Lilian, Princess of Réthy (born Mary Lilian Henriette Lucie Josephine Ghislaine Baels; (1916-11-28)28 November 1916 – (2002-06-07)7 June 2002) was the second wife of King Leopold III of Belgium. Born in the United Kingdom and raised in Belgium, she became a volunteer as a car driver who transported wounded Belgians and French to the hospital in Bruges during World War II. Lilian married King Leopold III in 1941 and became consort of the Belgian monarch. The couple had three children. She was also a stepmother to Leopold III's children from Queen Astrid and became the "first lady" of Belgium during the first nine years of her stepson King Baudouin's reign. Her charity work revolved around medicine and cardiology.
Mary Lilian Lucy Josepha Monique Baels was born in Highbury, London, England, where her parents had fled during World War I. She was one of the nine children of Henri Baels from Ostend and his wife, Anne Marie de Visscher, from Dentergem.
Her mother, Anne Marie, was born into a prominent bourgeois family, the daughter of a mayor and the granddaughter of a minister. Through her, among her ancestors was Félix Amandus, Count de Muelenaere, a member of the Belgian nobility, who served in the National Congress that established the Kingdom of Belgium and was Prime Minister of Belgium as well as Foreign Minister on three occasions between 1831 and 1841.
Lilian was initially educated in English, but, upon her parents' return to Belgium, she attended the College of the Sacred Heart in Ostend, where she learned Dutch. Lilian continued her studies in French at the Institute of the Sacred Heart in Brussels. She was also fluent in German. Lilian completed her education by attending a convent school in London and attending finishing schools in France, Switzerland and Austria.
In addition to academic work, Lilian participated extensively in sports, such as skiing, swimming, golfing, and hunting. Above all, however, she enjoyed, as did her father, literature and the arts.
As a teenager, she was presented to King George V and Queen Mary of the United Kingdom at Buckingham Palace.
Friendship with the Belgian royal family
In 1933, Lilian Baels, as a student at the Institute of the Sacred Heart, saw her future husband King Leopold III of Belgium, then the Duke of Brabant, for the first time during a military review that was conducted by King Albert I at the location near to the school. Leopold was at the time married to Astrid of Sweden. When the students in her class were given the task of writing an essay on a topic of their choice, Lilian decided to write on the then-Prince Leopold. A few years later, when her father, then Governor of West Flanders, took his daughter to a public ceremony, she had the occasion to meet King Leopold, who presided at the event, for the second time.
In 1937, again on another ceremonial occasion, Lilian and her mother met the King, who was now a widower after Queen Astrid's death in an automobile accident in 1935. Soon afterwards, King Leopold III contacted Governor Baels to invite him and his daughter to join him in a golfing party the next day. Lilian also saw the King in 1939 at a garden-party organised in honour of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, and later at the golf course at Laeken, where she was invited to lunch by King Leopold's mother, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. A final golf party near the Belgian coast occurred in May 1940, just before the Nazi invasion of Belgium.
Beginnings of World War II in Belgium
Following the Nazi invasion of Belgium, Lilian's mother put herself at the service of the Red Cross during the Belgian and Allied military campaign against the invaders. Lilian helped her mother actively in her new role, transporting wounded Belgian and French to the hospital of St. John in Bruges by car and helped to evacuate the elderly from an asylum in Aalst, which was inside the combat zone. Meanwhile, her father, Governor Baels, attempted to alleviate the plight of his invaded province. On 18 May, Henri Baels went in search of the Minister of the Interior, thinking he had left for France, to obtain his signature for an important relief measure. On his journey, however, Governor Baels had a car accident and injured his legs. He was admitted to a hospital in Le Havre. As the military situation in Belgium headed towards disaster, his wife decided to bring her daughters to safety in France, and Lilian drove the family car on the trip. Governor Baels' wife and daughters met him again, by pure chance, in a hospital in Poitiers. Baels was subsequently accused of having abandoned his post as Governor without justification by fleeing to France. He succeeded, however, in obtaining an audience with the King following the capitulation of the Belgian army on 28 May 1940 and the King's own imprisonment by the Germans at Laeken Castle. Baels and his daughter Lilian, who drove him to the audience, explained the real circumstances of his departure from Belgium, and the Governor was thereby vindicated. Subsequently, Lilian and her father returned to France and occupied themselves with the care of Belgian refugees in the region of Anglet. After Belgium's liberation, Henri Baels was accused of collaborating with the Nazis during the war, while he lived in France.
In 1941, at the invitation of Queen Elisabeth, Lilian visited Laeken Castle, where King Leopold III, now a prisoner of war, was held by the Germans under house arrest. This visit was followed by several others, with the result that Leopold III and Lilian fell in love. Leopold proposed marriage to Lilian in July 1941, but Lilian declined his offer because "Kings only marry princesses," she said. Queen Elisabeth, however, prevailed upon Lilian to accept the King's offer. Lilian agreed to marry the King, but declined the title of queen. Instead, the King gave Lilian the title Princess of Belgium, a.k.a. Princess of Réthy, with the style Royal Highness. It was agreed that descendants of the King's new marriage would be titled Prince/Princess of Belgium with the style Royal Highness but excluded from succession to the throne.
Leopold and Lilian initially planned to hold their official, civil marriage after the end of the war and the liberation of Belgium, but in the meantime, a secret religious marriage ceremony took place on 11 September 1941, in the chapel of Laeken Castle, in the presence of King Leopold's mother Queen Elisabeth, Lilian's father Henri Baels, Cardinal van Roey (who worked as the Archbishop of Mechelen and primate of Belgium) and one of the King's old friends. Lilian was wearing Queen Elisabeth's bridal veil during her wedding. This actually contravened Belgian law, which required that the religious wedding be preceded by the civil one. Although Lilian and Leopold had originally planned to postpone their civil marriage until the end of the war, Lilian was soon expecting her first child, necessitating a civil marriage, which took place on 6 December 1941. The civil marriage automatically made Lilian a Belgian princess. Lilian proved a devoted wife to the King and an affectionate and vivacious stepmother to his children by his first wife, Queen Astrid. Her stepchildren—Joséphine-Charlotte, Baudouin, and Albert II—adored her and they called her "Mother".
When the civil marriage of Leopold and Lilian was made public in a pastoral letter by Cardinal van Roey read throughout Belgian churches in December 1941, there was a mixed reaction in Belgium. Some showed sympathy for the new couple, sending flowers and messages of congratulations to the palace at Laeken. Others, however, argued that the marriage was incompatible with the King's status as a prisoner of war and his stated desire to share the hard fate of his conquered people and captive army, and was a betrayal of Queen Astrid's memory. They also branded Lilian as a social-climber. One of the leading Belgian newspapers rebuked King Leopold: "Sire, we thought you had your face turned towards us in mourning. Instead you had it hidden in the shoulder of a woman." Leopold and Lilian were also blamed for violating Belgian law by holding their religious marriage before their civil one. These criticisms would continue for many years, even after the war.