Last week, the future Queen of Norway, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, born in 2004, hosted a grand 18-year-old coming-of-age ceremony party.
The Norwegian royal family invited members of several European royal families to attend, such as King Felipe VI of Spain, Prince Frederick of Denmark, Crown Prince Victoria of Sweden and so on.
In addition to these slightly older members of the royal family, Princess Catalina Amalia, the 19-year-old Crown Prince of the Netherlands, The eldest daughter of the 10-year-old Crown Prince of Sweden, Princess Estella, the eldest son of the 2-year-old Crown Prince of Luxembourg, and the eldest daughter of the King of Belgium, The 21-year-old Crown Prince Elizabeth also took photos with the Norwegian Princess.
The royal family of the European continent will welcome many queens in the future, and this time the Norwegian princess will come to the rite of passage ceremony with four (the mother and daughter of the Swedish crown prince, the Netherlands, Belgium).
(Top: Crown Prince Victoria of Sweden, Crown Prince Elizabeth of Belgium, Crown Prince Amalia of the Netherlands; Bottom: Crown Prince Ingrid of Norway, Crown Prince Leonor of Spain, Princess Estella, daughter of the Crown Prince of Sweden)
In the past, the newspaper sister had discussed with everyone princess Ingrid Alexandra, who held the coming-of-age ceremony, as the future queen of Norway to drive fighter jets and jump high buildings.
I also told the story of Princess Catalina Amalya, Crown Prince of the Netherlands.
This time, let's take a look at the story of The Crown Prince of Belgium, Princess Elizabeth, who was born on October 25, 2001.
(Princess Elizabeth and mother Queen Mathilde)
Elizabeth is the eldest daughter of philippe, the current king of Belgium (and two younger brothers and a younger sister), and the first female crown prince of the Belgian royal family since its founding in 1831. The Belgian royal family is a hereditary constitutional monarchy with no real power.
In 1991, Belgium amended its laws to determine heirs to the throne based on gender, so Princess Elizabeth automatically became the first in line to the throne after her father ascended the throne in 2013. The Title of Duke of Brabant, which was set up by the Belgian royal family for the Crown Prince, ushered in the first duchess.
Speaking of which, the Princess Elizabeth of Belgium is a little similar to the story of the current Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, both of which were originally good and simple princesses, and the result was to inherit the story line of the crown.
In 1936, the Queen's father, George VI, was appointed to succeed his abdicated brother Edward VIII as King of the United Kingdom. Elizabeth II automatically became Crown Prince and later ascended the throne as Queen of England.
Princess Elizabeth of Belgium, her grandfather, Albert II, the sixth king of Belgium, died in 1993 because of the death of the fifth childless king, and took over the throne as her own brother, so she also made her own line the bloodline of the crown prince.
(Three generations of kings)
In 2013, at the age of 79, Albert II announced his abdication, and his son Philippe, who was 53 years old at the time, ascended the throne as the seventh king, and Princess Elizabeth, 12, became crown prince.
The princess's father, King Philip, served as a soldier, flew fighter jets and military skydiving, and later studied undergraduate and master's degrees at Oxford University and Stanford University, and obtained a postgraduate degree in political science.
Princess Elizabeth's mother, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, is currently the only non-commoner queen of the European royal family of aristocratic origins, from the Earl family of Poland, received a top education from an early age, proficient in French, Dutch, English and Italian, is a professional language therapist, and also studied a master's degree in psychology when she was pregnant with Elizabeth.
The queen and queen couple, who are both literate and martial, are very concerned about this daughter who will become queen in the future, and have made "strategic planning" for her since she was a child.
The first school the princess attended was taught in Dutch, which caused a lot of discussion at the time. After all, Belgium and the Netherlands did not deal with each other in history, and only became independent from the Netherlands in 1830.
Although Belgium is now divided into the Feramão Dutch region in the north and the French-speaking region of Wallonia in the south, there is a small German population in the east, and there are three official languages, Dutch, French, and German, but the first language the princess learned in school is actually Dutch, which has caused many people to be dissatisfied. But at the time, some people speculated that this might be the way the royal family came up with in order to unite the Dutch-speaking area.
(The Four Babies of the King and Queen)
After completing the school planning, Elizabeth learned Chinese in the elementary and junior high school stages, and was able to communicate fluently.
Combined with the fact that several giant pandas traveled to belgian zoos during the same period, the king queen was quite far-sighted in terms of cultural friendly exchanges.
At the age of ten, Princess Elizabeth has been attending official events.
I visited children's hospitals, stood for scientific experiment stations, visited public facilities, etc., and gave public speeches, not afraid of the stage at all.
As she grew older, in 2018, Elizabeth bid farewell to her family and went to Atlantic College in Wales, England. During high school, Elizabeth also went to Yale's youth program.
(In 2021, Princess Leoneur, the Crown Prince of Spain, four years younger than her, also attended here.) )
In 2019, when Elizabeth turned her 18th birthday, the royal family held a grand celebration for her, and the Belgian post office also issued a commemorative stamp.
Dressed in a white suit, the future queen was calm and relaxed, giving a bilingual Speech in France and The Netherlands on stage, she said: "I still have a lot to learn, and in the future I will do my best to understand the world we live in, to make it better, and the country can trust me to be reliable." ”
The king and queen couple, sitting in the audience, were tearful with excitement and clutched each other's hands.
In 2020, 19-year-old Elizabeth successfully graduated. Instead of immediately enrolling in college, she returned to China to join the army and, like her father, served the country for a year, learning professional military knowledge and receiving training.
(Father Philip shakes hands with daughter)
Dancing knives and guns, carrying sandbags in camouflage
It can be a princess in a costume who attends a public event, or a warrior who wears a military uniform to the battlefield.
The future queen of the 00s is indeed a bit handsome.
In 2021, Elizabeth also participated in the Belgian National Day military parade, which excited her mother who was watching the ceremony in the stands.
In September 2021, after completing her studies at the Military Academy, the Princess enrolled in the Department of History and Politics at Oxford University.
In addition to studying at Oxford, she also regularly returned to China for training.
Compared with other european royal families, the history of the Belgian royal family is not too long, less than two hundred years, in 1830 to declare independence from the Netherlands, in 1831 to establish a monarchy.
(Princess Elizabeth and King Philip)
The first king was a 40-year-old duke of the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha families of Coburg, Germany, Leopold I. Leopold I ascended the throne on 21 July 1831, and this day became the national holiday of Belgium.
In 1865, his son Leopold II ascended the throne as a notorious tyrant in modern European history, committing evil deeds in the Congo in Africa, killing tens of millions of people and amassing billions of dollars.
It wasn't until 2013 that the current king, Philippe, who had just ascended the throne, expressed his "deepest regret" during a visit to Congo. Although he was the first monarch of the Belgian royal family to come forward to confront the atrocities, the royal family still did not formally apologize.
(Statue of Leopold II, who was overthrown by the people in 2020)
From the 1991 revision of the inheritance law in 1991, to Princess Elizabeth's counter-traditional admission to a Dutch-language school, to the first time In 2013, When King Philip confronted the royal family with its first atrocities. In the same year as 2013, the royal family was also cut off its allowances and began paying taxes because of reforms implemented by the Belgian government.
As soon as Princess Elizabeth was born, she had to prepare for the almost impossible job of being "king of a country". Growing up in an ever-changing era, she did not know what complicated and difficult situations she would face and the historical trauma that must be faced.
This king, it's really bad...