Marriage
In 1963, Princess Marijke changed to using her second name, Christina. Pursuing her gift for music, at age 21 she moved to Canada to study classical music in Montreal. After a few years, she accepted a teaching position at a Montessori school in New York City. There, living an ordinary life under the name Christina van Oranje, the Dutch Princess met and fell in love with a Havana-born Cuban exile named Jorge Pérez y Guillermo, himself a teacher for the Addie May Collins Shelter of Harlem and a former hotelier. Mr. Guillermo was born in Havana on 1 August 1946. He is the son of Federico Gilberto Pérez Castillo and wife Edenia Mercedes Guillermo y Marrero, who died in Florida in 2002.
Although societal attitudes were changing, because Mr. Guillermo was a Roman Catholic, it was still possible that any marriage could cause another public scandal in the Netherlands such as the one that occurred in 1964 when her sister, Princess Irene married the Catholic Carlos Hugo of Bourbon, Duke of Parma. Accordingly, Princess Christina, at that time ninth in line for the Dutch throne, renounced her and her children's rights to the throne before converting to Catholicism and officially announcing her engagement on St. Valentine's Day, 1975.
Married on 28 June 1975, in the Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht, in The Netherlands, the newlyweds rode through the streets of the city to the cheers of thousands of Dutch citizens. Following their marriage, she and her husband chose to live in New York but later moved to her native land where they built a home on an estate in Wassenaar, near The Hague.
Their children:
- Bernardo Federico Tomás Guillermo, (born 17 June 1977), Married civilly in March 2009 in NYC to Eva Prinz-Valdez, (born 2 August 1979), an editor at a prominent publisher. Married religiously in September 2009 in New York City. Has a daughter Isabel Christina (born 13 April 2009).
- Nicolás Daniel Mauricio Guillermo, (born 6 July 1979)
- Juliana Edenia Antonia Guillermo, (born 8 October 1981)
Divorced in 1996, Princess Christina returned with her children to live in the United States. After her mother's death she has lived partly in London, partly in Monte Argentario, Italy.
She recorded several CDs and has a Music Foundation in the Netherlands. She sang at her father's funeral and at her mother's funeral and participated in a tribute concert that the CIMA Festival did in Italy for Queen Juliana, under the direction of Jorge Chaminé.
| Styles of Princess Christina of the Netherlands |
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|---|---|
| Reference style | Her Royal Highness |
| Spoken style | Your Royal Highness |
| Alternative style | Ma'am |
Read more about this topic: Princess Christina Of The Netherlands
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