Baudouin I of Belgium
| Baudouin | |
|---|---|
| King of the Belgians | |
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| King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola | |
| Reign | 17 July 1951 – 31 July 1993 (42 years) |
| Predecessor | Leopold III |
| Successor | Albert II |
| Consort | Fabiola de Mora y Aragón |
| Royal house | House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha |
| Father | Leopold III |
| Mother | Astrid of Sweden |
| Born | 7 September 1930 Laeken, Belgium |
| Died | 31 July 1993 (aged 62) Motril, Spain |
Baudouin of Belgium (French: Baudouin Albert Charles Léopold Axel Marie Gustave or Dutch: Boudewijn Albert Karel Leopold Axel Marie Gustaaf) (7 September 1930 – 31 July 1993) reigned as King of the Belgians from 1951 to 1993. He was the eldest son of King Leopold III (1901-1983) and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden (1905-1935). Baudouin is the French form of his name, which is mostly used outside of Belgium; his Dutch name is Boudewijn. Very rarely his name is anglicized as Baldwin.
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Ascent to the throne
Baudouin was born in Château de Stuyvenberg, nr Laeken, Brussels, in Belgium. On 1 August 1950 his father King Leopold III requested the Belgian Government and the Parliament to approve a law delegating his royal powers to his son, Prince Baudouin, who took the constitutional oath before the United Chambers of the Belgian Parliament as Prince Royal on 11 August 1950. He ascended the throne and became the fifth King of the Belgians upon taking the constitutional oath on 17 July 1951, one day following his father's abdication.
Part of Leopold III's unpopularity was the result of a second marriage in 1941 to Mary Lilian Baels, an English-born Belgian commoner, later known as Princess de Réthy. More controversial had been Leopold's decision to surrender to Nazi Germany during World War II, when Belgium was invaded in 1940; many Belgians questioned his loyalties, but a commission of inquiry exonerated him of treason after World War II. Though reinstated in a plebiscite, the controversy surrounding Leopold led to his abdication.
Marriage
On 15 December 1960, Baudouin was married in Brussels to Doña Fabiola Fernanda María de las Victorias Antonia Adelaida de Mora y Aragón, a former nurse and a writer of children's stories. Queen Fabiola is immensely popular for her good cheer, personal modesty, and devotion to social causes. The Belgian royal couple had no children, which was a source of much sadness in the marriage, and would provide a partial reason why the King was so uncomfortable with the topic of abortion. When in 1990, the Belgian government passed a law drastically liberalising abortion, King Baudouin could not bring himself to sign.
Notable events
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During Baudouin's reign the colony of Belgian Congo was given its independence, and the King personally attended the festivities; he gave a speech that was widely seen as insensitive to the atrocities in the Congo, and the speech received a blistering response by Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.
In 1976, on the 25th anniversary of Baudouin's accession, the King Baudouin Foundation was formed, with the aim of improving the living conditions of the Belgian people.
Baudouin also made some visits to the Spanish leader Francisco Franco, a family friend of his Queen, Fabiola.
He was the 1,176th Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in Spain in 1960 and the 930th Knight of the Order of the Garter.
In 1985, he was presented with photographs taken during World War II by Glenn Kappelman, a member of the 106th Cavalry Group which had freed the royal family from German captivity in May 1945. Baudouin was 14 years old at the time when the American soldiers learned that the family was being held at a villa near Strobl, Austria.[1]
Religious influences
Baudouin was a deeply religious Roman Catholic. Some thought after his accession to the throne that he wanted to abdicate, in order to become a priest. Royal advisers suggested at the time that the Belgian monarchy would probably not survive two abdications in a row. Through the influence of Leo Cardinal Suenens, Baudouin participated in the growing Catholic Charismatic Renewal and regularly went on pilgrimages to the French shrine of Paray-le-Monial.
In 1990, when a law, submitted by Roger Lallemand and Lucienne Herman-Michielsens, liberalising Belgium's abortion laws was approved by Parliament, he refused to give Royal Assent, an unprecedented act in Belgium, although without much significance since (as in most modern constitutional and popular monarchies) Royal Assent has long been a formality. Because of his religious convictions, Baudouin asked the Government to declare him temporarily unable to reign so that he could avoid signing the measure into law.[2] The Government under Wilfried Martens complied with his request on 4 April 1990. According to the provisions of the Belgian Constitution, in the event the King is temporarily unable to reign, the Government as a whole fulfills the role of Head of State. All members of the Government signed the bill, and the next day (5 April 1990) the Government declared that Baudouin was capable of reigning again. (It is a point of contention whether Baudouin abdicated for two days so as not to have to approve the law, while still allowing abortions to be legalised in Belgium, or whether he was merely suspended for the day.)
