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| Princess Claire | |
|---|---|
 Princess Claire in 2011 | |
| Born | Claire Louise Coombs [1] [2] [3] 18 January 1974 Bath, Somerset, England |
| Spouse | |
| Issue | |
| Father | Nicholas John Coombs |
| Mother | Nicole Mertens |
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Princess Claire of Belgium (born Claire Louise Coombs; 18 January 1974) is a British-Belgian [4] land surveyor. She has been married to Prince Laurent since 2003 and is the sister-in-law of King Philippe of Belgium.
She is the daughter of Nicholas John Coombs (Bath, 14 April 1938), a British-born businessman, and his Belgian wife, Nicole Eva Gabrielle Thérèse Mertens (Ixelles, 20 June 1951). She has an elder sister, Joanna, and a younger brother, Matthew. In 1977, when she was three years old, her family relocated to Dion-le-Val near Brussels in francophone Wallonia. [5]
| This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(August 2020) |
On 12 April 2003, she married Prince Laurent of Belgium, the second son and youngest child of the King Albert II of Belgium and Queen Paola of Belgium. The civil ceremony was held at Brussels Town Hall, and the religious ceremony at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula.
The couple have three children:
The family live in Villa Clementine, in Tervuren.
| This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(August 2020) |
Unlike Queen Mathilde and Princess Astrid, Princess Claire has no defined official role.
She occasionally appears in public accompanying her husband, generally in support of environmental causes or animal charities. She is also a leading patron of the Brussels Choral Society, which sang at the religious part of her marriage ceremony. She is also active in organisations related to the United Kingdom in Belgium. She is a member of the Board of Trustees at the British School of Brussels and actively attends charitable and commemorative events hosted by the British Ambassador to Belgium.[ citation needed ]
| Styles of Princess Claire of Belgium | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Reference style | Her Royal Highness |
| Spoken style | Your Royal Highness |
Coombs received the title Princess of Belgium from the King ten days before her marriage, by Royal Decree of 1 April 2003 (effective as of the date of the wedding, on 12 April 2003). [6]
Belgium: Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold I [7] [8] 
Netherlands: Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown [9] 
Norway: Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Merit [10] [11] 
Portugal: Grand Cross of the Order of Infante Henrique [12] [13] 
Belgium is a constitutional, hereditary and popular monarchy. The monarch is titled King of the Belgians and serves as the country's head of state and commander-in-chief of the Belgian Armed Forces. There have been seven Belgian monarchs since independence in 1830.
Albert II is a member of the Belgian royal family who reigned as King of the Belgians from 9 August 1993 to 21 July 2013.
Philippe is King of the Belgians. He is the eldest child of King Albert II and Queen Paola. He succeeded his father upon the former’s abdication for health reasons on 21 July 2013. He married Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz in 1999, with whom he has four children. Their eldest child, Princess Elisabeth, is first in the line of succession.
Prince Laurent of Belgium is the second son and youngest child of King Albert II and Queen Paola, and younger brother of King Philippe. Currently, he is 13th in the Belgian line of succession. He had been as high as third in line, but the constitution was amended in 1991 to extend an equal right of succession to women, putting him behind his sister, Princess Astrid, and her descendants.
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Princess Delphine of Belgium, known previously as JonkvrouwDelphine Boël, is a Belgian artist and member of the Belgian royal family. She is the daughter of King Albert II of Belgium with Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, and the half-sister of King Philippe of Belgium. On 1 October 2020, she was lawfully recognised as Princess of Belgium with the style "Her Royal Highness". Earlier, she had belonged to the Belgian titled nobility and was legally Jonkvrouw.
Princess Margaretha of Liechtenstein is the fourth child and second and youngest daughter of Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg and Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium. As the sister of Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg and the sister-in-law of Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, she is a princess of two current realms and a member of the Luxembourg and Liechtenstein reigning dynasties.
Merode is a railway and metro station in Brussels, Belgium. It lies in the municipality of Etterbeek, near the border between Etterbeek, the City of Brussels and Schaerbeek. The metro end is under the Porte de Tervueren/Tervuursepoort, which is the start of the Avenue de Tervueren/Tervurenlaan, a major thoroughfare, while the mainline railway station end is under the Square Princesse Jean de Mérode/Prinses Jean de Mérodeplein. The two stations are connected by a long underground concourse punctuated by ticket barriers. The area is named in honour of the Princess Jean de Mérode.
Princess Louise Marie Amélie of Belgium was the eldest child and daughter of King Leopold II and Queen Marie Henriette of Belgium. She was a member of the House of Wettin in the branch of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. By her marriage with her first cousin once removed Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, she retained her birth titles of Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duchess in Saxony.
The Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc is a non-profit academic hospital of the University of Louvain (UCLouvain), located on the university campus of UCLouvain Bruxelles Woluwe in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, Brussels, Belgium. The hospital opened on 23 August 1976, moving from Leuven to Brussels.
Princess Marie Luise Alexandra Karoline of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, later Countess of Flanders, was a princess of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, later simply of Hohenzollern. She married Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, second son of King Leopold I of Belgium, and she was the mother of King Albert I.
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Woluwe-Saint-Lambert or Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. In common with all of Brussels' municipalities, it is legally bilingual (French–Dutch). In French, it is often spelt Woluwé-Saint-Lambert to reflect the Frenchified pronunciation of what was originally a Dutch place name, but the official spelling is without an accent. The Woluwe stream, from which it takes its name, flows through the municipality.
Events in the year 1875 in Belgium.
Under Belgian law, marriage does not have any effect on the spouses' surnames. You keep the surname that you had before you were married.
Claire heet nu 'Claire Coombs', haar meisjesnaam. ... [Claire is now called 'Claire Coombs', her maiden name.]
la Princesse Claire Coombs, Princesse de Belgique.
