Belgium’s former King Albert meets daughter after her long battle to be accepted

Princess Delphine welcomed into the royal family fold after being shunned for decades

Princess Delphine meets her father, former King Albert, and his wife, Queen Paola, on Sunday. EPA 

The once-shunned princess of Belgium has met former king Albert for the first time since her legal battle to be recognised as his daughter.

A photograph released by the palace shows Princess Delphine de Saxe-Cobourg smiling alongside the former king and his wife, Queen Paola, in their Brussels royal household at the weekend.

Delphine, now 52, was the child of an affair Albert had with a baroness.

He had long refused to accept Delphine as his daughter - meaning she was not legally a princess - until a DNA test confirmed otherwise.

The meeting was described by the trio as “full of emotion” and a “time of forgiveness, healing and reconciliation”.

After Delphine’s lengthy legal battle for recognition, the princess has been allowed to adopt his family name and has begun to build a relationship with the royal family.

The latest meeting was her first with Albert and his wife since she was recognised.

A joint statement from the former king, Delphine and Paola said: "This Sunday, October 25, a new chapter opened, full of emotion, understanding and, also, hope.

"Our meeting took place at the Chateau du Belvedere, a meeting during which each of us was able to express, serenely and with empathy, our feelings and experiences.

"After the tumult, the wounds and the suffering comes the time of forgiveness, healing and reconciliation.

"This is the patient, sometimes difficult path that we have decided to take resolutely together. These first steps pave the peaceful course which it is now up to us to pursue."

The meeting followed a similar encounter earlier this month between Princess Delphine and the current King of Belgium, Albert's son Philippe.

Albert II reigned from 1993 until 2013. He was obliged to undergo a DNA test last year following the outcome of the legal battle.

The test confirmed he was indeed Delphine's biological father, which he had refused to admit since the revelation in 1999 of a previous extra-marital affair.

A Belgian court ruled on October 1 that the artist - who was partly raised in Britain and has an American husband - can indeed adopt her father's name and call herself a princess.

Her two children, Josephine and Oscar, are now also a princess and a prince.

Delphine was born in 1968 to a baroness, Sibylle de Selys Longchamps, early in an affair that lasted until 1984.

Albert had already married his future queen, Paola, and the existence of his daughter Delphine remained secret.

Despite rumours and press reports, Albert continued to deny his paternity throughout his two-decade reign and even after his abdication.

That was until a judge ordered a DNA test.

The result was finally released in January this year - but the former king, now 86, continued to give his daughter the cold shoulder.

In a statement issued after the test, Albert's lawyers said: "The scientific conclusions indicate that he is the biological father of Mrs Delphine Boel.”

They added that his legal paternity was not the same as being a father, insisting he had made no "familial, social or educational decisions" in her upbringing.

When the former king informed his hidden daughter and the Belgian people, through his legal team, that he felt no connection with her it was "like a knife in the back", she told reporters on October 5.

The princess said she had been in touch with her father until he severed ties with her when she was 33. The subsequent legal battle dragged on until earlier this month when the family relented and accepted Delphine into the fold.