A young Queen dies while on holiday away from her children and so avoids the tarnish of her husbands treason. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
It is interesting to compare Queen Astrid’s mourning stamps with the many for Princess Diana. Both stamps showed the glamourous young royals at the height of their beauty. What in my mind makes the early stamp superior was the back background and the surcharge of the semi-postal issue. I like the tradition of the mourning period and that the occasion is used to raise money for causes important to the Queen. In this case tuberculosis.
Todays stamp is issue B174, a 70 +5 Centimes stamp issued by Belgium in 1935. It displays a mourning portrait of Queen Astrid after her death in a car accident near their vacation villa in Switzerland. It was part of a 8 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents in it’s used state.
Queen Astrid was born a Princess in Sweden. She married Belgian crown Prince Leopold in what her mother in law Belgian Queen Elisabeth insisted was a marriage of love. They quickly had 3 Children including future Belgian King Baudouin and a daughter who became a Grand Duchess Consort of Luxemburg. She converted to Catholicism from being a Lutheran. In 1933 they became King and Queen when Leopold’s father King Albert died mountain climbing.The couple were vacationing in Switzerland with the King driving, Queen Astrid holding a map and the chauffer in back of the convertible Packard which went off the road. Queen Astrid died at the scene but King Leopold was only lightly injured.
Leopold III actions when Belgium was invaded by Germany forever tarnished him. He assumed command of the Belgian Army and refused to evacuate with the rest of Belgium government to London. He claimed it was his duty to be with his men but the government thought it a way to fall into the hands of the Germans and thereby remain King of the German puppet government of Belgium. He did indeed come into German hands and Churchill believed him quick to surrender when Belgium’s troops were still helping keep the Dunkirk evacuation going.
King Leopold III met with Hitler and indeed asked to form a government. Hitler refused and decided to keep Belgium under a military occupation government. Leopold was allegedly confined to palace but managed enough freedom to remarry and have a new set of children. When Belgium was liberated by the Allies in 1944, Leopold and his new wife were not there but had left with the Germans. He left behind a treatise where he stated that he did not consider the Allied arrival a liberation but rather an occupation.
When the war ended there was a real question as to whether Leopold could return as King. He argued that since Hitler had not allowed him to form a government there was no treason. In his absence the Belgian government declared Leopold’s brother Charles regent while Leopold stayed in Switzerland.
In 1950 a new more right wing government in Belgium was elected and allowed Leopold to return. It did not go well as the government was hit by general strikes and a few weeks later Leopold abdicated in favor of his 20 year old son, by Queen Astrid, Baudouin. He lived on in Belgium living a jet set lifestyle until his death in 1983. He lays in the royal tomb between his two wives.
Well my drink is empty and as I have another I will toast those that went on strike upon Leopold’s return. Many were just anti monarchy communists, but they were right that a country should be able to expect more from their King. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.