Netherlands - Queen Beatrix

Queen Beatrix of Netherlands.

Sent by Tessa from the Netherlands.

This is from Wikipedia : Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard; born 31 January 1938) is the Queen Regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands comprising the Netherlands, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, and Aruba. She is the first daughter of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. She studied law at Leiden University. In 1966, she married Claus von Amsberg, with whom she had three children: Prince Willem-Alexander (born 1967), Prince Friso (born 1968), and Prince Constantijn (born 1969). When her mother Juliana abdicated on 30 April 1980, Beatrix succeeded her as Queen of the Netherlands. On 6 October 2002 Prince Claus of the Netherlands died.

Princess Beatrix was born Princess Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau, Princess of Lippe-Biesterfeld on 31 January 1938 at the Soestdijk Palace in Baarn, Netherlands. She was the eldest daughter of Crown Princess Juliana of the Netherlands and Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. Beatrix's five godparents are King Leopold III of the Belgians, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, Princess Elisabeth of Waldeck and Pyrmont, Duke Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg, and Countess Allene de Kotzebue. When Beatrix was one year old, in 1939, her first sister Princess Irene was born.

When World War II broke out in the Netherlands in May 1940, the Dutch Royal Family fled to London, United Kingdom. One month later, Beatrix went to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with her mother Juliana and her sister Irene, while her father Bernhard and maternal grandmother Queen Wilhelmina remained in London. The family lived at the Stornoway residence. In thanks for the protection of her and her daughters, (then) Princess Juliana established the delivery of tulips to the Canadian government every spring, which are the centrepiece of the Canadian Tulip Festival. Her second sister Princess Margriet was born in 1943. During their exile in Canada, Beatrix attended nursery and the primary school Rockcliffe Park Public School.

The family returned to the Netherlands on 2 August 1945. Beatrix went to the progressive primary school De Werkplaats in Bilthoven. Her third sister Princess Christina was born in 1947. On 6 September 1948, her mother Juliana succeeded her grandmother Wilhelmina as Queen of the Netherlands, and Beatrix became the heiress presumptive to the throne of the Netherlands at the age of ten.