Queen Fabiola of Belgium

Queen Fabiola of The Belgians, Doña Fabiola Fernanda María de las Victorias Antonia Adelaida de Mora y Aragón (born June 11, 1928) was the Spanish-born Queen consort of King Baudouin I of the Belgians, until the Monarch's death in 1993. Since the death of the King she has been styled HM Queen Fabiola of Belgium as befits a Queen dowager.

Biography

She was born as third daughter of Don Gonzalo Mora Fernández Riera del Olmo, Marquis of Casa Riera, Count of Mora (1887-1957), and his wife, Doña Blanca de Aragon y Carrillo de Albornoz Barroeta-Aldamar y Elio (1892-1981). She was the sister of late Count Jaime de Mora y Aragón, a Spanish actor and jet set playboy. Her godmother was Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain.

Before her marriage she published an album of 12 fairy tales (Los doce Cuentos maravillosos), one of which ("The Indian water lilies") would get its own pavilion in the Efteling theme park in 1966.

On December 15, 1960 Doña Fabiola married Baudouin, who had been King of The Belgians since his father's abdication in 1951. At the marriage ceremony in the church of Laeken she wore a 1926 Art Deco tiara that had been a gift of the Belgian state to her husband's mother, Princess Astrid of Sweden, upon her marriage to King Léopold III of the Belgians. Her dress of satin and mink was designed by the couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga. TIME magazine, in its September 26, 1960 issue, called Doña Fabiola, who was a hospital nurse at the time of her engagement, "Cinderella Girl" and described her as "an attractive young woman, though no raving beauty" and "the girl who could not catch a man."

The royal couple had no children, as the queen's several pregnancies ended in miscarriage. There are reports, however, that she had a stillborn child in the mid 1960s.

The King died in 1993 and was succeeded by his younger brother, the Prince of Liège, who became King Albert II of the Belgians. Queen Fabiola moved out of the Royal Palace of Laeken to the more modest Stuyvenbergh castle and reduced her public appareances to not shadow new Queen Paola.

Admired for her devout Catholicism and involvement in social causes, particularly those related to mental health, children's issues, and women's issues in the Third World, Queen Fabiola is a recipient of the 2001 Ceres Medal, in recognition of her work to promote rural women in developing countries, from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). She's also honorary president of King Baudouin Foundation.

Guido Derom, an explorer, named a newly discovered range of Antarctic mountains in her honor in 1961. She also has several varieties of ornamental plants named after her.

Titles from birth

Here is a list of titles Queen Fabiola held from birth in chronological order :

Her Excellency Doña Fabiola Fernanda María de las Victorias Antonia Adelaida de Mora y Aragón (1928 - 1960)
Her Majesty The Queen of the Belgians (1960 - 1993)
Her Majesty Queen Fabiola of the Belgians (Since 1993)

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Biography

Titles from birth