The monarchy of Belgium is the constitutional and hereditary institution of the monarchical head of state of the Kingdom of Belgium. As a popular monarchy, the Belgian monarch uses the title king/queen of the Belgians, possesses no physical crown, and undergoes swearing in, rather than a coronation. The monarch serves as the country's head of state, and ex officio, commander-in-chief of the Belgian Armed Forces.
There have been seven Belgian monarchs since independence in 1830. The incumbent, Philippe I, ascended the throne on 21 July 2013, following the abdication of his father Albert II.
Origins
When Belgium gained independence from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830, the National Congress chose a constitutional monarchy as the form of government. The Congress voted on the question on 22 November 1830, supporting monarchy by 174 votes to 13. In February 1831, the Congress nominated Louis, Duke of Nemours, the son of the French king Louis-Philippe, but international considerations deterred Louis-Philippe from accepting the honour for his son.
Following this refusal, the National Congress appointed Erasme-Louis, Baron Surlet de Chokier to be the Regent of Belgium on 25 February 1831. Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, since 1826 also called Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was designated as King of the Belgians by the National Congress and swore allegiance to the Belgian constitution in front of the Church of St. James on Coudenberg in Brussels on 21 July. This day has since become a national holiday for Belgium and its citizens.
Hereditary and constitutional As a hereditary constitutional monarchy system, the role and operation of Belgium's monarchy are governed by the Constitution. The royal office of King is designated solely for a descendant of the first King of the Belgians, Leopold I.
Since he is bound by the Constitution (above all other ideological and religious considerations, political opinions and debates, and economic interests), the King is intended to act as an arbiter and guardian of Belgian national unity and independence. Belgium's monarchs are inaugurated in a purely civil swearing-in ceremony.
Leopold I, Leopold II and Albert I King Leopold I was head of Foreign Affairs "as an ancien régime monarch", the foreign ministers having the authority to act only as ministers of the king. Leopold I quickly became one of the most important shareholders of the Société Générale de Belgique.
Leopold's son, King Leopold II, is chiefly remembered for the founding and capitalization of the Congo Free State as a personal fiefdom. There was scandal when the atrocities in the Congo Free State were made public, causing the Free State to be taken over by the Belgian Government. Many Congolese were killed as a result of Leopold's policies in the Congo before the reforms of direct Belgian rule. The Free State scandal is discussed at the Museum of the Congo at Tervuren in Belgium.
On several occasions Leopold II publicly expressed disagreement with the ruling government (e.g. on 15 August 1887, and in 1905, against Prime Minister Auguste Beernaert)Raymond Fusilier, Les monarchies parlementaires en Europe Editions ouvrières, Paris, 1960, p. 399. and was accused by Yvon Gouet of noncompliance with the country's parliamentary system.Yvon Gouet, De l'unité du cabinet parlementaire, Dalloz, 1930, p. 232, quoted by Raymond Fusilier, p. 400.
Leopold II died without surviving legitimate sons. The line now descends from his nephew and successor, Albert I of Belgium, who ruled while 90% of Belgium was overrun by the forces of Kaiser Wilhelm II and is notable for his forays into colonial rule of the Belgian Congo and later, abeyant Wilhelm, the League of Nations mandate in Ruanda-Urundi. In 1934, Albert died under mysterious circumstances as he climbed solo on the Roche du Vieux Bon Dieu at Marche-les-Dames.
Leopold III and Baudouin Louis Wodon (the of Leopold III from 1934 to 1940), thought the King's oath to the Constitution implied a royal position "over and above the Constitution". He compared the King to a father, the head of a family: "Regarding the moral mission of the king, it is permissible to point to a certain analogy between his role and that of a father, or more generally, of parents in a family. The family is, of course, a legal institution as is the state. But what would a family be where everything was limited among those who compose it to simply legal relationships? In a family when one considers only legal relationships one comes very close to a breakdown in the moral ties founded on reciprocal affection without which a family would be like any other fragile association"Arango, p. 31. According to Arango, Leopold III of Belgium shared these views about the Belgian monarchy.
In 1991, towards the end of the reign of Baudouin, Senator Yves de Wasseige, a former member of the Belgian Constitutional Court, cited four points at which the Belgian Constitution lacks democracy: in 1991, the King chooses the ministers, the King can influence the ministers when he speaks with them about bills, projects, and nominations, the King promulgates bills, and, the King must agree to any change of the Constitution
Constitutional, political, and historical consequences The Belgian monarchy was from the beginning a constitutional monarchy, patterned after that of the United Kingdom. Raymond Fusilier wrote the Belgian regime of 1830 was also inspired by the French Constitution of the Kingdom of France (1791–1792), the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776, and the old political traditions of both Walloon and Flemish provinces.Les monarchies parlementaires en Europe, Editions ouvrières, Paris, 1960, p. 350 "It should be observed that all monarchies have suffered periods of change as a result of which the power of the sovereign was reduced, but for the most part those periods occurred before the development of the system of constitutional monarchy and were steps leading to its establishment." The characteristic evidence of this is in Great Britain, where there was an evolution from the time when kings ruled through the agency of ministers to that time when ministers began to govern through the instrumentality of the Crown.
