Who is King Albert II of Belgium?

Prince Albert was born on 6 June 1934 in Stuyvenberg Castle, Brussels, as the second son and youngest child of King Leopold III and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden. He was second in line to the throne at birth, and was given the title Prince of Liège. 

Family

Through his mother, Queen Astrid, King Albert II of Belgium is a descendant of Princess Ingeborg of Denmark (grandmother), Frederick VIII of Denmark and King Christian IX of Denmark (the father-in-law of Europe). 

A Tragedy

Queen Astrid died in a car accident on 29 August 1935, in which King Leopold was lightly injured but survived, when Prince Albert was one year old. The King remarried to Mary Lilian Baels (later becamePrincess of Réthy) in 1941. The couple produced three children:

Prince Alexandre,
Princess Marie-Christine
and Princess Marie-Esméralda (who is also Albert's goddaughter). 

Albert and his siblings had a close relationship with their stepmother and they called her "Mother"

World War II

During World War II, on 10 May 1940, at the time when Belgium was being invaded, Prince Albert, his elder sister Princess Joséphine-Charlotte and his elder brother Prince Baudouin, left the country for France and later Spain. 

The Princes and the Princess returned to Belgium on 2 August 1940. They continued their studies until 1944, either at Laeken, or at the Castle of Ciergnon in the Ardennes. 

In June 1944, at the time of the Allied landings, King Leopold, his wife Princess Lilian and the royal children were deported by the Germans to Hirschstein, Germany, and later to Strobl, Austria,
where they were liberated by the American Army on 7 May 1945. 

Owing to the political situation in Belgium, King Leopold and his family moved to the villa "Le Reposoir" in Pregny, Switzerland, when they left Austria in October 1945 and stayed until July 1950. 

During that time, Prince Albert would continue his education in a secondary school in Geneva. King Leopold III, accompanied by Prince Baudouin and Prince Albert, returned to Belgium on
22 July 1950.

Love and Marriage

In 1958, Albert went to the Vatican to witness the coronation of Pope John XXIII. At a reception at the Belgian Embassy, he met Italian Donna Paola Ruffo di Calabria. Prince Albert proposed marriage to her, to which she accepted. Two months after their meeting, the prince introduced his future wife to his family, and four months later to the press. 

The couple married on 2 July 1959 and have three children, two sons and a daughter, twelve grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Their children are:

King Philippe (born 15 April 1960 at Belvédère Castle)

Princess Astrid (born 5 June 1962 at Belvédère Castle)

Prince Laurent (born 19 October 1963 at Belvédère Castle)

Delphine Boël

In 1997, the Belgian satirical magazine Père Ubu reported that the Belgian sculptor Delphine Boël (born in 1968) was King Albert II's extramarital daughter. It took some years for the Belgian mainstream media to report this news. According to Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, the mother of Delphine, she and Albert shared an 18-year-long relationship into which Delphine was born. 

In June 2013, Boël summoned the then King, the then Duke of Brabant and the Archduchess of Austria-Este to appear in court. She hoped to use DNA tests to prove that she is the King's daughter.  As the King enjoyed complete immunity under the law, Boël decided to summon his elder children as well. 

After the King's abdication, she abandoned her first suit to introduce a second one only against the King as he was no longer protected by immunity and the first claim would have been judged according to
the situation at the time of the introduction of the claim. 

In March 2017, the Court ruled that her claim was unfounded, and her lawyers said she would take the claim to appeal. On 25 October 2018, the Court of Appeal decided that Delphine Boël is not a descendant of Jacques Boël, and ordered King Albert to undergo DNA testing. His lawyer announced that he would seek further advice about a possible referral to Belgium's Cour de Cassation / Hof van Cassatie. In 2019, the King's lawyer confirmed he would not provide a DNA sample in the case.

On 29 May 2019, it was reported by CNN that Albert II had submitted a DNA sample after a Belgian court ruled on 16 May that he would be fined 5,000 euros for each day that he failed to do so, although he would continue to challenge the ruling, according to his attorney, Alain Berenboom [fr].

The results of these DNA samples were released on 27 January 2020 by Alain Berenboom, confirming Delphine Boël as Albert II's daughter. Albert II confirmed this on 27 January 2020 in a press release.

"The king will treat all his children as equal," Berenboom said, according to VTM News. "King Albert now has four children." While it was proven that Boël was his biological daughter, her legal status as a daughter was not recognized until a 1 October 2020 ruling of the Brussels Court of Appeal, which also recognized Boël as a princess of Belgium and granted her the new surname of Saxe-Coburg.

King of the Belgians

As the younger brother of the childless King Baudouin, Prince Albert was the heir-presumptive to the throne. Albert's son Philippe was groomed to eventually succeed. On Baudouin's death, Albert was
sworn in before parliament, on 9 August 1993, as King of the Belgians. As King, Albert's duties included representing Belgium at home and abroad on state visits, trade missions, and at high level

international meetings as well as taking an interest in Belgian society, culture and enterprise. In 1984, he set up the Prince Albert Foundation, to promote expertise in foreign trade.

The King had a constitutional role which came into play in 2010–2011 when Belgium's parliament was unable to agree on a government. When the crisis was resolved, Albert swore in the new government.

Albert sparked controversy in his December 2012 Christmas speech by comparing modern "populist movements" with those of the 1930s. This was seen by several political commentators, as well as many
Flemish politicians, as aimed implicitly at the large Flemish nationalist party, the N-VA. 

Bart De Wever, the party's leader, called for the King's role in the formation of Belgian governments to be changed in the wake of this comment since he "could no longer see the monarch as playing
the constitutional role of referee.

Abdication

On 3 July 2013, 79-year-old King Albert II attended a midday session of the Belgian cabinet, where he revealed his intention to abdicate to Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and to the deputy prime ministers. 

According to a letter sent by the King to the Prime Minister and dated 3 July 2013, and which was made public, the King had already broached the topic of his intention to abdicate several times with the Prime Minister, who had asked him to reconsider it. 

At 6 PM (CET) the King announced in a recorded radio and television speech that on 21 July, Belgium's National Day, he would abdicate the throne for health reasons.  He was succeeded by his elder son, Philippe.

After his abdication on 21 July 2013 it was decided that he would be styled as His Majesty King Albert II, the same form of address granted to his father, Leopold III, after his abdication.

Health 

On 27 June 2023 it was announced that King Albert II was admitted at the hospital due to dehydration symptoms. 

Source pictures: Wikipedia & Screenshots