On September 22, 2024, Princess Astrid and Prince Lorenz of Belgium celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Astrid and Lorenz are united, happy, discreet and in the service of Belgium. They form a couple with royal origins like few others in our time. The sister of the King of the Belgians and her husband share many ancestors in common, in particular from the royal family of France. Queen Louise, first Queen of the Belgians and ancestor of Princess Astrid, was the sister of three ancestors of Prince Lorenz.
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Princess Astrid and Archduke Lorenz’s 40th Wedding Anniversary
On 22 September 1984, Princess Astrid of Belgium, niece of King Baudouin, married Archduke Lorenz of Austria-Este, grandson of Emperor Charles I of Austria, in the Church of Our Lady of the Sablon in Brussels. This church now houses the relics of Charles I, who was beatified in 2004. On 22 September 2024, Princess Astrid, who has since become the daughter of King Albert II and then the sister of King Philippe, discreetly celebrates her emerald wedding anniversary with her husband, the father of their five children.
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Princess Astrid and Archduke Lorenz were united before God on that rainy September day in 1984. Their shared royal origins offered a marriage such as few still exist in our time. Lorenz, who received the title of Prince of Belgium from his father-in-law in 1995, is descended from royal families on both his father’s and mother’s side. He shares common ancestors with his wife, in the agnatic and cognatic lines.
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Princess Astrid and Prince Lorenz share a common ancestor with King Michael I of Portugal.
We will mention here only the first ancestors that Princess Astrid, 62 years old, and Prince Lorenz, 68 years old, have in common. There are many other ancestors, in later generations, such as the kings of the Two Sicilies for example, and before them the kings of Spain of the Bourbon dynasty, themselves descendants of Louis XIV. The Sun King is an ancestor that Astrid and Lorenz have in common through very many branches.
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On Lorenz’s paternal side, the closest common ancestors he shares with his wife are King Michael I of Portugal (1802–1866) and his wife, Adelaide of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg (1821–1909). Two of the couple’s daughters, Princess Maria Josepha and Princess Antonia, are each the respective ancestors of Astrid and Lorenz. Maria Josepha was the mother of Elisabeth of Bavaria, who would become Queen Elisabeth of Belgium through her marriage to King Albert I. They are Astrid’s great-grandparents. Princess Antonia married Duke Robert I of Parma, the last ruler of Parma. They are the parents of Zita, wife of Emperor Charles I. They are the last rulers of the Austrian Empire and Lorenz’s grandparents.
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The first Queen of the Belgians was the sister of three ancestors of Prince Lorenz
Archduke Lorenz is the son of Archduke Robert and Princess Margherita of Savoy-Aosta. Lorenz’s mother is a princess of the cousin branch of the Kings of Italy and through her mother, she descends from the Orléans branch of the French royal family, the descendants of King Louis-Philippe I. King Louis-Philippe I and his wife, Marie-Amélie, daughter of the King of the Two Sicilies, had ten children. Among their ten children, several sealed marriages between their own children, which means that several grandchildren of King Louis-Philippe married between first cousins. Several of them are the ancestors of Archduke Lorenz. As for Princess Astrid, she descends from Louis, daughter of King Louis-Philippe I, who will become the wife of Leopold I, first King of the Belgians. They are the founders of the Belgian dynasty.
Three sons of King Louis-Philippe I are the ancestors of Prince Lorenz: Antoine, Ferdinand-Philippe and François. Philippe and Robert, two sons of Ferdinand-Philippe, both married a first cousin, Marie-Isabelle and Françoise, respectively daughters of Antoine and François. The two brothers, married to first cousins, are the parents of children who will marry other descendants of Orléans. Prince Robert, Duke of Chartres, is the father of Jean, Duke of Guise, who will marry his first cousin, Princess Isabelle of Orléans, daughter of Prince Philippe, Count of Paris. The Duke of Guise and his wife are the parents of Princess Anne of Orléans who married her first cousin, Prince Amédée, Duke of Aosta and cousin of the King of Italy, whose mother was Princess Hélène of Orléans, daughter of Prince Philippe.
Nicolas Fontaine
Editor in Chief
Nicolas Fontaine has been a copywriter and author for many Belgian and French brands and media. A specialist in royal family news, Nicolas founded the website Histoires royales, of which he is the editor-in-chief. [email protected]
