Alexander of the Netherlands

Prince Frederick of the Netherlands (1797 to 1881) was the second son of King William I and Wilhelmina of Prussia and a career soldier in both Dutch and Prussian service. Born in Berlin during his family's exile, he rose to field marshal, commanded the Dutch forces in the Ten Days' Campaign against Belgium in 1831 and was for decades the senior military figure of the young kingdom. He served as Grand Master of Dutch freemasonry for more than sixty years and was a well known patron of charities, schools and the arts. In 1825 he married Princess Louise of Prussia. A younger brother of King William II, he died at Wassenaar in 1881.

Princess Marianne of the Netherlands (1810 to 1883) was the youngest daughter of King William I and Wilhelmina of Prussia and a sister of King William II. Born in Berlin while her family was in exile, she married Prince Albert of Prussia in 1830; the marriage ended in separation and divorce, which cost her her standing at the Prussian court and kept her away from Berlin for the rest of her life. She bought the Reinhartshausen estate in the Rhine valley and built a great palace at Kamenz in Prussian Silesia, becoming known as a collector of paintings and as a builder of churches, schools and roads for the districts she owned. She died in the Rhineland in 1883.

Wilhelmina (1880 to 1962) was Queen of the Netherlands from 1890 to 1948 and the longest reigning Dutch monarch. The only child of King William III and Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont, she came to the throne at the age of ten under her mother's regency and was inaugurated in her own right in 1898. She held the Netherlands to neutrality through the First World War and made the monarchy a byword for stubborn independence. When Germany invaded in May 1940 she escaped to London, where she led the government in exile and spoke to the occupied country over Radio Oranje, becoming the voice of Dutch resistance. She returned in 1945, abdicated in favour of her daughter Juliana in 1948 and died at Het Loo in 1962.

Juliana (1909 to 2004) was Queen of the Netherlands from 1948 to 1980. The only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Henry, she studied at Leiden University and married Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld in 1937. She spent the Second World War with her young daughters in Canada, where her third daughter Margriet was born, and came home to a country that had grown used to thinking of her as one of its own. Her reign took in Indonesian independence, the North Sea flood of 1953, when her visits to the drowned villages were long remembered, and the social upheavals of the 1960s. Informal and warm in manner, she was known as the citizen queen. She abdicated in favour of her daughter Beatrix in 1980 and died at Soestdijk Palace in 2004.

Beatrix (born 1938) was Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013. The eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard, she was born at Soestdijk Palace, spent the war years as a child with her family in Canada and read law at Leiden University. Her marriage in 1966 to the German diplomat Claus von Amsberg drew angry protests in Amsterdam, yet the couple became genuinely loved, and she was the mother of King Willem-Alexander, Prince Friso and Prince Constantijn. As queen she was known for an exacting command of her state papers and a formal, hard working style that steadied the monarchy for three decades. She handed the throne to her eldest son on 30 April 2013 and still carries out public duties as Princess Beatrix.

Princess Irene of the Netherlands (born 1939) is the second daughter of Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard and a younger sister of Princess Beatrix. Born at Soestdijk Palace, she set off a constitutional storm in 1964 when her conversion to Roman Catholicism and her marriage to Carlos Hugo, Duke of Parma, the Carlist claimant to the Spanish throne, went ahead without the approval of parliament, costing her her place in the line of succession. She spent years at her husband's side in Spanish politics before the marriage ended in 1981. Since then she has worked as a writer and campaigner on nature and the human relationship with it, founding the NatuurCollege foundation in 1995.

Princess Margriet of the Netherlands (born 1943) is the third daughter of Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard. She was born in Ottawa during her family's wartime exile, in a hospital room declared Dutch territory for the occasion so that she would hold her mother's nationality alone, and the tulips Canada receives from the Netherlands every year date from that stay. She married the jurist Pieter van Vollenhoven in 1967 and they have four sons. For decades one of the busiest working members of the royal family, she has been closely identified with the Netherlands Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and with equestrian and veterans' causes.

Willem-Alexander (born 1967) has been King of the Netherlands since 30 April 2013, when his mother Beatrix abdicated in his favour, making him the first Dutch king in more than a century. The eldest son of Beatrix and Prince Claus, he was born in Utrecht, read history at Leiden University and trained with the Royal Netherlands Navy and Air Force, keeping up his flying ever since. Before his accession he chaired the United Nations Secretary-General's advisory board on water and sanitation, a subject he still works on. He married the Argentine born Maxima Zorreguieta in Amsterdam in 2002; their eldest daughter, Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange, is heir to the throne.

Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau (1968 to 2013) was the second son of Queen Beatrix and Prince Claus and a younger brother of King Willem-Alexander. Born in Utrecht, he trained as an aerospace engineer and also studied economics, then built a career in business and finance largely out of the public eye, keeping an interest in engineering and energy throughout his working life. When he married Mabel Wisse Smit in 2004 the government declined to ask parliament to consent to the marriage, so he gave up his place in the line of succession and took the title Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau. The couple had two daughters. He died in The Hague in 2013 at the age of forty-four.

Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands (born 1969) is the youngest son of Queen Beatrix and Prince Claus and stands fourth in line to the Dutch throne, after his brother the king's three daughters. Born in Utrecht, he read law at Leiden University, took a business degree at INSEAD and worked for the European Commission, the research institute RAND Europe and in management consultancy. Since 2016 he has been special envoy for the Dutch start-up sector, first with StartupDelta and then with Techleap, and he speaks and writes regularly on digital innovation and entrepreneurship. He married Laurentien Brinkhorst in 2001 and they have three children.

Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange (born 2003) is the heir apparent to the Dutch throne and the eldest daughter of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima. Born in The Hague, she took the title Princess of Orange, traditionally held by the heir, when her father became king in 2013. She attended the Sorghvliet gymnasium in The Hague, declined the royal allowance due to her when she turned eighteen because she was still a student, and went on to read politics, psychology, law and economics at the University of Amsterdam after a year abroad. She is the eldest of three sisters, with Princess Alexia and Princess Ariane, and a direct descendant of William I, the first Dutch king.