The Princess in the Asylum: Louise of Belgium

A story of love, hate, betrayal, and one of the world’s largest inheritances.

Princess Louise of Belgium was the eldest daughter of King Leopold II and Queen Marie Henriette. Her disastrous marriage to Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha took her from being a sheltered sixteen-year-old child to a Real Housewife of Imperial Vienna. Her adventures as she searched for love and happiness made her world-famous...or maybe I should say "infamous." Those adventures took her from a palace to an asylum, and from the south of France to a simple inn in Poland. This is a riches-to-rags story that left Louise without the money to bury her one true love. I hope you enjoy meeting her. Whether you think she was her own worst enemy or the victim of a misogynist culture, you're absolutely right. ;)

I have no idea why this story isn't a movie yet. History is so awesome.

#history #womeninhistory #royalty

Sources
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Aronson, Theo. The Coburgs of Belgium. London: Cassel and Company, 1968.

Defrance, Olivier. Louise de Saxe-Cobourg: Amours, argent, proces. Brussels: Editions Racine, 2001.

Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost. New York: Mariner Books, 2020.

Louise, The Princess of Belgium. My Own Affairs. Translated by Maude M.C. ffoulkes. London: Cassell and Company, Limited. 1921. (Available online for free here: https://archive.org/details/myownaffa...)

Newspapers: The New York Times, Yorkshire Evening Press, Honolulu Independent


ABOUT THE GIRL IN THE TIARA
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I tell stories about tiaras and the fascinating royal women who wore them. Join me as I follow these tiaras across generations and countries, through wars and revolutions and—sometimes—into darkness and disappearance and destruction.

This isn't the kind of history your professor lectured about. Instead, think of this as conversational history, like a mash-up of Drunk History and The Crown. Yes, there's a little swearing. There's also humor and heart and a boatload of compassion for these amazing royal women.

ABOUT ME
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I never intended to start a channel or a website about tiaras and royal history. But a midlife crisis forced me to re-examine my life. I gave up fiction writing after self-publishing 9 of the 10 books I'd written and earning next to nothing.

Instead of the misery of marketing books, I turned to my first love...royal history. So here I am, a 40-something burnout, trying to start over by recapturing her love of history, royal women, and their jewels.

FIND ME ONLINE
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