Denmark’s King Frederik X Will Reign in a Different World Than His Mother—Can He Hold On to the Throne?
On Sunday afternoon, King Frederik X became the sovereign of Denmark, carving another name into a lineage that stretches back to the sixth century. Despite the weight of the history that comes along with the change, the official transfer of power happened after his mother, Margrethe II, signed a bit of paperwork inside Christiansborg Palace. A photograph of the moment later released by the Kongehuset depicts a low-key atmosphere somehow still heavy with anticipation. Margrethe handles a pen while Frederik, in full regalia, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, and now Crown Prince Christian are all looking intently at her hand.
It’s a far cry from what happened as soon as the new monarch and his Council of State left the private room. A later video set to the tune of Coldplay’s “A Sky Full of Stars” shows the king on the way to the Christiansborg balcony while his wife, Queen Mary; three other children, Princess Isabella, Prince Vincent, and Princess Josephine; and younger brother Prince Joachim watch as he walks out to meet the prime minister. Tens of thousands of Danes gathered outdoors in the palace complex to watch the moment unfold. For decades, the royal family of Denmark have been considered one of the most popular monarchies, and on Sunday, they showed the world exactly what that means.
In a brief speech, the prime minister complimented the new king. “To be queen and king is a link in a more than thousand-year-long chain,” she said. “When one steps aside, the next is standing at the ready. And the crown prince that now becomes our monarch is a king that we know, a king that we like, and a king that we trust.”
Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images.
Unlike the moment in May 2023 when King Charles III was proclaimed on a gilded throne, Denmark’s historic coronation chair was sitting in Copenhagen’s Rosenborg Museum on Sunday morning; it hasn’t been used since the 1840 coronation of Christian VIII. In 1972, Margrethe’s proclamation on the same balcony happened mere hours after she watched her father die at Copenhagen Municipal Hospital. The unfussy joy of the moment was a reminder of why monarchies can survive even when some of the pomp and circumstance is put aside for modernization. It also made the subtle case that an elderly monarch’s abdication could allow a new era to begin without extinguishing the old.
The full meaning of the day didn’t become clear until Frederik was joined by his new queen and their four children on the palace balcony. Mary wore a form-fitting white dress by Danish designer Soeren Le Schmidt, and her arrival was greeted with rapturous cheers. The nation didn’t just get a new king. Now they have a queen consort who can combine the constancy of her mother-in-law with a Kate Middleton–like track record as an advocate for children and a Michelle Obama–inflected talent for fashion diplomacy. Denmark has a population of about 6 million people, but as an economic and cultural power, it punches way above its weight. It’s the country that brought both Legos and hygge to the rest of the world, and now a new royal couple is serving as its national ambassadors.
According to royal watcher Gertrude Daly, who runs the comprehensive site Gert’s Royals, it was Australian-born Mary’s official entrance to the family in 2004 that made the global royal watchers community take notice. For one, the pair famously had a meet-cute at a bar during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, which was reminiscent of the plots of a few different romantic comedies from around the same time. (2004’s The Prince and Me starring Julia Stiles even set its royal fantasy story in Denmark.)
That said, Mary’s favorable reception by the Danish public has more to do with her embrace of the culture, which started with her learning the native tongue when she moved there full-time. “Some other foreign spouses have not always taken as much of the initiative because you don’t need to. You can just speak English,” Daly explained. “But to learn Danish is very impressive.”
It has also helped Mary embrace the dark sense of humor that is unique to Danish culture. “She learned Danish so well that Danish people see her as one of their own,” Danish PR rep Morten Pelch told The Guardian. “She even gets our humor.” (In a recent memoir, Mary herself pointed out that Australians also share a gift for “black humor,” so that part came naturally.)
Frederik offers his arm to his new wife Mary as they leave the Copenhagen Cathedral on May 14, 2004.
Photo by Sven Nackstrand/Getty Images.
During her reign, Margrethe II captured the imagination of the press for decades, and in 1973 Town & Country described her marriage to her husband Prince Henrik, who died in 2018, as “happy.” Daly noted one of Margrethe’s greatest distinctions as queen was her flair for the fantastic, citing Andy Warhol’s 1985 portrait of her and her various personal creative pursuits. “She had sent a letter to Tolkien with her drawings, and he was impressed,” Daly said. “She did the illustrations. She did set-designing for this Netflix film that came out last year, and does costumes for the ballet. She’s very artsy, and that’s one thing I expect her to continue to do after abdicating.”
