The 18-year-old eldest daughter of King Willem-Alexander is the subject of threats suggesting an attempted kidnapping or attack. Portrait of an heiress, already at the center of some controversies in the Netherlands.
On Thursday, October 13, the Royal Family of the Netherlands announced that Crown Princess Catharina-Amalia has been placed under high protection following threats of attack and kidnapping against her. The 18-year-old has left her home in Amsterdam to live in the royal palace Huis ten Bosch in The Hague and only leaves to go to university and under a heavy escort. The blame probably lies with the “Mocro Maffia”, the Dutch drug mafia, which also recently threatened Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne.
The situation is “really very difficult”, King Willem-Alexander told a news conference during a state visit to Sweden. According to Queen Máxima, the threats surrounding the princess -who is in her first year of a degree in politics, psychology, law and economics (PPLE)- have “enormous consequences” in her life. “She didn’t leave the house. That means she doesn’t live in Amsterdam, she really can’t go out. The consequences are very hard for her,” said the sovereign, visibly moved. “It’s not a student life for her,” she added. the royal couple, who lives in The Hague.
in public school
Catharina-Amalia from the Netherlands (just called Amalia in her family) will turn 19 on December 7. Born in 2003, she is the eldest daughter of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima, and the older sister of Princesses Alexia (17) and Ariane (15). The young royal became first in line to the Dutch throne when her father was crowned king on April 30, 2013. She was then given the title of Princess of Orange.
read alsoMaxima of the Netherlands, the Sun Queen
Destined to be Queen of the Netherlands one day, Amalia was raised as a girl like the others. Her proof: her parents did not hesitate to send him to the Bloemcampschool, a public primary school with 400 students located in Wassenaar, the town located about ten kilometers from The Hague. An unprecedented election in the House of Orange-Nassau. Then, in 2015, she joined the Christelijk Gymnasium Sorghvliet, a private school in The Hague. Highly reputable, it has 730 students and in 2007 was ranked the “best secondary school in the Netherlands”. And it is on a bicycle, with her backpack with purple flowers in a striking pink basket hanging from the front of it, that we see the teenager leaving her parents’ house at the time of joining her new school .
On video, who are the young heirs to the European thrones?
controversies
Years have passed and since then, the young Amalia has made the headlines of the Dutch newspapers. Last year, she publicly apologized for inviting 21 people to her birthday party. And this, despite the health measures in force during the Covid period. At the time, the Dutch were only allowed to invite four people over the age of 13 to private gatherings.
But this is not the first controversy of the Princess of Orange. In October 2020, Amalia and her family, under fire from critics, had to interrupt a controversial stay in Greece. The rest of the nation took a dim view of these parties, due to the partial confinement that was imposed at the same time. The royal family then hurried back to the palace and offered their sincerest apologies to their subjects.
“I’m not ready to become queen”
In November 2021, the Dutch Amalia was spoken of again after having given herself to some confidences, transcribed in an authorized biography. She revealed that she did not feel fit to succeed her father, King Willem-Alexander. “I’m not ready to become queen,” she said. The heiress had explained to the author Claudia de Breij that if the latter, 54, crowned in 2013, were to die suddenly, she would ask her mother to temporarily replace her on the throne. “I told my father: ‘He keeps eating healthy and doing a lot of sports,'” she added, not without humor.
In this same book, the student pointed out that once on the throne of the Netherlands, she could accept a possible abolition of the monarchy by the republicans. “Of course they have the chance to do it, and life will go on for me,” said she, who would have preferred to become a singer. Words that had somewhat challenged the Dutch, destabilized by this lack of enthusiasm.
breach of protocol
Six months earlier, in June 2021, Queen Máxima’s daughter was already allowing herself to break royal protocol. And for good reason: In a letter to Mark Rutte, she had turned down a $2 million annual allowance, which she would be paid starting at age 18. This compensation, moreover, was assigned to her until her coronation. “On December 7, 2021, I will turn 18 and, according to the law, I will receive an allowance,” she had written. It makes me feel uncomfortable as long as I don’t do anything in return, and while other students are having a much harder time, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.”
Catharina-Amalia agreed that she reimbursed them 400,000 dollars, but she also accepted the right to present, and relinquished the remaining 1.3 million, so much so that she did not “genérerait pas des revenus” dans “son rôle de princesse d’ Orange”. A decision of an unprecedented nature, underlined the guardian. It was the first time a member of the Dutch royal family had refused state compensation. Despite the fact that the kingdom was designated as the most expensive in Europe, as part of a study published in 2012. This strong gesture of Princess Amalia in any case says a lot about this new generation of European crowned heads, who look somehow breathe some air. from modernity and simplicity to monarchy.