Juliana of the Netherlands
Juliana was Queen of the Netherlands from 1948 until her abdication in 1980.
Juliana was the only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Duke Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. She received a private education and studied international law at the University of Leiden. In 1937, she married Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld with whom she had four daughters: Beatrix, Irene, Margriet, and Christina. During the German invasion of the Netherlands in the Second World War, the royal family was evacuated to the United Kingdom. Juliana then relocated to Canada with her children, while Wilhelmina and Bernhard remained in Britain. The royal family returned to the Netherlands after its liberation in 1945.
Due to Wilhelmina's failing health, Juliana took over royal duties briefly in 1947 and 1948. In September 1948, Wilhelmina abdicated and Juliana ascended to the Dutch throne. Her reign saw the decolonization and independence of the Dutch East Indies and Suriname, and the creation and dissolution of the Netherlands Indonesia Union, of which she served as head of state. Despite a series of controversies involving the royal family, Juliana remained a popular figure among the Dutch.
In April 1980, Juliana abdicated in favour of her eldest daughter, Beatrix. Upon her death in 2004 at the age of, she was the longest-lived former reigning monarch in the world.
Early life and education
Juliana was born on 30 April 1909 at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, the only child of the reigning Dutch monarch, Queen Wilhelmina. Her father was Duke Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. She was the first Dutch royal baby since Wilhelmina herself was born in 1880. Wilhelmina had suffered two miscarriages and had given birth to a premature and stillborn son, raising the prospect of a succession crisis.The Queen's nearest relative was Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss of Köstritz, whose close ties to Germany made him unpopular in the Netherlands, leading to concerns that if Wilhelmina died without an heir, he would turn the Netherlands into a puppet state of Germany. Juliana's birth thus assured the royal family's survival. Her mother suffered two further miscarriages after her birth, leaving Juliana as the royal couple's only child. According to several sources Juliana was happy to be an only child because that meant she did not have to fight for attention.
Juliana spent her childhood at Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn, and at Noordeinde Palace and Huis ten Bosch Palace in The Hague. A small school class was formed at Noordeinde Palace on the advice of the educator Jan Ligthart so that, from the age of six, the Princess could receive her primary education with children of her own age. These children were Baroness Elise Bentinck, Baroness Elisabeth van Hardenbroek and Jonkvrouwe Miek de Jonge.
As the Dutch constitution specified that Princess Juliana should be ready to succeed to the throne by the age of eighteen, her education proceeded at a faster pace than that of most children. After five years of primary education, the Princess received her secondary education from private tutors.
On 30 April 1927, Princess Juliana celebrated her eighteenth birthday. Under the constitution, she had officially come of age and was entitled to assume the royal prerogative, if necessary. Two days later her mother installed her in the "Raad van State".
In the same year, the Princess enrolled as a student at the University of Leiden. In her first years at university, she attended lectures in sociology, jurisprudence, economics, history of religion, parliamentary history, and constitutional law. In the course of her studies, she also attended lectures on the cultures of Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles, international affairs, international law, history, and European law. She graduated from the university in 1930 with a bachelor's degree in international law. She was taught Greek literature by Sophia Antoniadis, the university's first female professor.
Marriage
In the 1930s, Queen Wilhelmina began a search for a suitable husband for her daughter. At the time, the House of Orange-Nassau was one of the most strictly religious royal families in the world, and it was very difficult to find a Protestant prince who suited their standards. Princes from the United Kingdom and Sweden were "vetted" but either declined or were rejected by the princess.At the 1936 Winter Olympics in Bavaria, she met Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, a young German Prince who was her 7th cousin, as both descended from Lebrecht, Prince of Anhalt-Zeitz-Hoym. His rank and religion were suitable; so Princess Juliana's royal engagement was arranged by her mother. Princess Juliana fell deeply in love with her fiancé, a love that was to last a lifetime and that withstood separation during the war and Bernhard's extramarital affairs and illegitimate children. Queen Wilhelmina, by then the richest woman in the world, left nothing to chance. Wilhelmina had her lawyers draw up a prenuptial agreement that specified exactly what the German-born prince could and could not do, and what money he would receive from the royal estate. The couple's engagement was announced on 8 September 1936.
