His son now came to the throne as King Baudouin of the Belgians. His name had several translations in the multi-lingual kingdom; it was Boudewijn in Flemish, Balduin in German and Baudouin in French, the most common. English-speakers sometimes called him by the name of "King Baldwin". King Baudouin was married on December 15, 1960 to Dona~ Fabiola Fernanda Maria de las Victorias Antonia Adelaida Mora y Aragon, a nurse and children's author whose charm, cheerful friendliness, humility and great compassion made her instantly popular in Belgium. Queen Fabiola had been born in Madrid, Spain on June 11, 1928 and was the daughter of Don Gonzalo Mora Fernandez Riera del Olmo, Marques de Casa Riera, Conde de Mora and his wife Dona~ Blanca de Aragon y Carillo de Albornoz Barroeta-Aldamar y Elio. The married life of King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola was an extremely happy one, but unfortunately the couple were never able to have any children, making Baudouin's younger brother the heir to the Belgian throne.
To the Belgians and other royal watchers around the world King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola seemed the ideal monarchs. Queen Fabiola could speak a variety of languages, did a great deal of charity work and travelled a great deal. King Baudouin was known for his love of photography, his friendly personality and his willingness to always make time for his people, to hear their concerns and help them with their problems. As the nation's vast colony of the Belgian Congo was given up, the royal couple ensured that the Belgian people still felt proud of their country as it was represented by two such outstanding people. The two lived very modestly in a six room section of their castle at Laeken. He also worked tirelessly to improve the lives of his people, such as in 1976 on the 25th anniversary of his accession to the throne, when he formed the King Baudouin Foundation which operates to improve the living standards of the less fortunate in Belgian society. King Baudouin also visited Queen Fabiola's family friend Generalissimo Francisco Franco in Spain, which most Catholics saw no problem with, but which many leftist members of society found controversial to say the least.
This was nothing to bother King Baudouin however, as he was a devoutly Catholic monarch and defended the principles of Church morality throughout his reign. In 1990, this led to a constitutional crisis in the Kingdom of Belgium when a law was voted through the parliament to liberalise Belgian laws on abortion. According to the laws of the constitutional monarchy, the King had to give Royal Assent to all legislation which the representatives of the people passed, such assent always being seen as a mere formality and nothing more. However, in this case, King Baudouin's principles would not permit him to put his name to such a law and in an unprecedented action for a constitutional monarch, he refused to his Royal Assent to the bill. What followed was nothing less than a short-lived republican rebellion in Belgium when the government subsequently declared King Baudouin unable to reign on April 4, 1990. With that declaration, according to Belgian law, the government as a whole took over the position of Head of State and all members signed the bill into law without the King's signature. The following day, the government declared King Baudouin capable of reigning again and he was restored after this brief republican interlude.
King Baudouin continued to reign over the Belgians for 42 years when he died in the Villa Astrida in the southern Spanish town of Motril of massive heart failure. He was interred at the Church of Our Lady's Laeken Cemetery in Brussels in the royal vault. He was succeeded by his younger brother as King Albert II.