Beatrix of the Netherlands
Beatrix was Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 to 2013 and was widely regarded as the most professional European monarch of her generation. Born at Soestdijk in 1938, the eldest daughter of Juliana and Bernhard, she was evacuated to Britain and then Ottawa as an infant when Germany invaded, returning in 1945. She read law and sociology at Leiden and wrote a thesis on international organisations. Her engagement in 1965 to Claus von Amsberg, a German diplomat who had served in the Wehrmacht as a conscript, provoked serious opposition in a country still marked by the occupation. Their wedding in Amsterdam in March 1966 was met with smoke bombs and street fighting. Claus learned Dutch thoroughly, worked on development policy, and became one of the most popular members of the royal family. She acceded on her mother's abdication in April 1980, on a day of riots over housing shortages in Amsterdam, with demonstrators using the slogan that there was no housing for the coronation. Her style was markedly more formal and reserved than Juliana's, and she was known for exceptionally thorough preparation before every audience and state visit. The Dutch monarchy is ceremonial, and its one substantive function — appointing the informateur who begins coalition talks after an election — was exercised by her in every government formation until parliament removed it from the crown in 2012. She was widowed in 2002, and her second son Friso died in 2013 after a skiing accident. She abdicated in April 2013 in favour of her son Willem-Alexander, as her mother and grandmother had done.
- Lived: 1938 CE – ?
- Nationality: Dutch
- Roles: queen, head_of_state
