Part I: Life
Life for Astrid Sophie Louise began on November 17, 1905, in Sweden. Her parents, Prince Charles (brother of the king of Sweden) and Princess Ingeborg (sister of the king of Denmark), reported raised Astrid in a fashion typical of children in average upper-middle class Swedish families. She was the third of four children. Along with her older sisters Margaretha and Martha, Astrid attended high school and had private instruction in domestic skills. Margaretha, later in life married Prince Axel of Denmark, and Martha, was, until her death in 1954, the Crown Princess of Norway. Astrid's only brother, Carl Gustaf Oscar, Prince of Sweden, will soon celebrate his ninetieth birthday. Like most royal children in Scandinavia the daughters and son of Charles and Ingeborg were brought up in the Lutheran church, educated and trained to serve the people of their country.
Late in 1925, rumors started to circulate about Astrid's engagement-to-marry. The Prince of Wales was often spoken of as the likely future husband of the Swedish princess, but on September 21, 1926, it was the Belgian king, Albert I, who announced Astrid's engagement to his son, the Crown Prince, Leopold III. The courtship had been completely private - it is known for sure that there were many covert visits to the Swedish capital undertaken by the Belgian Prince. He traveled third class and carried his own luggage in order to avoid publicity and notice. In the engagement announcement the queen - Elizabeth of Bavaria - Albert's wife, made it known that this was a love-match and that the two young people were acting with complete liberty and independence without interference from anybody.
The royal couple were married in two different ceremonies, the first being on November 4, 1926, in the throne room of the royal palace in Stockholm, the day after Leopold's twenty-fifth birthday. The official church wedding happened in Brussels on the tenth of November, 1926, with the kings of Sweden, Belgium, Norway and Denmark present. Along with the official United States ambassador to Belgium, several hundred invited family, guests and dignitaries saw the bride and groom, amid scenes of jubilation and pomp, exchange their vows in the cathedral of Sainte-Gudule. Wedding pictures of the royal couple show the twenty year old bride in a white flowing gown, with a floor length train, that would have been the envy of any bride of that era.
Astrid soon felt completely at home in her new country. Stories about the new princess were well circulated by newspapers and retold by word-of-mouth. Such tales made Astrid a much beloved public personality nearly overnight. The happening that prompted such a story, which today would seem like a total non-event, took place on the day before Leopold's and Astrid's first wedding ceremony. It was Leopold's birthday. He was in Stockholm for the ceremony the next morning, and naturally, was present in the palace for a birthday dinner-party. After dinner, Princess Astrid presented the Crown Prince with a birthday cake that she had baked herself. It was a chocolate frosted birthday cake. Frosting made with Belgian chocolate.
On February 17, 1934, Leopold's father, Albert I, king of the Belgians died as the result of a fall while mountain climbing on Marche-les-Dames, near Namur. He was only 59, and his death sent the Belgian people into a state of deep mourning. Leopold and Astrid learned of the king's death while traveling in Switzerland. They returned to Brussels immediately and Leopold became king on February 23, 1934. The start of their reign as king and queen of the Belgians began with Queen Astrid and her two elder children (Princess Josephine Charlotte and Prince Baudoin) sitting on the dais, dressed in mourning clothes, and the Queen Mother Elizabeth sitting opposite her son as the oath was administered by government authorities. Sad times indeed.
Another story that brings a smile to modern faces is the fact that Astrid insisted on pushing her own baby carriage. On June 6, 1934, just three months after becoming queen of the Belgians, Astrid gave birth to the third of their children - Albert, Prince of Liege - the present king of Belgium. There are many photographs of the Queen, on the grounds of the palace in Brussels, with her children, and the fact that she would maneuver a hundred pound baby carriage around the streets of Brussels caused the burghers of the city much satisfaction.
During those early months of the king's reign, he too was often seen with the Queen and his children around the city of Brussels. The king was by tradition the commander-in-chief of the Belgian army, and he was usually seen wearing a khaki uniform, the same as his troops would have worn at any given time. His role as a leader of the army would be one that would come to haunt him in later years.
Leopold was an avid and daring sportsman, much like his father, and the queen and their children would often accompany him on automobile and sailing trips. Astrid, too was an enthusiastic sportswoman. As a young girl in Sweden, she had learned to ski and toboggan on her father's estate in Vestergoetland. She was also a very accomplished tennis player - a skill she learned from her uncle Gustaf V, the king of Sweden.
These were good times for the Belgian royal family and the people of their country. Most of the social problems that plagued the Belgians for years were solved by constitutional agreement. The Flemings and Waloons each had achieved their goal of making Belgium a bilingual country. The only problem was that the economic crisis that gripped America in a strangle hold of depression also engulfed parts of Europe. Little did the people of Belgium know that just over a year from those days in the spring of 1934, their whole world would again be changed by the terrible death of a member of their royal family.
