BELGIUM: A Prevalence of Kings

The Low Countries last week were running a low fever about their royal families. In The Netherlands, Queen Juliana took a dressing down in the press for inviting to her palace a crackpot U.S. space traveler named George Adamski (TIME, June 1). In Belgium, the newspapers fumed about ex-King Leopold, who was forced to abdicate eight years ago in favor of his eldest son Baudouin, but did not move out of the royal palace at Laeken or stop meddling in affairs of state.

Surrendered Crown. Tall, handsome Leopold III, 57, was a hard-luck monarch. His queen, Astrid of Sweden, died in 1935 when a car driven by Leopold crashed into a tree. In 1940 Leopold refused the urgent pleas of his ministers to escape to London and set up a government in exile. Instead he surrendered to the Nazis and, while his nation was still occupied by Germans, married pretty Liliane Baels, the commoner daughter of a Belgian politician. At war’s end Leopold moved on from Germany to Switzerland while liberated Belgium held a plebiscite to determine whether or not he should return home. Leopold’s supporters narrowly carried the day, but so many riots greeted the King’s arrival in Brussels that within a year Leopold surrendered the crown.

He lived on at Laeken palace, joined his bachelor son at meals and on the golf course, complained bitterly of the ingratitude of his subjects in forcing him from the throne. He surrounded Baudouin with advisers who were usually at odds with government policy, interfered with affairs in the Belgian Congo,* and even flew to Africa to make sure that his unprogressive Governor General was kept in office. Royal speeches by King Baudouin were tape-recorded and put on the air with scant notice to Socialist Premier Gaston Eyskens or the Cabinet.

Last month Premier Eyskens was abruptly summoned to the palace and told that Leopold’s youngest son in the royal line, Albert, 25, was going to marry Paola Ruffo di Calabria, 21, one of the prettiest of a clutch of pretty Italian princesses. Everybody thought the girl a catch, but because royal marriages are affairs of state demanding government deliberation and approval, the Cabinet again felt itself insulted, ignored and affronted. Three days later, Pope John XXIII announced in Rome that he would perform the marriage himself at the Vatican, and let it be understood that there would be no civil wedding first. Belgian Socialists cried out that the constitution was being flouted, pointed to Article 16 which declares that civil marriage must precede the religious ceremony. The Vatican held firm: either no civil wedding or no papal ceremony.

Dancing with Stars. All this triggered a fresh uproar, but it was not directed at young Prince Albert and his lovely princess. Belgians looked fondly at news pictures that showed the engaged pair at a Tuscan seaside resort. And most Belgians rejoiced at hearing that King Baudouin, currently on a U.S. tour, has—away from his father—dropped his former gloomy, standoffish mien, is spending his nights dancing with Debbie Reynolds and his days exchanging unaccustomed quips with newsmen.

The demand that something be done about Leopold spread even to the Catholic Royalist newspaper, Het Volk, which had stood gamely by him during the pre-abdication days, but now grumbled that Cabinet ministers were being humiliated and sabotaged by “someone” at the royal court. Last week Leopold summoned Premier Eyskens to Laeken palace, began by blustering that the press attack on him “has to stop!” ended by saying resignedly that “I will leave Laeken; you must find me another place to live.” Leopold’s preference: the 18th century Villa Belvedere, just across the street from Laeken, once (under the second Leopold) occupied by royal mistresses. The government’s countersuggestion: the Belgian royal villa at Grasse in Southern France, far from Laeken and King Baudouin. At week’s end it seemed clear that Leopold was leaving. Unresolved: How far away would he go?

* Which his great-granduncle Leopold II held as a personal fief rather than a colony.