Prince Constantijn Reaches the Big 4-0

To mark the fortieth birthday of HRH Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands, the Dutch Royal Court has released new portraits of the Prince and his family.

The series features the Prince and his wife, HRH Princess Laurentien, and the couple’s three children: TE Countess Eloise, Count Claus-Casimir and Countess Leonore. There are also two individual portraits of the Prince, and in several of the images the facial similarites between Constantijn and his father, the late Prince Claus, is clear.

HRH Prince Constantijn Christof Frederik Aschwin of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange-Nassau, Jonkheer van Amsberg was born on October 11th, 1969, in Utrecht; the youngest son of the then HRH Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands and her husband HRH Prince Claus.

He attended primary school education at the Nieuwe Baarnse School in Baarn, before the family moved to The Hague in 1980 when his mother took the throne as Queen Beatrix. Constantijn then attended the Eerste Vrijzinnig Christelijk Lyceum, where he graduated in 1987. From there, HRH attended several languages courses in France and Italy before enrolling at the University of Leiden to study law. He received his degree in civil law on January 31, 1995; Constantijn was then hired to work for the Dutch European Commissioner in Brussels, where he stayed until 1999. In late 2000, the Prince was awarded a Master of Business Administration from the European Institute of Business Administration in France.

On December 16, 2000, the engagement between Prince Constantijn and Ms Laurentien Brinkhorst was announced by the Royal Court. The pair wed civially on May 17, 2001 in The Hague, with a religious wedding ceremony taking place two days later at the Grote of St Jacobskerk. Constantijn and Laurentien welcomed their first child, a daughter named Eloise Sophie Beatrix Laurence on June 8, 2002. A son, Claus-Casimir Bernhard Marius Max, followed on March 21, 2004. A second daughter, Leonore Marie Irene Enrica, was born on June 3, 2006.

Prince Constantijn has been working as an advisor for the European Communications at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since August 2003, and as a policy researcher for RAND Europe since March 2004. Due to his work with RAND Europe, the Prince and his family moved to Brussels, Belgium in early 2004. In 2007, Constantijn was promoted to the head of RAND Europe’s information policy and economics team, and in 2008 was appointed the head of RAND Europe’s Brussels office.

Prince Constantijn considers football, tennis, golf and skiing his favourite sports; and includes drawing, cooking and reading among his leisure hobbies.

The Prince is currently 5th in line to the Dutch throne, following his eldest brother and his three nieces. Constantijn is also in the line of succesion for the British throne, currently sitting around 820th. This is through his great-great-grandmother Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont, who was a descendant of Electress Sophia of Hanover.

Filed under The Netherlands
Tagged Biography, Birthday, Portraits, Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands.