Former Dutch Queen Juliana, who presided over the dismantling of the centuries-old Dutch empire and witnessed the birth of a social revolution during her 31-year reign of the Netherlands, died Saturday. She was 94.
Juliana, who has been away from public life for years, passed away shortly before 6:00 a.m., the government announced.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende was due to address the nation in a live television broadcast, a statement said.
"She died as a result of pneumonia, combined with a general deterioration of health," Juliana's doctors said.
Princess Juliana, who gave up the title of queen when she abdicated in favor of her daughter Beatrix in 1980, spent the last decade of her life in seclusion, too ill and mentally feeble to appreciate the adoration of her people.
Was in poor health
The Royal Palace was protective of her privacy, but she was known to suffer heart rhythm problems and to have been under 24-hour surveillance by two nurses. Her husband, Prince Bernhard, admitted in a televised interview in June 2001 that Juliana could no longer recognize members of her family.
Juliana Louise Emma Marie Wilhelmina, Princess of Orange-Nassau, was 39 when she took the throne on Sept. 4, 1948.
Through her more modern, down-to-earth ways, she brought the monarchy closer to the people than under her mother, Queen Wilhelmina, who had stepped down after a reign of 50 years. Juliana was known to unregally pour the tea herself for her visitors.
Even after she abdicated, the Dutch continued to celebrate their national holiday on her birthday rather than the birthday of the reigning Queen Beatrix, partly from respect for the queen mother and partly because her spring birthday was more suitable for outdoor celebrations.
As queen, she was active in social issues, frequently visiting hospitals, old age homes and nurseries. She spent days in the southern provinces of Zeeland and South Holland when they were inundated by devastating floods in early 1953.
Reign of change
During the turbulent 1960s, she watched the youthful social unrest that decades later evolved into such landmark legislation as legalized homosexual marriages, prostitution and euthanasia.
One year after coming to the throne, Juliana oversaw a watershed in Dutch history: the recognition of an independent Indonesia. Her proclamation officially ended 346 years of colonial rule in the former Dutch East Indies, from which great wealth had flowed to the Netherlands for generations.
In 1954 she gave her assent to the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which formed the basis for cooperation with the remaining colonies of Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. With the queen's signature on the act of parliament, Suriname became an independent in 1975.
Juliana was the only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Duke Henry Vladimir Albrecht Ernst of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, later known as Prince Hendrik of the Netherlands. Her birth on April 30, 1909, was widely hailed by the Dutch, who had waited eight years for a successor to the throne.
Brought up in Puritan surroundings, she was subject to rigid court conventions and privately tutored, and played with few children of her own age.
She met her husband Bernhard, Prince of Lippe-Biesterfeld, on a prewar trip to the German winter sports center of Garmisch-Partenkirche. They married within a year.
When the Nazis overran the Netherlands in 1940, the royal family fled to England, where Queen Wilhelmina set up a government-in-exile with Bernhard as her aide-de-camp. Juliana moved to Canada and lived in Ottawa with her children.
Royal scandals
Personal controversy dogged her reign. In 1956, a crisis shook the Dutch public and government over reports that Juliana had fallen under the influence of faith healer Greet Hofmans.
The healer had been brought in to treat the youngest of the royal couple's four daughters, Princess Christina, who was born partially blind. A German magazine said Hofmans' influence extended to matters of state and had caused a rift between the queen and her prince, who eventually had the faith healer barred from the royal court.
For months rumors swirled of Juliana's possible abdication and divorce from Bernhard, until the Royal Palace issued a statement that the couple had resolved their differences and "looked forward to the future with confidence."
In 1964, Princess Irene converted to Catholicism, breaking the Protestant tradition of the House of Orange, to marry Prince Hugo Carlos of Bourbon-Parma, pretender to the Spanish throne.
Although Irene renounced her rights of succession, the Dutch government refused to sanction a marriage that smacked of involvement in the tangled question of Spanish royal succession, and a state wedding in the Netherlands was ruled out.
It finally took place in Rome. Neither Juliana nor Bernhard attended, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1981.
More trouble erupted over the 1966 wedding of Crown Princess Beatrix to German-born Claus van Amsberg, who had been a member of the Hitler youth and served in the German armed forces during the war. The royal consort later overcame the hostility to win the affection of his adopted nation.
The two remaining princesses, Margriet and Christina, married commoners readily accepted and liked by the nation.
In the 1970s, however, Prince Bernhard's role in a bribery scandal involving the U.S.-based Lockheed aircraft corporation thrust the royal house into controversy once more.
There were reports that a highly placed Dutch official received $1.1 million in payoffs from the U.S. firm to promote sales of aircraft the Dutch armed forces.
An investigation ruled that Juliana's husband had solicited bribes of $4 million to $6 million, but did not find conclusive evidence that he had actually received money, apart from $100,000 which Bernhard himself acknowledged and said he distributed as "Christmas presents."
The Dutch government deplored the prince's conduct and he resigned from all defense and public posts where there could be a conflict of interest.
On her 71st birthday, April 30, 1980, Juliana abdicated in favor of her daughter, Beatrix, who became queen at the age of 42.
