JUST LIKE DIANA
Lewis Jones recalls the death in a car crash of
another idolised princess — and what followed
IT WAS late August, on the cusp of sum- mer and autumn. She was a beautiful young princess, on holiday abroad; her driver lost control of the car, there was a terrible crash: a tragedy. The world mourned, the nation went into shock. Peo- ple descended on the capital in hundreds of thousands, besieging the palace with flowers, queuing all night to sign the books of condolence. The funeral was a global media event. The year was 1935. The crash was in Switzerland. The princess was Astrid des Beiges, 29 years old, popularly known as the Queen of Mothers.
The near coincidence of Astrid's anniversary with Diana's; the similarities in their deaths and lives, the differences. . . . Perhaps these combine to make a modest contribution to the exciting new science of Dianology.
Princess Astrid Sophie Louise Thyra was born at Stockholm on 17 November 1905, the third daughter of Prince Charles, Duke of VastergOtland, brother of the King of Sweden. Her sisters married Prince Axel of Denmark and the Crown Prince of Norway, and in 1926 Astrid married the young Duke of Brabant, elder son of the heroic Albert King of the Belgians, who died in 1934.
Astrid had been Queen, then, for less than a year when she was killed. She had a quattrocento beauty, with dark hair and a tender, soulful look — she had become a Roman Catholic in 1930. She was devoted to her daughter and two sons, making them clothes, wheeling them in prams around the park, preparing them for school. She and the King would dine en famille, and when the servants had brought in the food Astrid would serve it herself. She did much charitable work, and took a special interest in crèches and hospitals. The people loved her.
The crash happened on 29 August. The King and Queen were spending a few days at their villa on Lake Lucerne, and that morning they intended to go climbing in the mountains. The King was driving a two- seater, with the Queen by his side and the chauffeur behind in the dickie. A second car followed at some distance, containing members of the royal suite. They were doing about 30 mph, on 'a good modern road, very wide and in perfect condition', according to the Times.
`Suddenly, at 10 o'clock, about a mile from Kiissnacht, the right wheels of the car mounted the concrete border of the foot- path, on which they ran for about 17 yards to a spot where the footpath sank a little to give passage into a field. Here the King apparently lost control of the car, which turned to the right, descended a steep embankment, and about 20 yards farther on struck a tree, against which the Queen was thrown with great violence. The car rolled farther down for another 12 yards, struck another tree, continued its wild run, passed over a stone wall and fell into the lake 12 foot below . . . The King recov- ered, calling for the Queen by name, and went to her, with blood running down his face. He took her in his arms, where she died shortly after the last sacrament had been administered to her by the cure of Kiissnacht.'
The news reached Brussels towards noon. People were seen hurrying around the streets, questioning one another and weeping. The national flag was flown at half-mast on all public buildings, and the tolling of church bells began. Newspapers rushed out special editions, the wireless musical programme was interrupted. At the International Exhibition, loudspeakers announced the news; the crowds left, and silence fell on the gardens and avenues. Businesses closed. The prime minister, M. van Zeeland, called a Cabinet meeting and issued a proclamation. 'Still under the impression of the tragic death of King Albert [who had died in a climbing acci- dent], Belgium mourns today her Queen, whose youth, grace and kindness had con- quered her people. The country is over- whelmed. Sharing the terrible grief of the King, it remains faithfully at his side. It feels tenderly towards the Royal Princes who are left behind.' Condolences were received from King George V, President Roosevelt and the Pope, as well as from Signor Mussolini and Herr Hitler.
Brussels was paralysed and silent, its street lamps shrouded in black. Queen Astrid's coffin lay in state on a white bed strewn with Parma violets in the Salle du Penseur at the Royal Palace, the rooms of which were filled with flowers from all over the world. There were queues a mile long to sign the books of condolence, and on the night of 30 August a crowd of 20,000 waited outside in the rain. On 1 September it was decided that the passage of the public before the coffin should cease that evening, but the presence of a huge crowd caused the doors to be opened again, and the procession continued through 2 September. 'There is hardly a smile in Belgium,' reported the Observer. `Everyone looks alike . . . that drawn look of the features, that surprised and ago- nised question in the eyes with which the fact that something too awful to be true has nevertheless actually happened.' The Belgian papers suggested that all girls born between the death and the funeral be named after Astrid, and the idea received much support. The funeral was on 3 September, and by dawn the streets were packed with silent mourners. At 10 a.m. there was a 30-gun salute, then muffled drums, the sound of horses' hooves, the tolling of bells, the sobs of the crowd. The hearse was drawn by eight black horses, in gold and black, the coffin carried by eight NCOs of the Grenadiers and laid on a great catafalque in the Church of St Gudule, before inter- ment in the Royal Crypt at Our Lady of Laeken. The King, his head uncovered, his arm in a sling, was overcome with emo- tion. A Solemn Requiem Mass was sung at Westminster Cathedral at the same time. George V, who was represented at the funeral by the Duke of York, commanded that all British government buildings fly flags at half-mast. A week later in Brussels crowds continued to gather outside the many shop windows that displayed pho- tographs of the Queen of Mothers.
Astrid's story has an innocence about it, quite distinct from its period quaintness. Diana's story is richer, darker, more com- plicated. Consider the two crashes: the one at 30 mph, on a clear morning in the coun- tryside, with her husband; the other at 120 mph, underground in a city at night, with her lover.
Or the photographs: the Times ran a full page the next day, the Thirties' equivalent of saturation coverage, but only the top half of the page was devoted to Astrid; below the fold was given over to a miscel- lany of quotidian stories. Perhaps the paper did not want to overdo it, but given the nature of the Astrid photographs, it seems more likely that there simply weren't enough of them to fill a page. There's an elegant official portrait, and a picture of the wrecked car, but the others look like private snaps, with the Princess half-posed, off-centre, pushing a pram in the park, or standing beside railway trains or tanks. I don't know if any fellow Dianol- ogist has counted the extant photographs of the late Princess of Wales, but I'm sure it would take a long time.
Diana's story is much faster than Astrid's, heavier. It's magnified to the point of distortion. To put it in scientific terms: If Astrid's story = A, then Diana's = Ay, where y = all the modern stuff. Diana's story is charged by our proximity to it, by acrimony, scandal and politics, by guilty desire for retribution.
All the arguments last year about the sincerity of public feeling, and whether the great pilgrimage of the tabloid readers marked a sea change in the national char- acter, were based on the premise that the event was completely extraordinary. The obvious lesson for Dianologists in the death of Astrid des Belges is that sponta- neous mass mourning is not unprecedent- ed in northern Europe in the 20th century, nor is it necessarily sinister.
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