Death, succession and legacy
He reigned for 42 years until dying of heart failure on 31 July 1993 in the Villa Astrida in Motril, in the south of Spain. His death was unexpected, and sent much of Belgium into a period of deep mourning. It was a mark of great affection and respect for King Baudouin that Queen Elizabeth II attended the funeral in person; by tradition the British monarch attends only those funerals which are of close family members (they were only third cousins once removed) or such politicians as prime ministers who die while in office.
King Baudouin was interred in the royal vault at the Church of Our Lady, Laeken Cemetery, Brussels, Belgium.
Baudouin was succeeded by his younger brother, who became King Albert II.
After Leopold's abdication in 1951, Baudouin had brought stability, but not harmony, to a country gripped by a struggle between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. At the time of his death Belgium had begun a far-reaching federalisation that made the maintenance of Belgian unity questionable. The wave of mourning over Baudouin's passing brought Flemings and Walloons together in support of the monarchy, and there was no support for a deputy who shouted in favour of a republic before Albert took his oath. It was thought by some that the rush to full separation into independent states, anticipated for early in the next century, would be halted by the new king's influence and the resurgent commitment to the dynasty.[3]
Ancestry
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Leopold I of Belgium | |||||||||||||||
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Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders |
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Princess Louise-Marie of France | |||||||||||||||
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Albert I of Belgium |
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Karl Anton, Prince of Hohenzollern | |||||||||||||||
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Princess Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen |
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Princess Josephine of Baden | |||||||||||||||
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Leopold III of Belgium |
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Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavaria | |||||||||||||||
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Karl-Theodor, Duke in Bavaria |
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Princess Ludovika of Bavaria | |||||||||||||||
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Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria |
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Miguel of Portugal | |||||||||||||||
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Infanta Maria Josepha of Portugal |
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Princess Adelaide of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg | |||||||||||||||
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Baudouin I of Belgium |
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Oscar I of Sweden | |||||||||||||||
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Oscar II of Sweden |
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Duchess Josephine of Leuchtenberg | |||||||||||||||
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Prince Carl, Duke of Västergötland |
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Wilhelm, Duke of Nassau | |||||||||||||||
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Princess Sofia of Nassau |
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Princess Pauline of Württemberg | |||||||||||||||
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Princess Astrid of Sweden |
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Christian IX of Denmark | |||||||||||||||
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Frederick VIII of Denmark |
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Louise of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) | |||||||||||||||
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Princess Ingeborg of Denmark |
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Charles XV of Sweden | |||||||||||||||
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Princess Lovisa of Sweden |
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Princess Louise of the Netherlands | |||||||||||||||
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See also
- Kings of Belgium family tree
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- Crown Council of Belgium
- Royal Trust
- Herman Liebaers (Marshal of the Royal Household)
- André Molitor (private secretary)
- Jacques van Ypersele de Strihou (private secretary)
References
- ↑ Glenn L. Kappelman (2003). Through My Sights: A Gunner's View of WWII. Sunflower Publishing. p. 4. ISBN 0970476418.
- ↑ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,969868,00.html
- ↑ http://www.bookrags.com/biography/albert-ii/
Bibliography
- A. Molitor, La fonction royale en Belgique, Brussels, 1979
- J.Stengers, De koningen der Belgen. Van Leopold I tot Albert II, Leuven, 1997.
- Kardinaal Suenens, Koning Boudewijn. Het getuigenis van een leven, Leuven, 1995.
- Kerstrede 18.12.1975, (ed.V.Neels), Wij Boudewijn, Koning der Belgen. Het politiek, sociaal en moreel testament van een nobel vorst, deel II, Gent, 1996.
- H. le Paige (dir.), Questions royales, Réflexions à propos de la mort d'un roi et sur la médiatisation de l'évènement, Brussels, 1994.
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Baudouin I of Belgium
House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
Cadet branch of the House of Wettin
Born: 7 September 1930 Died: 31 July 1993 |
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| Regnal titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Leopold III |
King of the Belgians 1951-1993 |
Succeeded by Albert II |
| Royal titles | ||
| Preceded by Leopold |
Duke of Brabant 1934-1951 |
Succeeded by Philippe |