Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant ( nl, Elisabeth Theresia Maria Helena; french: Élisabeth Thérèse Marie Hélène; born 25 October 2001) is the

heir apparent An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...

to the Belgian throne. The eldest child of King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, she acquired her position after her grandfather King Albert II abdicated in favour of her father on 21 July 2013.

Birth

The first child of the then

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are rank ...

and

Duchess of Brabant The Duke of Brabant (, ) was the ruler of the Duchy of Brabant since 1183/1184. The title was created by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in favor of Henry I, Duke of Brabant, Henry I of the House of Reginar, son of Godfrey III of Le ...

, Elisabeth was delivered by Caesarean section at 21:58

CET CET or cet may refer to: Places * Cet, Albania * Cet, standard astronomical abbreviation for the constellation Cetus * Colchester Town railway station (National Rail code CET), in Colchester, England Arts, entertainment, and media * Comcast En ...

on 25 October 2001 at the

Erasmus Hospital Erasmus Hospital (french: Cliniques universitaires de Bruxelles - Hôpital Érasme, nl, Erasmus Ziekenhuis) is a teaching hospital in the Anderlecht municipality of Brussels, Belgium. It is a teaching hospital associated with the Université lib ...

, the teaching hospital of Université libre de Bruxelles in Anderlecht, Brussels. She was baptized on 9 December 2001 in the chapel of Ciergnon Castle in the Belgian Ardennes, by Cardinal

Godfried Danneels Godfried Maria Jules Danneels (4 June 1933 – 14 March 2019) was a Belgian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and the chairman of the episcopal conference of his native country ...

, the

Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdioc ...

. Her godparents are Archduke Amedeo of Austria-Este (paternal cousin), and Countess Hélène

d'Udekem d'Acoz The House d'Udekem () is the name of a noble family that belongs to the nobility of Belgium since 1816. History The origin of the Udekem family dates back to the Late Middle Ages, with the earliest member recorded as dying in 1472. In the 1 ...

(maternal aunt).

Education

Elisabeth studied at St John Berchmans College in the

Marollen The (French, ) or (Dutch, ) is a popular historic neighbourhood of downtown Brussels, Belgium, situated between the Palace of Justice to its south-east, the Chapel Church to its north and the Halle Gate to its south. Its inhabitants are cal ...

district of

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, which had been attended by her older cousins, the children of her paternal aunt,

Princess Astrid of Belgium Princess Astrid of Belgium, Archduchess of Austria-Este (born 5 June 1962), is the second child and first daughter of King Albert II and Queen Paola, and the younger sister to the current Belgian monarch, King Philippe. She is married to Pri ...

. This is a significant change in the habits of the royal family, as it is the first time that a future Belgian monarch's education has begun in Dutch. In 2018, she continued her secondary education at

UWC Atlantic College Atlantic College (formally the United World College of the Atlantic; alternatively styled UWC Atlantic College, UWCAC, or UWCA) is an independent boarding school in the Vale of Glamorgan in south Wales. Founded in 1962, it was the first of th ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

and received her

International Baccalaureate Diploma The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) is a two-year Curriculum, educational programme primarily aimed at 16-to-19-year-olds in 140 countries around the world. The programme provides an internationally accepted qualification fo ...

in 2020. She also attended the Yale Young Global Scholars Program at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. After her secondary school graduation in 2020, she spent a year at the Royal Military Academy Belgium in Brussels, studying Social and Military Sciences. She began studying history and politics at Lincoln College,

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in October 2021, while she continues to attend Royal Military Academy Belgium's annual summer camps and other practical and theoretical military classes. Elisabeth speaks Dutch, French, German and English. She also took classes in Mandarin Chinese.

Activities

Elisabeth's first public appearance was on 21 July 2006, when she accompanied her parents during a

Te Deum The "Te Deum" (, ; from its incipit, , ) is a Latin Christian hymn traditionally ascribed to AD 387 authorship, but with antecedents that place it much earlier. It is central to the Ambrosian hymnal, which spread throughout the Latin Ch ...

for National Day celebrations in the

Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula nl, Kathedraal van Sint-Michiel en Sint-Goedele , native_name_lang = , image = Saints-Michel-et-Gudule Luc Viatour.jpg , imagesize = 200px , imagelink = , imagealt = , landscape ...

