The Dutch king issued an unusual video message on Wednesday saying he had “regret in the heart” and he should not have flown to Greece for a family vacation last week, a trip that was quickly broken off amid uproar in The Netherlands where people are being urged to stay home as much as possible to battle the coronavirus.

“It hurts to have betrayed your faith in us,” a sombre King Willem-Alexander said in the video, which shows him sitting next to his wife, Queen Maxima. “Even though the trip was within the regulations, it was very unwise not to take into account the impact of the new restrictions on our society,” the king said.