Belgie-Belgique 3F

1953-1966: King Boudewijn

King Boudewijn.

Baudouin I of Belgium Biography

King Baudouin, (also spelled Boudewijn, Balduin or Baldwin) Albert Charles

 Leopold Axel Marie Gustave, (7 September 1930 - 31 July 1993), reigned as 

King of the Belgians from 1951 to 1993. He was the elder son of 

King Leopold III (1901-1983) and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden (1905-1935).

 Boudewijn is his Dutch name; Balduin in German; Baudouin in French, which is 

also mostly used in foreign languages, though sometimes in English Baldwin 

copying Baldwin I of Jerusalem.

Baudouin was born in Kasteel Stuyvenberg, Laeken in Belgium. He became king

 when his father abdicated on July 16, 1951. Part of Leopold III's unpopularity was

 the result of an unpopular second marriage in 1941 to Mary Lilian Baels, an 

English-born Belgian commoner known as Princess de Réthy. More controversial

 had been his decision to surrender to Nazi Germany at the start of World War II,

 in 1941; many Belgians still questioned his loyalties, though history indicates 

that Leopold surrendered in order to spare his country bloodshed and destruction.

 Though reinstated in a plebiscite after the war, it became clear that Leopold was

 too controversial a person to be a unifying force, hence the abdication.

 On December 15, 1960, Baudouin was married at Brussels to Doña Fabiola Fernanda 

Maria de las Victorias Antonia Adelaïda Mora y Aragon, a former nurse and a writer 

of children's stories. Immensely popular for her good cheer, personal modesty, and

 devotion to social causes, Queen Fabiola was born at Madrid, Spain on June 11, 1928, 

a daughter of Don Gonzalo Mora Fernandez Riera del Olmo, Marques de Casa Riera, 

Conde de Mora, and his wife, Doña Blanca de Aragon y Carrillo de Albornoz Barroeta-

Aldamary Elio. The Belgian royal couple had no children.

There was some concern among politicians close to the King that he might actually be

 in love with his stepmother, Princess Lilian, suspicions fueled by secret recordings of 

surprisingly intimate-sounding telephone conversations between the two. The post-wedding

 actions of the king's father and stepmother only increased speculation; they briskly moved

 out of the royal palace at Laeken and reportedly broke off relations with Baudouin for 

some time.

 During Baudouin's reign the colony of Belgian Congo was given its independence. 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.

 He was a very religious man. In 1990, when a law liberalising Belgium's abortion

 laws was approved by parliament, he refused to give his signature so that the bill could 

become law - an unprecedented act in Belgium, as the royal signature has always been 

considered a mere formality. The government had to declare him unable to reign on 

April 4, 1990. The Belgian constitution provides that, if the king is incapable to reign, the 

government as a whole will fulfil the role of head of state. All members of the government 

signed the bill, and the government declared that Baudouin was capable of reigning again 

the next day, on April 5, 1990.

He reigned for 42 years until he died of heart failure on July 31, 1993 in the 

Villa Astrida in Motril, in the south of Spain. He 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.

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