Under Margrethe, the Kongehuset has modernized by following the queen’s desire to keep her individual personality, her duties to the Danish government, and her role as a cultural ambassador bringing Danish tradition to the world. Daly believes that despite the family’s love for the Danish language, part of the reason why they have become more well-known across the world than your average European royal family has to do with their enthusiastic use of English on their websites and social media pages.
In the same way that Queen Elizabeth was known for inspiring admiration in even the staunchest republicans, it’s tempting to say that Margrethe’s force of personality can be credited for the Kongehuset’s unusually high ratings with the Danish public. Since she announced her abdication on New Year’s Eve, multiple news outlets have repeated a shocking statistic: When Margrethe ascended to the throne in 1972, only 42% of the Danish public supported the monarchy. By certain measures, the number is now consistently higher than 70%, and in a recent poll almost 92% of Danes approved of the job she did.
In 1963, in an attempt to figure out how much support for the monarchy was connected to the current royal house and their lineage, Gallup asked the Danish public about their thoughts if, for some reason, someone outside the current family were to take their place. Forty-seven percent of people said they would prefer a monarchy in that situation, while nearly a third said that they didn’t know. According to Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the 42% number came about in a similar way in December 1971, before the death of Frederik IX. It might ultimately illustrate that despite a philosophical uneasiness with the idea of monarchy, a large number of Danes cared about the current royal house’s direct link to the past.
In a 2020 essay, Danish constitutional scholar Helle Krunke argued that the public vote on a 1953 constitutional referendum was implicit popular assent to Frederik IX’s rule. She noted that it included a provision to allow a queen regnant, and the public debate specifically referenced the prospect of Margrethe’s reign. They didn’t want any old monarch, the nation chose these monarchs.
Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and her husband Prince Henrik on March 16th 1972.
Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
If her grandfather, Christian X, was remembered for his showmanship on horseback and steady hand during World War II, and her father was remembered for reigning over the country’s expanding welfare state, Margrethe’s reign coincided with the nation becoming integrated into the European Economic Community—while keeping its own currency—and outperforming it due to traditional corporations like Maersk and unexpected success stories like Lego. Surveys conducted throughout the period show an increase in the proportion of the population that said they are proud to be Danish.
Richard Milne, Baltic and Nordic correspondent for the Financial Times, points out that the abdication comes at a moment of transition for the nation, buoyed by the success of its pharmaceutical industry. “Denmark is a trading country, and right now its economy is completely dominated by drug maker Novo Nordisk, which is behind Wegovy and Ozempic,” he says. “These celebrity-endorsed anti-obesity drugs have taken off to an extraordinary extent, where the company’s market capitalization is bigger than the [GDP]. Without Novo Nordisk, Denmark would be in recession.”
That said, Denmark’s unique economic structures might allow it to avoid what happened to its neighbor, Finland, when Nokia went through a similar boom two decades ago, which was followed by a catastrophic bust. “Carlsberg, Novo Nordisk, and other big Danish companies, including Lego, are owned by foundations with a rather long-term outlook,” Milne says. “It’s not pure shareholder capitalism where they’re wanting to get the most out of the next quarter. Companies are seen as part of society and helping society, so the profits or dividends go back into science, research, and education through these foundations.
“It is a grown-up and focused country, in a way, whether it’s the economics or how the royal family has conducted itself generally,” Milne continues. “The royal family therefore is seen as a bit of an anchor for the country.”
The Denmark that is greeting the reign of Frederik X this month is a wealthy, happy, well-governed country. Throughout history, those have usually been the ones who keep their monarchies intact. Though he has courted some controversy in the past for speeding infractions or his role on the International Olympic Committee, Frederik is coming in with a good reputation. He has been nominated for Dane of the Year in opinion polls at least once, and a poll taken after the announcement of abdication found that just under 82% of the nation thinks he will do well as the king. (Slightly less than 86% believe that Queen Mary will do well.) Due to strong public subsidies for journalism and a broad network of local outlets, the Danish press is less commercially driven than, say, the United Kingdom’s media infrastructure, leading to very different coverage of the nation’s royal family.
