The House of Orange and the House of Windsor

On 28 January, the anniversary of the death of Charlemagne and Henry VIII, it was announced that Europe would have a new king. What makes it exceptional is that the Netherlands’ reigning monarch heralded her successor. Most monarchs ascend on the death of their predecessor, but not in Holland. Queen Beatrix is the third successive queen to abdicate in favour of her heir, making it almost de rigueur for the House of Orange-Nassau. The accession of Beatrix’s eldest son, Willem-Alexander, has given the Netherlands its first king since 1890.

While the dynasty can be traced to the tenth century and the House of Orange-Nassau has played a princely role as stadtholders (latterly Stadhouder-Generaal) since the sixteenth century, it is a relatively new monarchy. The Oranges did not become sovereigns until the end of Napoleonic rule in 1813, when William of Orange became Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands, proclaiming himself King William I two years later. His son and grandson succeeded him in turn as William II and William III. On the death of William III in 1890, his only surviving child was a daughter, ten-year-old Wilhelmina, whose mother Emma, acted as Regent until her eighteenth birthday.

Since then daughter has succeeded mother—Wilhelmina, Juliana (in 1948) and Beatrix (in 1980)—and each has won the admiration, even love, of their subjects for their steadfastness, common sense, dignity and courage. The only real difficulties they seem to have encountered have related to their consorts. Wilhelmina’s marriage to Duke Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin proved to be an unhappy one, but it endured and, as Prince Hendrik of the Netherlands, he became the kingdom’s longest-serving consort. Wilhelmina was admired by both Queen Victoria and Churchill, who described her as the only real man among the governments-in-exile in London from where she led her country during the Second World War. On her return home, she travelled through the countryside to motivate people, sometimes by bicycle, earning the sobriquet “a bicycling monarchy”.

In 1948, Wilhelmina abdicated in favour of her only daughter, Juliana. In 1936 Juliana had married heroic, dashing German Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. It was a love match that survived wartime separation, his philandering, and a report that he took bribes from the Lockheed Corporation. Juliana too took to a bicycle to greet her people and asked that she be addressed as “Mevrouw” (Madam) rather than “Majesty”.

Then, in 1980, Juliana abdicated to make way for Beatrix, the eldest of her four daughters. Like her grandmother and mother before her, Beatrix had taken a German nobleman as a husband. Although it was more than twenty years since the war, Klaus van Amberg was condemned as unsuitable because of his brief membership of the Hitler Youth. However, with Beatrix’s determination, her mother’s support, and her consort’s mastery of Dutch, his dedication and (despite bouts of depression) his energy, Prince Claus overcame this to become the kingdom’s most popular royal. His early death in 2002, two years before his parents-in-law, proved a blow to Beatrix, who, nevertheless carried on.

Her approach was more formal. She is addressed as “Majesty” and is more likely to be seen in a large car or in a horse-drawn carriage than on a bike, but she has brought warmth and astuteness to her role in an increasingly multicultural kingdom. When she was criticised by the Dutch far Right for wearing a headscarf in Abu Dhabi and Oman on a visit in January this year, she responded firmly, “It is really nonsense … You adjust out of respect for a religion.” 

And so to Willem-Alexander, the eldest of Beatrix and Claus’s three sons. He accompanied his mother on that recent tour (as he has most others, learning, as Dubai’s young sheikhs do, at their ruler’s side). And with him was his charismatic wife, Crown Princess Maxima, who also wore a headscarf in Oman.

Willem-Alexander celebrated his forty-sixth birthday three days before his investiture. Like all his fellow crown princes of Europe he has been rigorously reared to reign. His childhood was spent in the relative peace of Castle Drakesteijn in the hamlet of Lage Vuursche near Baarn where he attended school. In 1981, when he had become Prince of Orange, and the family moved to Huis ten Bosch Palace in The Hague, he attended secondary school. He received his International Baccalaureate from the United World College of the Atlantic in Wales. Two years of naval service followed and then he studied history at Leiden University, where his impressive thirst earned him the nickname “Prince Pilsener”.

He has been an enthusiastic pilot, flying as a volunteer in Kenya and sometimes taking the controls of the royal aircraft on holidays abroad. He has run in the New York City Marathon and, at home, in the Elfstedentocht, the eleven-cities ice-skating race. Like a handful of other European royals, he is a member of the IOC and apparently supports Amsterdam’s bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics. He has become an expert on water management—a temperate move from pilsener—and chairs a UN Board on Sanitation and Water Management.

He too encountered controversy on his choice of consort. His fiancée, Maxima, a New York investment banker of Portuguese, Basque and Italian heritage, was the daughter of Jorge Zorreguieta, a modest customs official who rose to become under-secretary of agriculture in the Argentinian military junta from 1976 to 1983. The Dutch parliament commissioned a report which cleared him of any direct involvement in the atrocities. Willem-Alexander apparently stated he would rather abandon the throne and have a wedding in Buenos Aires than lose his bride.

Perhaps recalling her own betrothal, Beatrix supported the match and announced the engagement. Shortly afterwards, Maxima announced—in Dutch—that she abhorred the military regime and “the disappearances, the tortures, the murders and all the other terrible events of that time”. While denying, as her father did, knowledge of these atrocities, she said, “I regret that while doing his best for agriculture, he did so during a bad regime.”

