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Leopold I was the
first king of Belgium.
After Belgium
gained its independence from the Netherlands on 4 October 1830,
the Belgian National Congress,
after
considering several other candidates, asked Leopold to become king of
the newly
formed country. He accepted and became "King of the Belgians" on 26nd
June 1831.
He swore allegiance
to the constitution in the Royal Palace in Brussels on 21st July 1831.
This day became the
Belgian national holiday.
Leopold George
Christian Frederick of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
was born in Coburg on 16th December 1790 into a German dynasty which had influential
connections with royal families throughout Europe. After a brilliant military career,
in which he fought Napoleon, Leopold
settled in England where he was appointed field-marshall. He was a very handsome, shrewd and dignified
man with an appealing
personality.
n 1816 he
married the heiress to the British throne, Princess Charlotte of Wales, the daughter of the Prince
Regent,
the future George IV of England. Sadly his first marriage did
not
last long, for Charlotte died in 1817 after giving
birth to a stillborn
child. Had
she lived, she
would have become Queen of England in 1830 on the death of her father,
and
Leopold would have been British Prince Consort instead of King of the
Belgians.
Right: Leopold I by Franz Winterhalter
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On 9 August 1832 he married again.
His secondwife was Louise-Marie, daughter
of Louis-Philippe, King of France. They had
four children, of which his second son Leopold would later succeed him
as
Leopold II.
Leopold’s
sister Victoria (of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld) married
the Duke of Kent (Prince Edward, brother of George IV) thereby
connecting
Leopold once again with the British royal family. Their daughter
Victoria was
the future Queen of England. Leopold became her favourite uncle and a sort of
father figure. In 1840
he arranged her
marriage to his nephew Albert, son of his brother Ernst I.
Despite
economic difficulties in its early years, Belgium rose to ever
greater heights of prosperity.
This was the age of iron and steel. Innovations and the expansion of
metal
working led to lower prices which in turn led to vastly increased
demand. Belgium was turning into
an industrial giant. The king
encouraged manufacturing and commerce. He was personally involved in promoting his
country's industrial revolution and one of his dreams, to build the first
railway in continental Europe, became a reality with the
opening of the
railway line between Brussels and Mechelen on 5th May 1835.
In
the mid 19th century a wave of revolutions
surged through Europe after King Louis-Philippe
of France was deposed in 1848.
But Belgium
passed through these turbulent years in comparative tranquillity. King
Leopold was a model ruler, popular, moderate and diplomatic. Serious
and hard-working, he was noted for his integrity, ability and wisdom
and succeeded in giving the new nation a sense of unity.
Belgium remained
neutral, chiefly thanks to Leopold's diplomatic efforts.
In 1850, Leopold
again lost a young wife, when Queen Louise-Marie
died of tuberculosis at the
age of 38. On 10th Dcemeber 1865,
the king himself
died in Laken.
He was buried in the royal vault of the Church of Our Lady, Laken
Cemetery,
Brussels, Belgium.
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