Posted by Henri M
on 1/10/2009, 23:25:52, in reply to "Re: The man from 1936"
85.145.85.203
His unfaithfullness did not undermine the monarchy at all.
The Prince had one big problem: he had no feeling for good and bad guys. Added to this his lifelong loyalty to friends, even when they turned out to be somewhat suspect, then the Prince's problem is there.
Another contribution to the princely problems was his unlimited free space and the deep reverence successive Cabinets had for him. Were the previous and the next Prince of the Netherlands (Heinrich von Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Claus von Amsberg) too restricted, this Prince could do anything he wanted.
All this, the poor feeling for carefully choosing one's friends, the Prince's own adventurous character and the almost unlimited free space he had until 1976 did lead to the later problems.
But the Prince for sure has his own merits. He was the one who made Juliana a more cosmopolitic lady (He however remained critical on her appearances. He always wanted her to be more glamorous or regal and could be quite b###hy on that as his letters to her shows us). The monarchy with its trappings as we know it today is much to the Prince's credits. He had an eye for protocol, ceremonial and necessary trappings. Thanks to him the carriages and the Royal Stables but also all the ceremonial uniforms (most of the re-introduced in 1948) survived the 'modernization' Wilhelmina and Juliana wanted.
While the Prince, from the first day after the war began to use the royal residences again, his mother-in-law Wilhelmina sticked to common houses in Breda or The Hague because she thought this was part of the 'renewal' of the monarchy in a 'reborn' Netherlands. For the Prince this was complete quatsch.
Gratitude is owed to the Prince for his unbelievable and vital contribution for the succes of the World Wildlife Fund (with the panda). The (dangerous) act (using the media) to get Ms Hofmans and her clan out of the Queen's surroundings was hard and painful for the Queen but after reading the Beel Report and the 'Messages from Beyond' I fully understand it from a constitutional viewpoint.
It probably was the most stormy royal marriage of the 20th Century. With the Waleses as a close runner up.