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There is a descendant of Charlemagne, Lucrezia Borgia, Mary Queen of Scots, William the Silent, Vladimir of Russia, Geoffrey Chaucer, Pierre de Ronsard, Diane de Poitiers, Agnes Sorel and 1,048,567 other traceable ancestors, who frequently breaks 70 on the golf links. Three years ago he donated a silver cup—La Coupe du Roi des Beiges, for a tournament at Onex, Switzerland—and last year he won the cup himself. This year he reached the quarter finals of the amateur championship in Paris. Other members of the Onex club hail Leopold III, King of the Belgians, as "a perfect golfer."
To many of the King's subjects the King's golf is something to groan over rather than cheer about. It opens a revealing little window on the controversial, headstrong personality whose possible return to the throne has put the Kingdom of the Belgians in a constitutional dither and a cabinet deadlock.
Leopold the golfer acts with his own mind, chooses his own partners, and arranges his own schedule. Leopold the monarch behaved in the same independent way. This, as every student of constitutional monarchy knows, can be dangerous for the state. Certainly, it is not good for a king's popularity. Leopold, for example, just before the Belgian parliamentary elections in which the "royal question" of his return was the prime issue (TIME, July 4), decided without consulting anyone to play in the French international golf tournament. Staunch monarchists winced; the King, they said, ought not to compete with just "anybody." In New York former Belgian Premier Georges Theunis peevishly grumbled: "Ce gamin . . ."
Other political oldtimers brooded over the comedown of the royal line. Said one who had served both Leopold and his beloved father, mountain-climbing Albert I: "Leopold has the same passion for golf that Albert had for Alpinism. The big difference is that Albert would not dream of indulging in his favorite sport when there was state business to be transacted, while Leopold simply will not forgo a game of golf."
Those who do not care for blue blood mixed with ordinary red remember dourly how the King's golf led him to his second wife, the commoner Mary Liliane Baels. She used to wait for Leopold at the 18th hole at Le Zoute on the North Sea, a tony resort, but not too tony for nouveaux riÇhes. Like her royal husband, she is a topnotch golfer, plays the Onex course under 80, has twice held the Club de Genève women's championship. Though she is merely the daughter of a newly rich fish merchant, the King has bestowed on her the title Princess de Rethy.
A Practical Kingdom. The argument over Leopold's return, his taste in wives and golf partners, has nothing to do with the kingship as such. Belgians overwhelmingly want their monarch. A practical people, they know that he serves a very practical purpose—the symbolic link binding them together as a nation.