What do you do if you got a bad report card in the morning? If it turns out that trust in you, as king, has again fallen. In one poll by One today a majority of those surveyed (54 percent) still have confidence in you. In the second, from Ipsos for the NOS, only 47 percent.
Then you smile. With a grin that won’t leave your face for two hours. You laugh hard. And jokes. You shake hands, you give boxing, sometimes with two hands at once. Across the front row of people, to those behind it who hadn’t expected to shake a royal hand anymore. Sometimes you have to stand on your toes for it.
You take selfies. Hundreds. You wave to the people of Maastricht who hang out of windows, to a boy who climbs a lamppost. Walks a little further towards the orange-dressed crowd that is standing in a blind spot behind a crush barrier. You host and rock and sing. You taste herbal bitters and toast with a glass of wine.
‘What I do like is constructive criticism. If you don’t have that, you could end up like Putin and nobody wants that.”
And if you are then asked about those bad polls by the NOS first and later RTL News, you say polls don’t do much for you. “What I do like is constructive criticism. If you don’t have that, you could end up like Putin and nobody wants that.” And you point out that polls are “short term”. “I think I have a long-term position in the Netherlands and the long-term will prove that everything will be fine.”
Also read: For confidence in the king and queen, ‘phase red’ has entered
Because next to you is your daughter Amalia, the intended heir to the throne. And she has just performed one of her first official ceremonial duties.
Many may have missed this amid the musical feast that Maastricht wanted to make of King’s Day. Where the sounds of harmony passed into ‘Long shall he live’, in Ode to Joy by Beethoven, in the beats of Lucas & Steve, in the waltzes of André Rieu, the slave choir of Nabucco by Verdi, carnival song, bagpipes, the crowd on the Vrijthof who roared along with Rowwen Hèze. The cries of about forty protesting republicans, who wave goodbye to ‘Willem the Last’, are hardly noticeable from the procession. There you hear one great cacophony of sounds.
And at home, the subtle support for Ukraine (dancers in yellow and blue shirts) may not be noticeable. The references to freedom in both the mayor’s and the king’s acceptance speech are probably more appropriate for Liberation Day than for King’s Day.
crank press
At the very beginning of the route there is a somewhat quiet moment when Willem-Alexander and Amalia each mint a coin. Her first. Apart from her entry into the Council of State in December, the Crown Princess has not yet performed any duties; no bridges or exhibits opened, ribbons cut or speeches given. She has a gap year before going to college.
Also read: Amalia quotes Beatrix in the Council of State: ‘I will try to be a good student’
This first official task takes less than four minutes. On Tuesday evening, mint master Bert van Ravenswaaij clocked it with a stopwatch. If the whole act is successful within that time, he cheers, his arms in the air.
Especially for this day, the Royal Mint had a historic pendulum press with a low loader transferred from a storage in Veenendaal to Maastricht, and got it level on the street. A commemorative coin is minted twice a year on behalf of the State. Not so often in the middle of the street.
Van Ravenswaaij and designer Rinus van Hall rehearse what they will say to the king and Amalia. Van Hall, actually a painter, has won a competition. He was inspired by the ceiling of the government building, where the Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union, was signed in 1992.
The mint master shows the proof coin that college Mohamed Benzian is making. The king and profile on one side, twelve crown pins of the signatories on the other. He quickly puts it back in his pocket.
When Willem-Alexander and Amalia mint the coin a day later, it is golden tens – and real legal tender. She swings the pendulum considerably harder than her father. So fast, she has to run to keep the ball from hitting her head. She claps her hands in front of her in fright.
When the king has called out to the audience that the coins have become really beautiful, he tells Amalia that she was unable to take them with her. He turns around. State Secretary Marnix van Rij (Fiscality, CDA) is there to accept them.
That’s how it goes with the presents on King’s Day. They are accepted and collected in large cargo bikes that follow the procession, containing the umbrellas just in case. By the time the royal family arrives at the Vrijthof, the cargo bikes are full of flowers, chocolate, wine, apple syrup and drawings. Once those bikes have passed by, the crowd quickly thins out too. Only the selfies will be compared.
With the cooperation of Lize Geurts