A civilian boy in the Dutch royal family. We didn’t know that in the 1960s. It turned out to be a golden opportunity. Immediately at the surprise announcement of the engagement of Princess Margriet and her Pieter, because compatriots literally lined up in Baarn to congratulate them. But also in the long term, because this year the two celebrated their emerald anniversary. “Our marriage was seen as a mistake,” said Pieter van Vollenhoven. “But it is and remains the best mistake I have ever made.”
rumor mill
It was a busy day, that Wednesday in March 1965. Princess Beatrix arrived at Schiphol in the morning after an 18-day visit to Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. From there, part of the assembled press drove straight to Soestdijk Palace, where ‘an announcement’ was planned. The rumor mill already said it was about the engagement of Princess Margriet. The Leidsch Dagblad (at that time a purveyor of royal news because Beatrix and Margriet studied in the city) would publish the news the next day. So there had to be an announcement, and fast.
And sure enough: at the palace photographers found a radiant princess (just 22), closely followed by a somewhat uncomfortably bumpy student (25) with a walking stick and plaster around his broken ankle during winter sports. With in their wake a proud Queen Juliana, who turned out to be completely behind her daughter’s choice for law student. She was, as Pieter would confirm years later, one of the few at that time.
A sparrow does not marry a tit
It was unheard of for a princess to marry a civilian boy. You married men with a noble title, preferably from abroad so that there was not too much information about them in your own country. How different it was with Pieter from Schiedam. “My in-laws had very modern views”, Van Vollenhoven would say about it in 1999. “According to them, it should be possible for their daughter to marry a Dutchman. My parents thought that a sparrow should not marry a tit. They understood, for they liked the princess very much too. But in their hearts they also thought it was wrong.”
This was also the case at court, despite all the modern views of the royal couple. Van Vollenhoven himself states that the threat of the newspaper article about their romance accelerated things. The engagement would actually be shelved, he has always insisted. He first had to graduate, complete his military service and find a job. “Then people were under the sacred assumption: it will take so long, then it will be over.”
Criticism silenced
They turned out to have a longer breath and they should have: their big day was almost two years away. First it was big sister Beatrix’s turn, who became engaged two months later, but did receive priority as heir to the throne. She married Claus on March 10, 1966, Margriet and Pieter were next on January 10, 1967, so exactly 55 years ago this year.
From that moment on, all criticism has died down on its own. Pieter became very popular in the Netherlands, partly due to the lack of a princely title. The two had four sons and eventually eleven grandchildren. And turned out to be an excellent match for a long, happy marriage. Margriet in 2017 against Blue blood: “We have a lot of things in common, but we also have a lot of things that we do separately. My grandmother used to say that it’s important to take a vacation from each other every now and then and do something for yourself.”
