500 Guilders - Ottawa Civic Hospital

Ottawa Civic Hospital The Dutch royal family went into exile when the Netherlands was occupied by Germany in 1940. Crown Princess Juliana took refuge in Ottawa, Canada. In September 1942, it was announced that Juliana was pregnant with her third child, which created a problem for the succession. According to the Dutch constitution, no one born on foreign soil can be heir to the throne. In November, Juliana’s secretary, William van Tets, contacted the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs about the problem of the birth of a Dutch royal heir. The department’s legal adviser, John Erskine Reid, came up with a way around this by creating a temporary extraterritorial space for the birth of the heir. The Canadian government temporarily declared the hospital’s maternity ward extraterritorial. This ensured that the newborn would not be born in Canada and become a British subject, but would inherit Dutch citizenship only from his mother. The child would therefore be eligible for succession to the Dutch throne. Princess Juliana was admitted to the Ottawa City Hospital on 18 January, and Princess Margriet of the Netherlands was born there on 19 January 1943. Margriet was registered as a Dutch citizen without a Canadian birth certificate, the extraterritorial circumstances being stated in the announcement of her birth. It was not until August 1945, when the Netherlands was liberated, that Princess Margriet first set foot on Dutch soil.