Posted by CatherineNY
on 30/9/2009, 3:25:49, in reply to "Re: Household without a master's eye"
148.168.127.10
Did anyone else find this terribly poignant?
"1. The Queen does not want the Prince of present, but the man from 1936"
The poor Queen!
--Previous Message--
: Thanks Henri, for your assessment. Hope to
: read more after you complete the book!
:
: --Previous Message--
: In the first alinea Prof. Fasseur not only
: blamed the chaos on Hofmans. It could also
: go out of hand because the eye of the
: Mastress was not there.
:
: The Queen and the Prince resided at
: Soestdijk Palace with a few members of
: staff. Of course the 'daily' assistance was
: at that palace but the bulk of the Household
: was at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague and
: some at the other palaces. However Fasseur
: did not doubt the loyalty of the Household,
: it effectively was a Household without the
: eye of the Mastress monitoring it. Queen
: Juliana had no interest for it and this made
: that the grip on the organization was weak.
: There were budget deficits in some years,
: there were shortcomings or even sorts of
: fraud. Prince Bernhard had more interest for
: the organization but only when he had
: nothing else in his agenda.
:
: Added to this the total chaos at 'Soestdijk'
: and machinations to get experienced
: functionaries replaced by pro-Hofmans
: courtiers (Grandmaster Baron Van Hardenbroek
: was replaced by a nitwit who was under the
: spell of Van Heeckeren and Van Maasdijk, the
: Grandmastress was replaced by the Douairière
: Van Heeckeren van Molencaten, the mother of
: the secretary, the Governess of the
: Princesses, Rita Pennings, even became the
: secretary's wife, etc.) and the Household
: falling in two camps.
:
: No wonder that Queen Beatrix (an enemy of
: Hofmans) wanted to get a firm grip on the
: Household and on 'The Hague' from the very
: first day of her kingship on.
:
:
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