A statue of Charles of Lorraine, the governor of the Austrian Netherlands, originally stood in the middle of Place Royal in Brussels. But the statue you now see in the square is someone else.
The statue of Charles was removed when French troops took over Brussels. They saw the statue as a symbol of the old order and planted a tree in its place to symbolise liberty. But the tree soon died.
A new statue was cast in bronze in 1848 to occupy the spot where Charles of Lorraine once stood. It is different from most statues in Brussels in that the figure on Place Royale had blood on his hands.
Godfrey of Bouillon was a crusading knight who captured Jerusalem in 1099. He was offered the title of King of Jerusalem but chose instead to call himself Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. He died the following year and was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
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A plaster cast version of the statue was exhibited three years later in the Crystal Palace in London. It was the largest sculpture in the Crystal Palace, placed in the middle of the Belgian section. But the Victorian crowds were apparently more impressed by a small Belgian statue of a crying boy who had broken his drum.
Derek Blyth’s hidden secret of the day: Derek Blyth is the author of the bestselling “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Belgium”. He picks out one of his favourite hidden secrets for The Brussels Times every day.