. A year later, on 13 June 2007, Princess Elisabeth and her parents attended the opening of a new Technopolis youth interactive at Mechelen. In 2009, Elisabeth gave her name to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Station, a Belgian scientific polar research station. In September 2011, the nine-year-old princess gave her first public speech (in Dutch) at the opening of Princess Elisabeth Children’s Hospital, part of

Ghent University Hospital Ghent University Hospital ( nl, Universitair Ziekenhuis Gent; UZ Gent) is one of the largest hospitals in Belgium. It is closely linked to Ghent University, the university's rector also being the hospital's president. Both the university and the h ...

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

. She gave her first official speech in 2014 during commemorations of the

centenary of the outbreak of World War I The centenary of the outbreak of World War I was commemorated in Europe in late July and early August 2014. A century earlier, the July Crisis, which occurred after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, had culminated in Austria-Hungar ...

. Princess Elisabeth became godmother of a patrol vessel named ''Pollux P902'' on 6 May 2015 in

Zeebrugge Zeebrugge (, from: ''Brugge aan zee'' meaning "Bruges at Sea", french: Zeebruges) is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zee ...

. In June 2019, the Duchess of Brabant and her mother traveled to

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

for the

United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to ...

, where they visited the Kakuma refugee camp. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, Princess Elisabeth had conversations over the phone with elderly people in residential care centers in order to encourage and support them. On 21 July 2021, she was among the fellow students of the Royal Military Academy Belgium to parade during the Belgian National Day. On 12 May 2022, Princess Elisabeth accompanied her aunt Princess Astrid on a visit to St Hilda's College. There, she and her aunt met St Hilda’s Principal Professor Dame

Sarah Springman Dame Sarah Marcella Springman (born 26 December 1956) is a British-Swiss Triathlon, triathlete, civil engineer, and academic. She was educated in England and spent much of her career in Switzerland. She is a former Rector (academia), rector of ...

and Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford Professor

Louise Richardson Dame Louise Mary Richardson (born 8 June 1958 ) is an Irish political scientist whose specialist field is the study of terrorism. In January 2016 she became the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, having formerly served as the Principa ...

. On 17 June 2022, together with her mother the Queen, she was among the royal guests invited to the celebrations of the 18th birthday of Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway. This was her first public event outside of Belgium and the occasion for the Princess to wear publicly the tiara her parents gave her as a gift on her own 18th birthday for the first time. She carried her two first solo official engagements in the following week by christening the Belgian oceanographic research vessel RV ''Belgica'' and inaugurating

KU Leuven KU Leuven (or Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) is a Catholic research university in the city of Leuven, Belgium. It conducts teaching, research, and services in computer science, engineering, natural sciences, theology, humanities, medicine, ...

's Princess Elisabeth Additive Manufacturing Lab. Elisabeth volunteers to help children with learning difficulties, the elderly, the homeless and people with a handicap.

Position

Ten years prior to Elisabeth's birth, a new act of succession was put into effect which introduced absolute primogeniture, meaning that she comes first in the line of succession because she is the eldest child. On 21 July 2013, once Elisabeth's father had taken the oath of office as King of the Belgians (his father, King Albert II, having abdicated shortly before), she became

to the throne and as such bears the title of

. If she ascends to the throne as expected, she will be Belgium's first female monarch.

Eponym

* *

Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, located on Utsteinen Nunatak in Queen Maud Land (), is a Belgian scientific polar research station, which went into service on 15 February 2009. History The station, designed, built and operated by the Internati ...

(2009) * Princess Elisabeth Children's Hospital (2011) * Princess Elisabeth Park (2019) * ''Microcostatus elisabethianus'' * Athénée Royal Princesse Elisabeth * Princess Elisabeth Additive Manufacturing Lab (2022)

Titles, styles and honour

*25 October 2001 – 21 July 2013: ''Her Royal Highness'' Princess Elisabeth of Belgium *21 July 2013 – present: ''Her Royal Highness'' Princess Elisabeth, The Duchess of Brabant

Honour

* : Knight Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold (25 October 2019)

Arms

nl, Eendracht maakt macht
german: Einigkeit macht stark , other_elements = The whole is placed on a mantle purpure with ermine lining, fringes and tassels or and ensigned with the Royal crown of Belgium.

References

External links

Belgian Monarchy-Princess Elisabeth
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elisabeth Of Belgium, Princess 2001 births Living people House of Belgium Belgian princesses Dukes of Brabant Princesses of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Female heirs apparent People from Anderlecht Belgian people of Danish descent Belgian people of German descent Belgian people of Italian descent Belgian people of Polish descent Belgian people of Swedish descent Daughters of kings People educated at Atlantic College People educated at a United World College