Spanish aristocrat selected to be queen of Belgium

Queen Fabiola, who has died aged 86 and who was inseparable in the public mind from her husband, King Baudouin, was queen of Belgium between 1960 and 1993.

Fabiola and Baudouin shared a deep Catholic faith. The queen had five miscarriages and the couple were reclusive. Nevertheless, Queen Fabiola was popular with her subjects.

King Baudouin was enveloped in a major controversy in 1990, when he refused to give a parliament-approved bill legalising abortion his royal assent. Some partly blamed Fabiola’s strong Catholicism for her husband’s opposition to a law he was required to sign. He stepped down for one day to allow the government to pass the law before he was reinstated as king.

Dona Fabiola Fernanda Maria de las Victorias Antonia Adelaida de Mora y Aragon was born in Madrid in 1928. One of seven children, she was the daughter of a Spanish nobleman.

Irish nun

While working as a nurse in Madrid in 1960 she was interviewed as a possible suitable bride for Baudouin. a process in which the future Cardinal Suenens, then auxiliary bishop of Malines, and an Irish nun, Sister Veronica O’Brien, played leading parts.

Sister O’Brien sent Bishop Suenens a letter, describing Fabiola as “a breath of fresh air, tall, thin, well-built, good-looking and striking, bubbling with life, intelligence and energy”.

She met Baudoin and after initial reluctance agreed to marry him. Throughout their married life the couple remained devoted to each other.

In her late 80s, Fabiola became involved in a tax scandal when she was accused of trying to shield from authorities some of her fortune, which had been amassed partly with taxpayers’ money, earning her a rare public rebuke from the then prime minister, Elio Di Rupo.