Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands—Who Will One Day Be Queen—Is Preparing for a Major Royal Milestone This Month

Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands—the 20-year-old eldest daughter of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima—is, as the heir to the throne, slowly taking on more and more royal duties. One such duty? Attending her first-ever state banquet this month, Tatler reports, where she will join her parents in welcoming Spain’s royal family this month (another royal family we love to follow).

King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain will visit the Netherlands on a state visit from April 17 to April 18, and Catharina-Amalia is expected to attend the banquet. Tatler reports that the occasion will likely be particularly poignant for the future queen, as she is set to wear a historic tiara. “While Princess Catharina-Amalia has been seen wearing a tiara in public a few times, it remains a relatively rare occurrence—and the state banquet could prove to be the perfect occasion for the royal,” Tatler writes.

Catharina-Amalia is one of the many future queens set to reign one day—in addition to the Netherlands, Spain (Princess Leonor), Sweden (Crown Princess Victoria), Belgium (Princess Elisabeth), and Norway (Princess Ingrid Alexandra) will all one day have female monarchs, ending the current female drought in royal families across the world. (After Queen Elizabeth died in 2022, she left only one female monarch on the throne across the entire world—Queen Margrethe of Denmark, who abdicated the throne in favor of her son King Frederick in January of this year.)

Many of the royal families of the world know one another (and many are actually related to one another), and Catharina-Amalia made her tiara debut by wearing her mother Maxima’s wedding day tiara to Ingrid Alexandra’s birthday gala in Oslo. In Claudia de Breij’s book Amalia, the Princess of Orange (the title reserved for the heir to the Dutch throne) said “I love tiaras. Show me a tiara, and I know where it comes from. I can recognize all the tiaras in Europe. I used to put them on from my mother. Then there was one on her dressing table and then I had it directly on my head.” 

Catharina-Amalia is the eldest of William-Alexander and Maxima’s three girls; her younger sisters are Princess Alexia and Princess Ariane. She became the Princess of Orange in 2013 after her grandmother Queen Beatrix abdicated the throne and her father, Willem-Alexander, became king; “she also made the bold move of turning down her £1.4 million a year income [as Princess of Orange], saying that accepting it would make her feel uncomfortable,” Tatler reports. (We love this.)

The future queen is currently in her second year at the University of Amsterdam, where she studies politics, psychological law, and economics. Last year she was forced to move back home to the royal palace and away from university accommodation, reportedly as a result of security risks; “Dutch security personnel were reportedly concerned that criminal gangs may attack or attempt to kidnap her,” Tatler reports. “Queen Maxima discussed her concerns over this, stating in October that ‘it has huge consequences for her life. It means she doesn’t live in Amsterdam and also that she can’t really go outside.’”

Catharina-Amalia—along with many other European royals—was on hand for Crown Prince Christian of Denmark’s landmark eighteenth birthday party last year; Crown Princess Victoria was also there, as was Crown Prince Pavlov of Greece and Princess Benedikte of Denmark.

Speaking of Maxima, the Spanish royals will be in town right as a new series premieres depicting the life of the Dutch queen consort and her relationship with Willem-Alexander. The show, called Maxima Zorreguieta: Motherland—similar to Netflix’s The Crown about Queen Elizabeth—is set to cover the bulk of Maxima’s life, looking at her early years in Argentina and dramatizing the chance meeting of a Crown Prince that changed her life forever. If you don’t know the story, Willem-Alexander and Maxima met in April 1999; at the time, the future king introduced himself only as Alexander, and when he later revealed that he was the Prince of Orange (again, another term for heir to the Dutch throne), Maxima thought he was joking.

Their courtship then continued in New York City before the two announced their engagement in March 2001 after Willem-Alexander popped the question while they were ice skating. They married in February 2002.