On This Day: Death of Lilian, Princess of Réthy

Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the death of Lilian, Princess of Réthy, second wife of Belgium’s King Leopold III.

She died at the age of 85 at the home she had shared with her husband, Domaine d’Argenteuil, in Waterloo. Her funeral a week later was held at the Church of Our Lady in Laeken, after which the Princess was interred – against her wishes – into the Royal Crypt there, beside King Leopold and his first wife, Astrid.

Lilian was born in November 1916 to Henri Baels, the future Governor of West Flanders, and Anne Marie de Visscher. The family lived in England when Lilian was small, before returning to Belgium.

Through her father, Lilian became acquainted with Leopold, Duke of Brabant (later King of the Belgians). Their relationship deepened into 1941, when she was invited to visit the King, who was under house arrest after the Belgians had surrendered to Nazi forces, by his mother, Queen Elisabeth. The couple secretly married in a religious ceremony at the Royal Castle of Laeken chapel in September 1941, with the plan to only have a civil ceremony once the war was over.

Lilian and Leopold’s secret could no longer remain secret by December that year, as the Princess became pregnant. They had a civil wedding ceremony on December 6, which was announced to the Belgian people shortly after. Responses were varied – some were happy for the couple, but many were opposed to the marriage due to its timing (the fact Lilian and Leopold married religiously first, going against Belgian law, didn’t help them either, and Lilian remained deeply unpopular for many years).

The King and his family were sent to Germany under arrest by the Nazis in 1944, where they stayed until they were liberated the following year. However, they were still unable to return to Belgium – Leopold, Lilian and their children were made to live in exile in Switzerland until 1950 while the government investigated the King’s conduct during the War. He was forced to abdicate in favour of his eldest son in 1951.

In the years between her husband’s abdication and then death in 1983, Princess Lilian became heavily invested in cardiology, which stemmed from her son Alexandre‘s successful childhood heart surgery. She established the Cardiological Foundation with the aim of promoting “new forms of treatment for cardiovascular diseases”. After Leopold’s death, she retired from public life, but continued her support of the foundation.

Princess Lilian was survived by her three children, Alexandre, Marie-Christine (to whom she was estranged) and Marie-Esmeralda, and two grandchildren, along with two of her stepchildren.

Filed under Belgium, Historical Royals
Tagged Anniversary, Death, Lilian Princess of Réthy.