The Coburgs of Belgium

Plot

The Coburgs, remarked Bismarck, were ‘the stud farm of Europe'; if unkindly phrased, there was nevertheless some truth in the within three generations of the foundation of the Belgian Royal House in 1831, Coburgs had tarried into almost every royal family in Europe.Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the throne of Belgium is that it ever came into created after the successful rebellion against the Dutch, it was hoped, without much enthusiasm, that it would weld together a new nation of disparate and quarrelsome elements. It has survived to the present, in an era which has seen older and seemingly more secure dynasties vanish.Cheated by the death of his first wife, Charlotte, Princess of Wales, daughter of George IV and Queen Caroline, from becoming Prince Consort to the Queen of England, the resilient Leopold I of Saxe-Coburg not only became the constitutional monarch of Belgium but married the daughter of the King of France. With this the Coburgs were well launched on a climb from their petty German principality to a position of enormous world power.Theo Aronson is the author of over twenty works of royal historical biography, published in eleven languages. Among the widely read are Grandmama of Europe, The King in Love, Napoleon and Josephine and a biography of Princess Margaret. In the course of researching and writing these books he has interviewed major and minor members of Britain’s royal family and members of the royal households, as well as various officials, servants, friends and others whose lives are in some way connected with the monarchy.