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Leopold III (3 November 1901 – 25 September 1983) reigned as King of the Belgians from 1934 until 1951, when he abdicated in favour of the heir apparent, his son Baudouin. From 1944 until 1950, Leopold's brother, Charles, served as prince regent while Leopold was declared incompetent to rule. In 1950, the debate about whether Leopold could return to the throne provoked a political crisis known as the Royal Question. Leopold III was born in Brussels as Prince Leopold of Belgium, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and succeeded to the throne of Belgium on 23 February 1934 following the death of his father, King Albert I. He was invested as the 1,154th Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in Spain in 1923, the 355th Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword (Portugal) in 1927 and the 833rd Knight of the Order of the Garter (England) in 1935. ==Early life and family== Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant, was sent by his father to Eton College in the United Kingdom in 1915. After the war, in 1919, the Duke visited the Old Mission and Saint Anthony Seminary in Santa Barbara, California. He married Princess Astrid of Sweden in a civil ceremony in Stockholm on 4 November 1926, followed by a religious ceremony in Brussels on 10 November. The marriage produced three children: * Joséphine-Charlotte, Princess of Belgium, born at the Royal Palace of Brussels on 11 October 1927, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. She was married on 9 April 1953 to Prince Jean, later Grand-Duke of Luxembourg. She died at Fischbach Castle on 10 January 2005. * Baudouin, Duke of Brabant, Count of Hainaut, Prince of Belgium, who became the fifth King of the Belgians as Baudouin, born at Stuyvenberg on the outskirts of Brussels on 7 September 1930, and died at Motril in Andalusia, Spain, on 31 July 1993. * Albert, Prince of Liège, Prince of Belgium, who became the sixth King of the Belgians as Albert II, born at Stuyvenberg on 6 June 1934. He abdicated in July 2013. On 29 August 1935, while the King and Queen were driving along the winding, narrow roads near their villa at Küssnacht am Rigi, Schwyz, Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Lucerne, Leopold lost control of the car which plunged into the lake, killing Queen Astrid. Leopold married Lilian Baels on 11 September 1941 in a secret, religious ceremony, with no validity under Belgian law. They originally intended to wait until the end of the war for the civil marriage, but as the new ''Princesse de Réthy'' was soon expecting their first child, the ceremony took place on 6 December 1941. They had three children in total: * Alexander, Prince of Belgium, born in Brussels on 18 July 1942. In 1991, he married Lea Inga Dora Wohlman, a marriage revealed only seven years later. She was created a Princess of Belgium in her own right. He died on 29 November 2009. * Marie-Christine, Princess of Belgium, born in Brussels on 6 February 1951. Her first marriage, to Paul Drucker in 1981, lasted 40 days (though they were not formally divorced until 1985); she subsequently married Jean-Paul Gourges in 1989. * Maria-Esmeralda, Princess of Belgium, born in Brussels on 30 September 1956, a journalist, her professional name is Esmeralda de Réthy. She married Salvador Moncada, a noted pharmacologist, in 1998. They have a son and a daughter. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Leopold III of Belgium」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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