Aged seventy-two, Princess Christina of The Netherlands died on Friday, 16 August 2019, at Noordeinde Palace, Den Haag, The Netherlands. She had been suffering from bone cancer. In June 2018, it was announced that the princess had been diagnosed with the illness in November 2017.
Princess Christina, known then as Princess Marijke, was born on 18 February 1947, at Soestdijk Palace, Baarn, The Netherlands. Her mother was the then Princess Juliana, only child and heir presumptive of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. At the time of her birth, she was fifth in the line of succession to her grandmother, Queen Wilhelmina. Her father was Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, a son of Prince Bernhard of Lippe and his wife, Baroness Armgard von Cramm.
Christina has three older sisters: Princess Beatrix, Princess Irene and Princess Margriet. At the age of twenty-one, Christina 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. It was there that she met her future husband.
Princess Christina and Jorge Pérez y Guillermo were married on 28 June 1975. Their civil wedding took place at Baarn and was followed by a religious ecumenical ceremony in the Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht. Jorge Guillermo was a Roman Catholic and an exile from Cuba. Christina gave up her dynastic rights upon her marriage.
