Dutch Engagement Shaky?

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30406, 3 April 1964, Page 2

Dutch Engagement Shaky?

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) THE HAGUE, March 31. Official Dutch sources today emphatically denied rumours that all was not well with the engagement between Princess Irene and Prince Hugo-Carlos of Bourbon-Parma. A Dutch Court spokesman said tonight Don Carlos had been unable to spend his Easter holidays with his fiancee. “It was never certain that Don Carlos would be here

for Easter,” he added. British United Press said a date for the wedding may be announced in the next fortnight. In London, the “Daily Mail” said there was a growing belief in Holland that the engagement was “on the verge of breakdown.” "Latest ‘ndications are that the engagement is meeting serious difficulties,” the newspaper said. Don Carlos bad been expected at Soestdijk Palace, where the Princess was staying, for Easter. “But nobody knows

where he is,” the newspaper said. The couple’s engagement, following Princess Irene’s secret conversion to the Roman Catholic faith last year, brought Holland to the threshold of constitutional crisis early in February. The absence of a firm wedding dace, even after weeks of bargaining between the Dutch Royal family, the Government, and Don Carlos, was also “significant,” according to political sources in The Hague, the "Daily Mail” said.