Monarchie en geschiedschrijving: de vorstenbiografie revisited

Monarchy and historiography. The royal biography 'revisited' Biographies of Kings and Queens have often been considered a discredited historiographical genre, particularly in the Netherlands. Wrongly so. The dynastic international networks of Kings and their role in politics provide fascinating viewpoints on national and transnational political history, changing social relations, and the cultivation of rituals. This article outlines the positive appraisal of the royal biography since the late 1980s in the Netherlands and elaborates more generally what kind of contributions this genre offers to the historiography of political culture. Two recent studies illustrate this: Cees Fasseur's biography on Queen Wilhelmina (2012) - a short and updated version of his earlier published biography on the Dutch Queen - and the extensive biography on the Belgium King Leopold I (2011) by Gita Deneckere. The two biographies also clarify the paradox of the immense popularity of the hereditary monarchy in modern democracies, how these monarchies adapt to new circumstances and appeals to the imagination of the masses.