Beatrix of the Netherlands

Who is Beatrix of the Netherlands?

Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands is the former queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, having reigned from 1980 to 2013. Following her abdication on 30 April 2013, she is referred to as Princess Beatrix.

Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husband, Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. In 1948, she became heiress presumptive to the throne of the Netherlands. When her mother abdicated on 30 April 1980, Beatrix succeeded her as queen.

She attended a public primary school in Canada, during World War II, and then finished her primary and secondary education in the Netherlands in the post war period. In 1961, she received her law degree from Leiden University. In 1966, Beatrix married Claus von Amsberg, a German diplomat, with whom she had three children: Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands, Prince Friso and Prince Constantijn. Prince Claus died in 2002. At the time of her abdication, Queen Beatrix was the oldest reigning monarch of the Netherlands.

Beatrix's reign saw the country's Caribbean possessions reshaped with Aruba's secession and becoming its own constituent country within the Kingdom in 1986 as well as the subsequent Antillean Dissolution in 2010, which created the new special municipalities of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba, and the two new constituent countries of Curaçao and Sint Maarten.