The wedding announcement divided a country that mistrusted Germany under Adolf Hitler. Prior to the wedding, on 24 November 1936, Prince Bernhard was granted Dutch citizenship and changed the spelling of his names from German to Dutch. They married in The Hague on 7 January 1937, the date on which Princess Juliana's grandparents, King William III and Queen Emma, had married fifty-eight years earlier. The civil ceremony was held in the Town Hall of The Hague and the marriage was blessed in the Great Church, also located in The Hague. Juliana's chosen bridesmaids were either relatives or family friends. These included Duchess Woizlawa Feodora of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Duchess Thyra of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Grand Duchess Kira Kirillovna of Russia, Princess Sophie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and two of Bernhard's first cousins, Princess Sieglinde of Lippe and Princess Elisabeth of Lippe.
A wedding gift was the royal yacht, Piet Hein. The young couple moved into Soestdijk Palace in Baarn.
The first of their four daughters, Princess Beatrix, was born on 31 January 1938, followed by Princess Irene on 5 August 1939.
Canadian exile
On 12 May 1940, during the invasion of the Netherlands by Germany in the Second World War, Prince Bernhard and Princess Juliana were evacuated to the United Kingdom to be followed the next day by Queen Wilhelmina and the Dutch Government, who set up a government in exile. The princess remained there for a month before taking the children to Ottawa, the capital of Canada, where she resided at Stornoway in the suburb of Rockcliffe Park. Her mother and husband remained in Britain with the Dutch government-in-exile.When her third child, Princess Margriet, was born on 19 January 1943, Governor General Lord Athlone granted royal assent to a special law declaring Princess Juliana's rooms at the Ottawa Civic Hospital to be extraterritorial in order that the infant would have exclusively Dutch, not dual nationality. Had these arrangements not been made, Princess Margriet would not be in the line of succession. The Canadian government flew the Dutch tricolour flag on parliament's Peace Tower while its carillon rang out with Dutch music at the news of Princess Margriet's birth. Prince Bernhard, who had remained in London to assist his mother in law Queen Wilhelmina and the government with operating in exile, was able to visit his family in Canada and be there for Margriet's birth. Princess Juliana's genuine warmth and the gestures of her Canadian hosts created a lasting bond, which was reinforced when Canadian soldiers fought and died by the thousands in 1944 and 1945 to liberate the Netherlands from the Nazis. She returned with Queen Wilhelmina by a military transport plane to the liberated part of the Netherlands on 2 May 1945, rushing to Breda to set up a temporary Dutch government. Once home, she expressed her gratitude to Canada by sending the city of Ottawa 100,000 tulip bulbs. Juliana erected a wooden lectern and brass plaque which is dedicated in thanks to the St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church for their hospitality during her residence in Ottawa.
File:Prinses Juliana en Kees van Eendenburg.jpg|thumb|left|Juliana meets RAF pilot Kees van Eendenburg at Deanland in 1944|alt=
On 24 June 1945, she sailed on the RMS Queen Elizabeth from Gourock, Scotland, to the United States, listing her last permanent residence as London, England. The following year, Juliana donated another 20,500 bulbs, with the request that a portion of these be planted at the grounds of the Ottawa Civic Hospital where she had given birth to Margriet. At the same time, she promised Ottawa an annual gift of tulips during her lifetime to show her lasting appreciation for Canada's war-time hospitality. Each year Ottawa hosts the Canadian Tulip Festival in celebration of this gift.
On 2 May 1945, Princess Juliana was returned with her mother to Dutch soil. Initially they lived in temporary quarters at Anneville just south of Breda. Juliana took part in the post-war relief operation for the people in the northern part of the country who had suffered through starvation during the Hunger Winter of 1944–1945, which had taken the lives of many of her countrymen. She was very active as the president of the Dutch Red Cross and worked closely with the National Reconstruction organization. Her down-to-earth manner endeared her to her people so much that a majority of the Dutch people would soon want Queen Wilhelmina to abdicate in favour of her daughter. In the spring of 1946 Princess Juliana and Prince Bernhard visited the countries that had helped the Netherlands during the occupation.
During her pregnancy with her last child, Marijke Christina, Princess Juliana contracted rubella. The girl was born in 1947 with cataracts in both eyes and was soon diagnosed as almost totally blind in one eye and severely limited in the other. Despite her blindness, Christina, as she was called, was a happy and gifted child with a talent for languages and an ear for music. Over time, and with advances in medical technology, her eyesight did improve such that with thick glasses, she could attend school and even ride a bicycle. However, before that happened, her mother, the Princess, clinging to any thread that offered some hope for a cure, came under the strong influence of Greet Hofmans, a faith healer with heterodox beliefs, who was considered by "her many detractors" to be a sham.