or less left alone. Yet during the course of the war, at the insistence of the Flemish and Walloon Nazis, collaborating with the Germans, certain limitations were imposed on the Scouts and Guides in early April 1943. The wearing of uniforms in public was no longer permitted. This having been done a high ranking German Staff officer hastened to visit King Leopold, who as a Prisoner of War, had been interned in his Royal Palace. The King was informed that this banning order did not involve the Royal Scout Group and Guide Company. The King did not agree and said that as this ban was put on all Scouts and Guides, it would also have to be applicable to his sons, daughter and their friends. The problem was that in those days Prince Bauduin/Boudewijn had just left the Cub Scouts and joined the Troop. End 1943 he was ready to make the Scout Promise. He asked his father to permit them to wear uniform that day, but the King refused his permission. His son protested and in the end the King gave in and decreed that during the ceremony and during it alone, uniform could be worn again.

The Royal Family in Captivity: Part II

The deportation of the Royal Family

(Continued from Part I)

While King Leopold III, brave but forlorn, suffered through his first miserable night at Hirschstein, his wife, Princess Lilian, struggled valiantly at Laeken to protect his family. On the morning of June 7, 1944, immediately following the King's departure, she had been told by Captain Büntinck, an aide of Colonel Kiewitz, that she, too, would be deported to Germany, along with her three step-children and her little son. This second sadistic order came at a particularly cruel moment. Alexandre was still only a toddler, Baudouin was recovering from scarlet fever and Albert suffering from mumps. Joséphine-Charlotte, for her part, was only sixteen. Outraged, Lilian vehemently protested and tried her utmost to frustrate the plan, mobilizing all her connections and managing to gain a reprieve of forty-eight hours. Meanwhile, her mother-in-law, Queen Elisabeth, transmitted a message to Büntinck to convey to Berlin by telephone. Her words were chosen carefully to exploit the official pretext for deporting the Royal Family, a supposed concern for their safety: "Before leaving, the King, my son, unable to do so himself as a result of his sudden departure, asked me to transmit to the government of the Reich the following message: 'It would politically intolerable and have the worst possible effect on the Belgian people to cause the King to depart with all his family and to place them in safety, while the people are suffering and the other prisoners of war are separated from their families.' He did this in complete accord with the Princess, my daughter-in-law. A decision is urgently required."

Not surprisingly, the Queen's effort failed. During the night of June 8-9, with the aid of a chauffeur and two gardeners, the Princess set to work concealing the cars belonging to the Royal Court. She was determined to obstruct the journey as long as possible. By dawn, all but one of the vehicles had been hidden in one of the galleries of the castle. Finding the garages empty, the Gestapo were frustrated and furious, but eventually managed to gather enough cars to form a convoy. Meanwhile, Cardinal van Roey, the President and the General Procurator of the Court of Cassation had been summoned to Laeken to witness the violence done to the Royal Family and the official protest of the Princess. The King's consort gave Captain Büntinck the following message: "On June 7, 1944, learning that the order had been given for the transfer of his family to Germany, the King immediately demanded that they be allowed to continue to reside in Belgium. I share the King's views entirely, and I have advised you of it. On June 8, I associated myself with the demand made by the Queen of the German authorities to obtain the withdrawal of this decision. This morning, at three o'clock, you informed me that the order for departure was being upheld, and that the King's family had to leave the castle of Laeken at two o'clock in the afternoon. I protest the measure of which the princes and myself are the object; we will depart, therefore, only because we are constrained to do so." Prince Baudouin, the young heir to the throne, left a touching note for a friend: "I am writing you a short letter before leaving for captivity in Germany. It is terrible. But events require it. I thank you for your kind letter. See you soon, I hope."

That afternoon, the Royal Family would indeed begin their tedious and traumatic journey, but not before long discussions regarding the composition of the Princess' suite had further delayed departure. Two of the children's nannies, Mme. Schepers and Mlle. Henrard, offered to share their mistress' captivity, and were allowed to accompany her. The governor of the heir to the throne, the Vicomte du Parc, and one of the attachés of the King's cabinet, M. Weemaes, were also authorized to join the forlorn little party. (Initially, a physician, Dr. Rahier, was permitted to come, but was later ominously ordered to return to Belgium before reaching the Royal Family's place of detention). Towards evening, Princess Lilian and her fellow hostages finally had to bid a heartrending adieu to a tearful assembly of the rest of the royal staff.  Following in the the footsteps of their husband, father and Sovereign, but cruelly kept in ignorance of his fate or their own destination, the anxious prisoners finally reached Hirschstein on June 11, towards nightfall. To their relief, they found the King alive. Lilian, however, was particularly exhausted after many frightening adventures. In her hotel room in Weimar, with Joséphine-Charlotte's help, for instance, she had been obliged to secretly burn her husband's "Political Testament", to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy. En route, she had also been forced to protest vehemently for hours to prevent the S.S. from separating Princes Baudouin and Albert from the rest of the family. Worse, however, was yet to come.

(to be continued)

Astrid, Josephine-Charlotte and Baudouin

A rare color photograph of the tall, beautiful Queen with her two eldest children.