Unlike the British constitutional system, in Belgium "the monarchy underwent a belated evolution" which came "after the establishment of the constitutional monarchical system"Arango, p. 12. because, in 1830–1831, an independent state, parliamentary system and monarchy were established simultaneously. Hans Daalder, professor of political science at the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, wrote: "Did such simultaneous developments not result in a possible failure to lay down the limits of the royal prerogatives with some precision—which implied that the view of the King as the Keeper of the Nation, with rights and duties of its own, retained legitimacy?"Hans Daalder, The monarchy in a parliamentary system, in Res Publica, Tijdschrift voor Politologie, Revue de Science Politique, Belgian Journal of Political Science, number 1, 1991, pp. 70–81, p. 74.
For Raymond Fusilier, the Belgian monarchy had to be placed—at least in the beginning—between the regimes where the king rules and those in which the king does not rule but only reigns. The Belgian monarchy is closer to the principle "the King does not rule",Raymond Fusilier, Les monarchies parlementaires – étude sur les systèmes de gouvernement en Suède, Norvège, Luxembourg, Belgique, Pays-bas, Danemark, Editions ouvrières, Paris, 1960, pp. 419–420. but the Belgian kings were not only "at the head of the dignified part of the Constitution".Bagehot, The English Constitution The Belgian monarchy is not merely symbolic, because it participates in directing affairs of state insofar as the King's will coincides with that of the ministers, who alone bear responsibility for the policy of government.R.Fusilier, pp. 419–420. French Elle n'est pas purement symbolique, car elle participe à la direction des affaires de l'Etat dans la mesure où sa volonté coïncide avec la volonté des ministres, lesquels seuls assument la responsabilité de la politique du gouvenement. For Francis Delpérée, to reign does not only mean to preside over ceremonies but also to take a part in the running of the State.French Le Roi règne. Pendant plus d'un siècle et demi (...) on ne s'est guère interrogé sur cette maxime. Ou bien on a cherché à lui donner un sens réducteur. Le Roi préside les Te Deum et les cérémonies protocolaires (...) Régner ne signifie pas suivre d'un oeil distrait les occupations du gouvernement (...) C'est contribuer (...) au fonctionnement harmonieux de l'Etat, in La Libre Belgique (April 1990) quoted by Les faces cachées de la monarchie belge, Contradictions, number 65–66, 1991, p. 27. The Belgian historian Jean Stengers wrote that "some foreigners believe the monarchy is indispensable to national unity. That is very naive. He is only a piece on the chessboard, but a piece which matters".French Certains étrangers croient – ils le disent souvent – que le maintien de l'unité belge tient à la personne du Roi. Cela est d'une grande naïveté. Il n'est qu'une pièce sur l'échiquier. Mais, sur l'échiquier, le Roi est une pièce qui compte., Jean Stengers, L'action du roi en Belgique depuis 1831, Duculot, Gembloux, 1992, p. 312.
The kings of the Belgians
The monarchs of Belgium originally belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The family name was changed by Albert I in 1920, to the House of Belgium and the armorial bearings of Saxony from the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha were dropped from the Belgian royal coat of arms.
In 2019, King Phillippe codified the coats of arms of himself and those of his family through Royal Decree. The personal arms of the reigning monarch were modified to restore the Saxonian escutcheon. The arms of other members of the royal family were similarly modified. The reinstatement of the shield of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha into the royal arms occurred shortly after the visit of the king and queen to their ancestral Friedenstein Castle. The latest royal decree therefore reverses previous changes made to Royal versions of the coat arms which removed these Saxon ties during the First World War. By including the three official languages in the motto it reflects his wish "to be the King of the whole Kingdom and of all Belgians". The coat of arms of Belgium remains unchanged, i.e., it does not incorporate the Saxon arms.
Since the 2017 edition of the Carnet Mondain, the title "Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha", along with "of Belgium" were again in use for all descendants of Leopold I, with the exception of King Philippe, his wife, his sister and his brother, who keep their title "of Belgium"; therefore, the descendants of Astrid of Belgium do not bear this title, but that of "of Austria-Este" from their father.
For completeness, the family tree should include Princess Delphine of Belgium (born 1968). She is the legally acknowledged half-sibling of King Philippe of Belgium, and her children are also recognised as members of the royal family.
Title The proper title of the Belgian monarch is "King of the Belgians" rather than "King of Belgium" as is common for other monarchies throughout Europe. The title is linked to a concept of popular monarchy as defined by Kingsley Martin in his work The Evolution of Popular Monarchy, published in 1936. According to Martin, the term is meant to emphasize the bond and connection to the people of the land over the territory the state controls.. His work further implies that such a monarch is de facto appointed by the people as a nominal figurehead rather than being an authoritarian ruler.