Elisabeth of Belgium

Leopold I (1790-1865) was the first King of the Belgians, reigning from 1831 until his death. Born Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld at Coburg, he served as a cavalry officer in the Russian imperial army during the Napoleonic Wars and then settled in Britain, where in 1816 he married Princess Charlotte of Wales, heir to the British throne. Widowed the following year, he declined the newly created throne of Greece in 1830 before accepting the crown of recently independent Belgium, taking the constitutional oath on 21 July 1831. His second marriage, to Louise-Marie of Orleans, produced the dynasty that reigns in Belgium still. Uncle and trusted adviser to both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, he spent his reign consolidating a fragile new state wedged between France, Prussia and the Netherlands.

Louise-Marie of Orleans (1812-1850) was the first Queen of the Belgians, the second wife of Leopold I and the mother of the Belgian dynasty. Born in Palermo, she was the eldest daughter of Louis Philippe I, King of the French, and Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, and her marriage at Compiegne in August 1832 sealed the diplomatic understanding between France and the new Belgian kingdom. Devout, reserved and widely liked in her adopted country, where she was known as the Queen of the Poor, she devoted herself to charitable foundations and to the upbringing of her children: the future Leopold II, Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, and Charlotte, the future Empress Carlota of Mexico. She died at Ostend in October 1850, aged thirty-eight.

Leopold II (1835-1909) was the second King of the Belgians, reigning from 1865 to 1909. The eldest surviving son of Leopold I and Louise-Marie of Orleans, he married Archduchess Marie Henriette of Austria in 1853. At home his long reign brought rapid industrialisation, the expansion of Brussels, Ostend and Antwerp and a wave of monumental public building that earned him the nickname the Builder King. He is remembered above all for the Congo Free State, the vast central African territory he governed from 1885 as his personal possession, and for the regime of forced labour imposed there, whose brutality provoked an international campaign and led the Belgian parliament to take the colony out of his hands in 1908. His only son, Leopold, Duke of Brabant, died in childhood, so the crown passed to his nephew Albert I.

Princess Charlotte of Belgium (1840-1927), known in Mexico as Carlota, was the only daughter of Leopold I and Louise-Marie of Orleans and the sister of Leopold II. Born at Laeken, she married Archduke Maximilian of Austria in 1857 and served with him in Milan while he was viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia, before the couple accepted the Mexican throne offered by French-backed conservatives in 1864. As Empress of Mexico she took an active part in government and acted as regent during Maximilian's absences, but the empire collapsed once Napoleon III withdrew French troops. She travelled to Europe in 1866 to plead for support and never returned; after Maximilian's execution in 1867 she lived sixty years in seclusion in Belgium, latterly at Bouchout Castle in Meise, where she died in 1927.

Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant (1859-1869) was the only son of Leopold II and Marie Henriette of Austria, and from his birth the heir apparent to the Belgian throne. Born at Laeken, he was given the title Duke of Brabant traditionally carried by the heir to the Belgian crown, and his arrival was celebrated as securing the direct line of the young dynasty. He died in January 1869, a few months before his tenth birthday. Because Leopold II had no other son, the succession moved sideways to the King's younger brother, Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, and then to Philippe's son Albert I, a shift that determined the descent of every Belgian monarch since 1909.

Princess Stephanie of Belgium (1864-1945) was the third child of Leopold II and Marie Henriette of Austria. Born at Laeken, she married Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria in Vienna in 1881, becoming the prospective Habsburg empress, and the couple had one daughter, Elisabeth Marie. Widowed in 1889 when Rudolf died at Mayerling, she remained at the Austrian court until 1900, when she married the Hungarian nobleman Count Elemer Lonyay and in consequence lost her Habsburg rank and her father's favour. She spent the rest of her long life in Hungary, chiefly on her husband's estates, and published her memoirs in 1935. She died at the abbey of Pannonhalma in 1945.

Princess Henriette of Belgium (1870-1948) was a daughter of Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, and Princess Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and the sister of King Albert I. Born in Brussels as one of twin girls, she married Prince Emmanuel of Orleans, Duke of Vendome, in 1896 and settled in France as Duchess of Vendome, dividing her time between Paris and the family's estates. She was known for her charitable work in nursing and in support of wounded soldiers, which expanded greatly during the First World War, when she helped organise hospital care for Belgian troops and refugees. Her four children carried the Orleans line forward, and she died in Switzerland in 1948.

Leopold III (1901-1983) was the fourth King of the Belgians, reigning from 1934 to 1951. The eldest son of Albert I and Elisabeth of Bavaria, he married Princess Astrid of Sweden in 1926; she died in 1935, and in 1941 he married Lilian Baels, who took the title Princess of Rethy. As commander-in-chief he led the Belgian army during the German invasion of May 1940 and surrendered after eighteen days, then remained in occupied Belgium as a prisoner rather than joining the government in exile, a decision that divided the country for a decade. Deported to Germany in 1944 and kept abroad while his brother Prince Charles served as regent, he returned in 1950 into the political crisis known as the Royal Question and abdicated in favour of his son Baudouin in July 1951. He spent his later years travelling as an amateur anthropologist and naturalist.

Prince Charles, Count of Flanders (1903-1983) was the second son of Albert I and Elisabeth of Bavaria and served as Regent of Belgium from 1944 to 1950. A career naval officer trained in Britain, he was chosen by parliament to exercise royal powers after the liberation, while his elder brother Leopold III was held in Germany and then kept abroad during the dispute over his wartime conduct. As regent Charles presided over post-war reconstruction, the prosecution of collaborators, the extension of the vote to women in national elections and Belgium's entry into the Atlantic alliance. He withdrew almost completely from public life after handing power back in 1950, living quietly near Ostend, where he painted under the name Karel van Vlaanderen. He died in 1983.

Marie-Jose of Belgium (1906-2001) was the last Queen of Italy and the only daughter of Albert I and Elisabeth of Bavaria. Born at Ostend, she married Crown Prince Umberto of Savoy in Rome in 1930 and was Princess of Piedmont for sixteen years, during which she had four children, among them Vittorio Emanuele, later head of the House of Savoy. Opposed to the Fascist regime and to Italy's alliance with Germany, she was kept at a distance from political life and spent the end of the war in Switzerland. She became queen when Umberto took the throne in May 1946 but held the title barely a month before the referendum that made Italy a republic, which earned her the nickname the May Queen. She lived in exile in Switzerland and Mexico, wrote several works of history, and died in Geneva.

Prince Alexandre of Belgium (1942-2009) was the eldest child of King Leopold III and his second wife, Lilian Baels, Princess of Rethy, and a half-brother of King Baudouin and King Albert II. Born at Laeken during the German occupation, he was educated in Switzerland, the United States and Britain and served for a time in the Belgian navy. Because he was born of his father's second marriage he stood outside the line of succession, and he kept almost entirely out of public life, working in business and later giving his time to charitable work in Belgium. In 1991 he married Lea Wolman, a marriage made public only in 1998. He died in 2009 and is buried in the royal crypt at Laeken.