It’s the most dramatic royal moment on skates since Princess Diana’s lugubriously roller-bladed through the halls of Buckingham Palace in The Crown. Things did not go to plan when 82-year-old Princess Margriet took to an ice rink for a charity event on 23 March, with the aunt of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands ending up in hospital after falling over during one of her final laps of the Thialf Stadium in Heerenveen.
The ‘fully responsive’ Princess was taken to hospital as a ‘precaution’, a spokesperson for the Hollandse 100 event later confirmed. Medical staff later diagnosed her with an upper arm fracture. Medics arrived quickly at the scene, while Princess Margriet remained seated on the ice as they assessed her condition, per NL Times.
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Her family, including sons Prince Bernhard and Prince Maurits rushed to her side, and while there may have been some drama in the immediate wake of Margriet’s fall, the royals seemed in high spirits about the incident. Her husband, Pieter van Vollenhoven, took to social media with a photograph of the Princess skating alongside Prince Bernhard, writing on X, joking that: ‘Everything went well until the last 30 meters before the finish!’
Another of Margriet’s sons, Prince Pieter Christiaan van Oranje, also shared a sweet photograph of his mother offering a thumbs up before she took part in the skating event, which was held to raise funds for lymphoma research. Princess Margriet, who is a long-term advocate for cancer research, could also be seen wearing a helmet and protective gear as she skated her way around the rink.
Princess Margriet may be a much-loved Dutch royal, but she was actually born in Canada, while her mother, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands, was in exile across the Atlantic following the Nazi occupation of their home country in 1940. Growing up alongside her sister, the future Queen Beatrix, and Princess Irene, Princess Margriet had what sounds like an idyllic Canadian childhood. She was named after the marguerite flower, worn to symbolise resistance against Nazi rule. The young royal was christened in Ottawa in 1943, with her godparents including President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Britain’s dowager Queen Mary.
The Dutch royals were based in the Stornoway residence, living alongside bodyguards and ladies in waiting. During this exile, the young Princesses attended school at Rockcliffe Park Public School. The family summered on Lake of Bays in Ontario, staying at the Bigwin Inn, where they would holiday in four private stone cottages, now known as the ‘Juliana cottages’. Locals were said to be very fond of the royals, appreciating their ‘down to earth’ nature and their refusal to indulge in the summer resort’s luxuries, the largest in Canada. It was during this exile that Princess Juliana established one of the Dutch royals’ most treasured traditions, the sending of tulips to Canada during the Canadian Tulip Festival.
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Of course, the Dutch royal family are no strangers to a drama or two. Indeed, so rife with intrigue is the life of Princess Margriet’s niece, Queen Máxima, that it inspired the Netherlands’s answer to The Crown. The first series of Videoland’s series, Máxima, focused on Máxima's early life and the beginnings of her relationship with Willem-Alexander, premiered in the Netherlands in April 2024 to blockbuster success. The second season – which will once more star Delfina Chaves and Martijn Lakemeier as the couple – is expected to hit screens next year and will open with the royal wedding.
Speaking to Variety, producer Rachel van Bommel said: ‘These moments are still in our collective memory. We’ve all seen them on TV. In the first season, we used archive footage. We’ll do it again, especially for the scenes of the wedding.’ She added that the second season would be a grander affair, telling the magazine: ‘It’s much bigger because we’re in palaces, in big UN buildings. Then there’s life and death: children being born, funerals taking place. We still have this royal couple that’s really engaging and we’ll keep a light tone, but there’s drama in their life.’
Fortunately, Princess Magriet’s brief encounter with the frosty floor of a Dutch ice rink sounded far less operatic in scope. Let’s hope she’s up and skating soon!