Still, with a new reign come new risks. Though the Danish monarchy is known for avoiding scandal, the abdication comes on the tail of two comparatively major ones. In late 2022, the royal family got into a difficult public spat when Margrethe demoted Joachim’s children with apparently little warning, stripping their titles of “prince” and “princess” and giving them “count” and “countess” instead. Though the family argued about the issue in newspapers, the queen eventually apologized in a public statement, and they seem to have come to a reconciliation behind the scenes. Unlike what happened when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle decided to decamp for the United States, Joachim and his wife, Princess Marie, are still welcomed into the family fold. Though his primary residence is now in Washington, DC, Joachim has held on to his government job and his role as a regent.
In November, another potentially damaging saga got underway when Frederik was photographed in Spain with Mexican socialite and reality TV star Genoveva Casanova. The Spanish magazine Lecturas published photos it claimed depicted them enjoying a stroll through a park, a Picasso exhibit at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, dinner, and a flamenco show in Madrid. The aftermath led Casanova to release a statement denying any impropriety between her and the future king.
“I flatly deny the statements that suggest a romantic relationship between Prince Frederik and me,” she wrote. “Any statement of this type is not only completely untrue but also distorts the facts in a malicious manner. This is already in the hands of my lawyers, who will take care of the pertinent steps to protect my right to honor, truth and privacy.” According to Hola!, they were spending the day alone because another friend of Frederik’s fell ill with COVID-19 and had to cancel.
Still, a conspiracy machine sprung into motion when Margrethe announced her plans to abdicate nearly two months later. The story resurfaced and some royal commentators speculated that the move was a last-ditch attempt to save Frederik’s 20-year marriage to Mary. Though the story got some pickup in the Danish media, it didn’t seem to represent a crisis for the populace, just as it didn’t raise too many eyebrows when he went to Burning Man or was photographed hanging out with Post Malone at the Smukfest musical festival back in 2018. The differential feels reminiscent of the fact that Margrethe’s nearly lifelong smoking habit came in for criticism by the British medical journal The Lancet, but it didn’t seem to affect the Danish public’s overall favorable opinion of her.
For the last few decades, Frederik’s role as the heir to the throne meant that he was able to travel freely and develop a reputation as a free spirit. Now that he is king, however, he will have to turn inward and keep his attention on Denmark. During his proclamation speech Sunday, he announced his new regal motto, emphasizing the crown’s commitment to being on the same level as the people: “Bound together, obliged, for the Kingdom of Denmark.”
Prince Christian gives a speech during a gala dinner for his 18th birthday at the Christiansborg Castle on October 15, 2023.
Photo by Mads Claus Rasmussen / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images.
The Danish appreciation for a bit of personality in kings and queens might be how a nation that prides itself on egalitarian values manages to keep a monarchy in the first place. In a 2002 ethnographic look at footage from a visit Margrethe made to a small coastal town, sociologist Richard Jenkins noted that the long-serving queen was able to move between moments of formality to personable informality with great speed. He wrote that Margrethe’s ease with the small-town residents proved “the sacred nature of kings and queens is not compromised if, in many contexts, they behave like relatively ordinary people.” In fact, the humanness of the Danish monarchy actually “reflects a fundamental theme of Danish culture; that no one is better than anyone else.”
The royal family’s ability to integrate regular citizens into their celebrations was illustrated best last year when the likely next king, now Crown Prince Christian, celebrated his 18th birthday with a banquet that invited 200 young adults from around the nation as its guests. When one clever partygoer left behind a single shoe, the communications team at the palace knew it had a real-life fairy-tale moment on its hands, and posted a picture to their Instagram account.
Daly proposed that other monarchies around the world might be able to learn something from the playful, even whimsical way the Kongehuset relates to the rest of Denmark. “It’s the land of Hans Christian Andersen,” she said. “It just has this fairy-tale quality. I think they understand that, too.”
Simone Biles Talks Marriage, WAG Life, and the Paris Olympics
Cary Grant and Randolph Scott’s True Hollywood Story
A Legendary Photographer Recounts Storming America With the Beatles
The Wild Truth Behind a So-Called Real Gone Girl Case