Even so, Maxima’s parents were forced to watch their daughter’s wedding on television (as Juliana and Bernhard had done when their second daughter Irene married the Catholic Carlist Pretender in 1964), the Dutch parliament having forbidden their attendance. They were forced to do the same on April 30. According to Maxima, her family made a joint decision. “It’s a constitutional celebration and, yes, my father does not belong in it.” Yet the Argentine press greeted the succession with jubilation: Argentina’s First Queen! A Throne for Princess Maxima!

Due in large part to Beatrix’s stewardship, the monarchy remains popular, with an approval rating of some 75 per cent. Last year the parliament voted to remove the monarch’s remaining political power—the formation of coalition governments. Surely a relief, and a source of envy for the neigh­bouring King of the Belgians.

A recent report indicated that the Dutch monarchy was the most expensive in Western Europe. The Irish Times reported a study by a Belgian professor that the cost of maintaining the Dutch royal family was €39.4 million, four times that of the Spanish Bourbons. The Queen firmly rejected any suggestion of reducing the allowance. (The paper reported that the most expensive head of state was not a monarch at all, but the French Republic’s President Hollande, whose Elysee Palace cost €112 million a year.)

The Dutch seem to think their monarch is worth it. The investiture is estimated to cost €10 million (about the same as Baroness Thatcher’s funeral). As the Queen announced her abdication, the Dutch Prime Minister paid tribute to a “Dutch icon” who “had applied herself heart and soul for Dutch society”. He added, “I am confident that the Prince and Princess will fulfil their new tasks and roles as King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima with great success, in the best tradition of Queen Beatrix and generations of the House of Orange before her.”

Following, and beside, two formidable women (and another will follow, as his eldest daughter, the self-possessed nine-year-old Catharina-Amalia, is now Princess of Orange) King Willem-Alexander has already been cast by some into the shadows, but in an interview on the eve of his accession, the new King has shown some spirit—rejecting the label “V” and choosing his hyphenated moniker. He has also indicated the more informal approach of his grandmother, expressing no wish to be called “Majesty”. Willem-Alexander is now the youngest monarch in Europe.

Watching the ceremony were most of the world’s royal heirs—Belgium, Denmark, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Brunei, Sweden, Thailand, and of course the United Kingdom. The oldest of them, at sixty-four, was Charles, Prince of Wales, who had also been present at the new King’s mother’s investiture. Observers have been unable to resist the comparison. It was said of Queen Victoria, “The Queen continues to reign and reign and won’t let the son shine.” This is not true for her great-great granddaughter, but it might be said, “The Queen continues to shine and shine and won’t let the son reign.”

It was claimed—but how can it be verified—that when Juliana abdicated she called her old friend Queen Elizabeth II to tell her personally. After the call the British sovereign apparently commented, “Typical Dutch,” and was said to be out of sorts all day. Prince Charles put on his bravest face throughout the day in Amsterdam. But what must have struck him most was the stark distinctions between the House of the Windsor and the House of Orange. As Beatrix, on the palace balcony, once again a princess, presented her son, the new King, to the people of Amsterdam, they called out as one, “Thank you, Bea.” Imagine the crowd outside Buckingham Palace shouting, “Thank you, Liz.”

But at the core, as with so much that is royal, is the ceremony and symbolism. At the service at Nieuwe Kerk, a decommissioned church, the crown lay untouched on a table—a potent symbol of monarchy but not one to be raised or worn. So different from that June morning in Westminster Abbey in 1953 and the moment when Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, placed the King Edward Crown on the young head of Elizabeth II.

The Archbishop had just anointed her with the ancient words: “As kings, priests and prophets were anointed, and as Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest … so be thou anointed, blessed and consecrated Queen over the peoples whom the Lord thy God hath given thee to rule.” Time magazine described The Moment: 

The Crown itself sparkled in the candlelight. The Archbishop of Canterbury moved to the high altar, clasped it in both hands and raised it before him. “Oh God, the Crown of the Faithful,” he prayed, “bless, we beseech Thee, this Crown, and so sanctify Thy servant Elizabeth, upon whose head Thou dost place it … that she may be filled by Thine abundant grace, with all princely virtue.” With the Crown borne before him, Canterbury approached the Queen. He raised it high above her, paused for all to see, and placed it on her head. The congregation, now her subjects, cried out: “God save the Queen! God save the Queen!”

 Trumpets sounded, a thousand peers and peeresses rose and put on their coronets and then the Archbishop, Prince Philip, two of her uncles, a representative from each of the five degrees of peerage (dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts and barons) all paid homage. Then again came a roar throughout the Abbey: “God save Queen Elizabeth! Long live Queen Elizabeth! May the Queen live forever!”

Sixty years on, it seems that she might. But what seems certain is that the young Queen saw the ceremony as a solemn pact with her God and with her people. This was no mere investiture. It somehow sanctified the pledge she famously made in Africa, eight years earlier on her twenty-first birthday: “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”

Charles attended his mother’s coronation, the first young royal to do so. He was only four so his memory of it may be faint, although a witness claimed that, as his mother took the Sovereign’s sword, advanced with it to the altar and offered it to God, he watched enraptured.

Surely, more than anyone, he will understand why his mother will never surrender her Crown and that, unlike his Orange kinsman, she will not be with him on the balcony on the seemingly distant day of his coronation.