Prince Charles, Count of Flanders (1903-1983)

[maria-olivia]

Thanks for Sending this , more than 10 years later we lost Congo for ever.
(It was not Prince Charles fault ...)

[episcogal]

Originally Posted by maria-olivia

We have to wait for better informations and why not a film about Prince Charles who saved the Monarchy.

ITA. He was a pivotal character, and an interesting one at that.

[An Ard Ri]

Prince Charles Of Belgium (1919)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emZotqqCKXs

[CyrilVladisla]

On October 11, 1944, Prince Charles attended the High Mass for the Belgians shot by the Germans as political prisoners.
http://www.gettyimages.com/license/3294936

[maria-olivia]

Thanks for this never seen Picture. I do not think the person next to him is his Mother Queen Elisabeth.
It is known that Charles did not see his Mother from 1940 to 1945 when he became Regent The Queen had to attend his Oath at the Parlement , bus was dressed in black

[CyrilVladisla]

maria-olivia, Is the lady a relative of Prince Charles?

[maria-olivia]

No Royal Ladies during the War in Belgium except Queen Elisabeth !
I think the person next ro the Prince must be an ex prisoner ?

[CyrilVladisla]

maria-olivia, Is the lady possibly a member of the Belgian aristocracy/nobility?

[maria-olivia]

I don't think so , s too badly dressed next to the Prince who is in great Uniform.

To me it is a Prisoner , Prince Charles was a warm person;

[Lee-Z]

I also don't think the woman next to Prince Charles is Q.Elisabeth, to me her nose seem to be different than for instance on this pic from 1939 http://opac.amsab.be/images/FO 008196.jpg
But that doesn't mean she didn't attend the Mass, she might have been seated somewhere else?

[maria-olivia]

I agree She attend the Mass but seated somewhere else. I never saw this interesting picture. They are such few pictures during the period before Prince Charles was regent (1945)

[CyrilVladisla]

maria-olivia, What prison might the lady have been a prisoner?

[maria-olivia]

I really don't know because this in to me un unknown but very interesting picture because it is in 1944 .

[Duc_et_Pair]

On September 21st 1944 Prince Charles of Belgium, Count of Flanders, became Regent. So today it is exactly 75 years ago.

That Prince Charles became Regent was not an automatism. The Belgian Government was not obliged to appoint someone from the royal family. But in political circles many soon agreed that Prince Charles was the best candidate. Inside Belgium the only other relative of the King was his mother, Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians born Duchess in Bavaria. No one considered her as a Regentess. Queen Elisabeth enjoyed some respect but lacked insight in people and politics. As André de Staercke (Chef Cabinet of Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot) wrote: Queen Elisabeth was able to appoint someone Prime Minister, just because he was a good doctor or a gifted musician.

So it became Prince Charles. A man not really known to most Belgians and to most politicians. The Prince had the reputation of being an anglophile, a remnant of his military education in the British Royal Navy. It was also known that the Prince had a difficult relationship with his brother and his mother. There was an inferiority complex and Queen Elisabeth even labelled him an "enfant terrible". His mother, who adored Leopold, never took him au sérieux. She did not hide her discontent when she heard that Prince Charles, and not she, became Regent. (Much later Prince Charles would state that his mother never forgave him for taking up the regency).

Also in the Royal Household there was discontent. The courtiers, naturally on the hand of the King, were furious that Prince Charles "usurped the throne" and this with the help of Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot ("a despicable man" according Leopold). The King's secretary, Robert Capelle, wrote a letter to Prince Charles: accepting the regency would be "illegal". The secretary reminded the Prince to his brother's "Political Testament" which was very negative about the Cabinet Pierlot (which went to London against his will and without any word about the allied countries or the resistance). This letter was handed to Field Marshall Sir Bernard Law Montgomery himself by the Grand Marshall of the Court, count Louis Cornet d'Elzius de Ways Ruart. When Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill read the letter, he was outraged and ordered the British Ambassador in Brussels, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, to demand an explanation about "that dirty paper".

As a consequence of this incident, Prince Charles dismissed the Grand Marshall of the Court. This caused an uproar at the Court, not in the least with Queen Elisabeth, who remained firm behind her eldest son Leopold despite his very unwise "political testament". To make things worse in their eyes: the Prince did appoint André de Staercke (Chef Cabinet of Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot) as his secretary. To the dismay of the courtiers the Prince offered "a stronghold inside the Court" to a man they considered as "an intrigant and a puppet of Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot".

