by Susan Flantzer © Unofficial Royalty 2014
By Michael Thaidigsmann – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27426118
On July 21, 2013, the annual Belgian National Day, Belgium got its first native-born queen. King Albert II of the Belgians abdicated in favor of his son Philippe, and Philippe’s wife became Queen Consort of the Belgians. Belgium’s previous queen consorts were French, Austrian, German, Swedish, Spanish, and Italian.
Mathilde Marie Christine Ghislaine d’Udekem d’Acoz was born on January 20, 1973, in Uccle, one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. Her parents were Jonkheer Patrick d’Udekem d’Acoz (1936 – 2008) and Countess Anna Maria Komorowska (born 1946). Through her mother, Mathilde has Polish noble and Polish–Lithuanian princely ancestry. Her father descends from Walloon (a French-speaking people who live in Belgium) nobles and was titled Jonkheer, the lowest title within the Belgian nobility system. Upon the marriage of Mathilde to Prince Philippe in 1999, Mathilde’s father was created Count d’Udekem d’Acoz by King Albert II.
Mathilde, the eldest of five siblings, has three sisters and one brother:
- Jonkvrouw Marie-Alix d’Udekem d’Acoz (1974 – 1997), died in a car accident at the age of 22 along with her maternal grandmother.
- Countess Elisabeth d’Udekem d’Acoz (born 1977), married Margrave Alfonso Pallavicini, had three children
- Countess Hélène d’Udekem d’Acoz (born 1979), married Baron Nicolas Janssen, had three children:
- Count Charles-Henri d’Udekem d’Acoz (born 1985)
Mathilde attended primary school in Bastogne, a Walloon municipality of Belgium. She then attended secondary school at the Institut de la Vierge Fidèle in Brussels, Belgium. From 1991-1994, Mathilde attended the Institut Libre Marie Haps in Brussels, Belgium where she studied speech therapy and graduated magna cum laude. Mathilde then began to study psychology at the Université Catholique de Louvain and had her own speech therapy practice in Brussels from 1995 until her marriage in 1999. She continued her studies after her marriage and received a Master’s degree in psychology in 2002. Besides Dutch and French, Mathilde speaks English, Italian, and some Spanish.
Mathilde met Prince Philippe, Duke of Brabant and the heir to the Belgian throne in 1996 playing tennis. Unbelievably, their romance went undetected by the press and their engagement was a surprise. The couple married on December 4, 1999, civilly at the Brussels City Hall and religiously at the Cathedral of Saint Michel and Saint Gudula in Brussels.
Mathilde and Philippe had four children. Their eldest child Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant will become the first female monarch of Belgian due to changes in the succession law in 1991.
- Princess Elisabeth of Belgium, Duchess of Brabant (born 2001)
- Prince Gabriel of Belgium (born 2003)
- Prince Emmanuel of Belgium (born 2005)
- Princess Eléonore of Belgium (born 2008)
Mathilde is concerned with a range of social issues including education, child poverty, intergenerational poverty, the position of women in society, and literacy. She has been very active in charity work, particularly with UNICEF and her own charity which focuses on vulnerable people.
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Kingdom of Belgium Resources at Unofficial Royalty