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The badly shaken Queen tearfully boarded a military plane with Bernhard and took off for Franco's Spain—where no Dutch monarch had ever set foot.
Stopping over in Paris, the royal party learned that the government would resign if they went on to Spain. The plane flew home instead. Juliana's unceremonious return led many Dutchmen to believe that the Queen would bow before the wave of hostility against the royal family and abdicate the throne. But Juliana could scarcely step down now.
Through the Gates. Irene meanwhile had decided to handle things her way. After about a week in hiding at a Catalonian convent, said a friend, Irene "overcame her difficulties of mind" and would soon announce a "happy family happening." As Bernhard flew off again to bring her home, the princess popped up at the house of her invisible suitor. He turned out to be Prince Carlos de Borbon y Parma, 33, whose family has its own remote claim to the Spanish throne. Paris-born Carlos is an athletic, brainy, offbeat grandee who studied at Oxford and the Sorbonne (economics, science, law), was a parachute champion, and served as a French air force captain. Irene and Carlos said they had been friends for several years, but only "formalized our feelings in Spain." Together, Irene and Carlos boarded Bernhard's plane and headed home.
Back in The Netherlands, the royal party sped to the white Soestdijk Palace east of Amsterdam. When they reached it, 5,000 Dutchmen were waiting in prickly silence. Then the crowd raised a mighty cheer and surged through the gates behind their limousines, singing the Dutch birthday anthem, "Long may she live, hip, hip, hurray!"
Irene's fate was already sealed. By arriving in triumph with Carlos, instead of meekly returning alone to listen to official advice, the highhanded princess angered many important politicians—Catholic and Calvinist alike—who might have helped her. For the Dutch constitution specifies that an heir to the throne must either win approval for his marriage from the government and at least two-thirds of Parliament or renounce all claim to succession. If he marries in violation of the constitution, he is officially regarded "as dead."
Early Sunday, after six weary hours of discussion with the family and its maverick princess, Prime Minister Marijnen and three senior ministers decided sadly that the time had not yet come when the Dutch could contemplate a Catholic monarch and a Spanish consort. Rather than renounce her love, Irene renounced the right of succession and agreed to live in exile. So died a princess.