In the meantime Prince Charles showed that he completely supported the allied countries. In London he visited King George VI, Prime Minister Churchill and also Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (offering financial support from his own purse for children hit by the gruesome Winter of Famine in the still occupied Netherlands).

When finally Nazi Germany capitulated in May 1945, King Leopold was freed from exile in Austria and thought he could go back to Brussels and resume his kingship. When his brother Charles told him there was no way he could simply return to the throne without an invitation by the Government, a feud broke out between the two brothers.

While the King was in exile in Switzerland, Prince Charles effectively was the head of state for 5 years. He again outraged his brother and the Court when he elevated former Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot into the Nobility with the title of Count. Not only was Pierlot an enemy of Leopold III, Charles had no right to bestow nobility, in the eyes of the leopoldists.

In general the Belgians were happy under Prince Charles. The country was booming and the Regent kept himself far from politics. Many saw Charles as an ideal King, but he himself considered his nephew Prince Baudouin as the constitutional successor to the King. His idea was to remain a Regent until Prince Baudouin could take over. This indeed happened in 1950.

After the end of his regency, Prince Charles withdrew from public, to live at his domain near Raversijde (Ostend). So now and then the Prince came in the news because of financial problems. Allegedly there were fortunes spent on maîtresses and fortunes disappeared because of shady "advisers" misusing the "Weltfremd" (naïve) Prince. The feud between the two brothers remained. Still in 1982 King Leopold wrote a letter to Prince Charles, blaming him for serious damage "because of your attitude to me, to the country, the dynasty, family..."

Charles himself stated that he had saved "de brol" ("the crap", the monarchy) but that he was never given any gratitude for it. By the way: the Prince blamed his brother that he was not allowed to marry a Belgian "commoner" (Jacqueline Wehrli) while he himself married Liliane Baels.

Link: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/drafts/...t-regentschap/

[Tatiana Maria]

Originally Posted by Duc_et_Pair

On September 21st 1944 Prince Charles of Belgium, Count of Flanders, became Regent. So today it is exactly 75 years ago.

That Prince Charles became Regent was not an automatism. The Belgian Government was not obliged to appoint someone from the royal family. But in political circles many soon agreed that Prince Charles was the best candidate. Inside Belgium the only other relative of the King was his mother, Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians born Duchess in Bavaria. No one considered her as a Regentess. Queen Elisabeth enjoyed some respect but lacked insight in people and politics. As André de Staercke (Chef Cabinet of Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot) wrote: Queen Elisabeth was able to appoint someone Prime Minister, just because he was a good doctor or a gifted musician.

So it became Prince Charles. A man not really known to most Belgians and to most politicians. The Prince had the reputation of being an anglophile, a remnant of his military education in the British Royal Navy. It was also known that the Prince had a difficult relationship with his brother and his mother. There was an inferiority complex and Queen Elisabeth even labelled him an "enfant terrible". His mother, who adored Leopold, never took him au sérieux. She did not hide her discontent when she heard that Prince Charles, and not she, became Regent. (Much later Prince Charles would state that his mother never forgave him for taking up the regency).

Also in the Royal Household there was discontent. The courtiers, naturally on the hand of the King, were furious that Prince Charles "usurped the throne" and this with the help of Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot ("a despicable man" according Leopold). The King's secretary, Robert Capelle, wrote a letter to Prince Charles: accepting the regency would be "illegal". The secretary reminded the Prince to his brother's "Political Testament" which was very negative about the Cabinet Pierlot (which went to London against his will and without any word about the allied countries or the resistance). This letter was handed to Field Marshall Sir Bernard Law Montgomery himself by the Grand Marshall of the Court, count Louis Cornet d'Elzius de Ways Ruart. When Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill read the letter, he was outraged and ordered the British Ambassador in Brussels, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, to demand an explanation about "that dirty paper".

As a consequence of this incident, Prince Charles dismissed the Grand Marshall of the Court. This caused an uproar at the Court, not in the least with Queen Elisabeth, who remained firm behind her eldest son Leopold despite his very unwise "political testament". To make things worse in their eyes: the Prince did appoint André de Staercke (Chef Cabinet of Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot) as his secretary. To the dismay of the courtiers the Prince offered "a stronghold inside the Court" to a man they considered as "an intrigant and a puppet of Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot".

In the meantime Prince Charles showed that he completely supported the allied countries. In London he visited King George VI, Prime Minister Churchill and also Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (offering financial support from his own purse for children hit by the gruesome Winter of Famine in the still occupied Netherlands).

When finally Nazi Germany capitulated in May 1945, King Leopold was freed from exile in Austria and thought he could go back to Brussels and resume his kingship. When his brother Charles told him there was no way he could simply return to the throne without an invitation by the Government, a feud broke out between the two brothers.

While the King was in exile in Switzerland, Prince Charles effectively was the head of state for 5 years. He again outraged his brother and the Court when he elevated former Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot into the Nobility with the title of Count. Not only was Pierlot an enemy of Leopold III, Charles had no right to bestow nobility, in the eyes of the leopoldists.

In general the Belgians were happy under Prince Charles. The country was booming and the Regent kept himself far from politics. Many saw Charles as an ideal King, but he himself considered his nephew Prince Baudouin as the constitutional successor to the King. His idea was to remain a Regent until Prince Baudouin could take over. This indeed happened in 1950.

After the end of his regency, Prince Charles withdrew from public, to live at his domain near Raversijde (Ostend). So now and then the Prince came in the news because of financial problems. Allegedly there were fortunes spent on maîtresses and fortunes disappeared because of shady "advisers" misusing the "Weltfremd" (naïve) Prince. The feud between the two brothers remained. Still in 1982 King Leopold wrote a letter to Prince Charles, blaming him for serious damage "because of your attitude to me, to the country, the dynasty, family..."

Charles himself stated that he had saved "de brol" ("the crap", the monarchy) but that he was never given any gratitude for it. By the way: the Prince blamed his brother that he was not allowed to marry a Belgian "commoner" (Jacqueline Wehrli) while he himself married Liliane Baels.

Link: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/drafts/...t-regentschap/

This is intriguing. Evidently, the family's private tensions were unleashed into the political moves and calculations in connection to the regency, and it sounds as if there may have been a strategic element to Prince Charles' apparent support of Pierlot.

I also hadn't realized that the Queen Elisabeth could have been a serious contender for regent (had her temperament been considered more suitable), given the Salic Law, but of course Belgians would have been acquainted with the history of the French monarchy, which had known many regencies by women in spite of Salic Law.

[An Ard Ri]

Queen Elisabeth as Regent of Belgium would have been interesting and possibly the only ever Female Regent of the kingdom.

[Marengo]

The regency was considered a grave disloyalty by Leopold III, usurping the place that he thought rightfully belonged to him. Leopold was very bitter about it and must have influenced the views of his young children. In a post-abdication documentary in 2013/4 (?) King Albert II seemed to have reflected on the matter and changed: he recognized that the regent played a vital role in saving the monarchy during the crisis about Leopold III. The King put some emphasis on his words, as if he was saying something very revealing. But the surprise of the statement was lost on the interviewer. Historians have a rather positive view of Charles' regency and less so about Leopold III. Charles had indeed 'sauvé le brol'.

[theroyalfly]

Thank you for highlighting this. This must be the reason why he also chose to leave the limelight other than just following his pursuits in arts.

Prince Charles deserves the love and adoration of King Leopold III's descendants.

[Duc_et_Pair]

Originally Posted by An Ard Ri

Queen Elisabeth as Regent of Belgium would have been interesting and possibly the only ever Female Regent of the kingdom.

It would most likely have meant the downfall of the monarchy as the Queen, blind for her eldest son's faults, always played the card "Leopold", was open to intrigants, was totally "Weltfremd" and failed to see the longer term goal (the survival of the monarchy) over the short term gain (her sweetie Leopold).

[theroyalfly]

Originally Posted by Duc_et_Pair

It would most likely have meant the downfall of the monarchy as the Queen, blind for her eldest son's faults, always played the card "Leopold", was open to intrigants, was totally "Weltfremd" and failed to see the longer term goal (the survival of the monarchy) over the short term gain (her sweetie Leopold).

I couldn't agree more. I've read somewhere that around 1950's to 1960's she embarrassed the Belgian government with her trips to Poland, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.