Margrethe II
Margrethe II is a member of the Danish royal family who reigned as Queen of Denmark from 14 January 1972 until her abdication on 14 January 2024. Having reigned for exactly 52 years, she is the second-longest-reigning Danish monarch after Christian IV.
Margrethe was born into the House of Glücksburg, a cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg, during the reign of her paternal grandfather, King Christian X. She is the eldest child of King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid. She became heir presumptive to her father in 1953 when a constitutional amendment allowed women to inherit the throne. In 1967 she married Henri de Laborde de Monpezat, with whom she had two sons, Frederik and Joachim. Margrethe succeeded her father upon his death in January 1972.
Margrethe has worked as a scenographer, costume designer, and illustrator of works by J. R. R. Tolkien. Support for the monarchy in Denmark, alongside her personal popularity, gradually rose throughout the course of her reign, attaining around eighty per cent by the time of her abdication. She was succeeded by her elder son, Frederik X.
Early life and education
Margrethe was born on 16 April 1940 at 10:10 CET at Frederik VIII's Palace, in her parents' residence at Amalienborg, the principal residence of the Danish royal family in the district of Frederiksstaden in central Copenhagen. She was the first child of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Ingrid. Her father was the elder son of the then-reigning King Christian X, while her mother was the only daughter of Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden. Her birth took place just one week after the beginning of Nazi Germany's occupation of Denmark following the war invasion.Margrethe was baptised on 14 May at the Holmen Church in Copenhagen. Her godparents were her grandfathers, King Christian X of Denmark and Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden; her maternal great-grandfathers, King Gustaf V of Sweden and Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn; her uncles Prince Knud of Denmark and Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten; as well as her first cousin twice removed, Prince Axel of Denmark. She was named Margrethe—the Danish variation of her late maternal grandmother Crown Princess Margareta of Sweden's name—Alexandrine after her paternal grandmother, Queen Alexandrine, and Ingrid after her mother. Since her paternal grandfather was also King of Iceland at the time of her birth, she was given the Icelandic name Þórhildur. Like her maternal grandmother, Margrethe is known affectionately as "Daisy" to her family and close friends.
The birth of Margrethe's younger sisters Benedikte and Anne-Marie followed in 1944 and 1946, respectively. The princesses grew up in apartments at Frederik VIII's Palace at Amalienborg in Copenhagen and in Fredensborg Palace in North Zealand. Margrethe spent summer holidays with the royal family in her parents' summer residence at Gråsten Palace in Southern Jutland. On 20 April 1947, following the death of Christian X, Margrethe's father acceded to the throne as Frederik IX.
Education
Margrethe was educated at the private school N. Zahle's School in Copenhagen, from which she graduated in 1959. She spent a year at North Foreland Lodge, a boarding school for girls in Hampshire, England, and later studied prehistoric archaeology at Girton College, Cambridge, during 1960–1961, and political science at Aarhus University between 1961 and 1962, attended the Sorbonne in 1963, and was at the London School of Economics in 1965. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.Heir presumptive
At the time of her birth, only males could accede to the throne of Denmark, owing to the changes in succession laws enacted in the 1850s when the Glücksburg branch was chosen to succeed. As Margrethe had no brothers, it was assumed that her uncle Prince Knud would one day assume the throne.The process of changing the constitution started in 1947, not long after Margrethe's father acceded to the throne and it became clear that Queen Ingrid would have no more children. The popularity of Frederik and his daughters and the more prominent role of women in Danish life started the complicated process of altering the constitution. The law required that the proposal be passed by two successive Parliaments and then by a referendum, which occurred on 27 March 1953. The new Act of Succession permitted female succession to the throne of Denmark, according to male-preference cognatic primogeniture, where a female can accede to the throne only if she does not have a brother. Princess Margrethe therefore became heir presumptive. In 2009, the law of succession was modified into absolute primogeniture.
Margrethe attended the traditional New Year Courts for the first time in 1956. On her eighteenth birthday, 16 April 1958, Margrethe was given a seat in the Council of State. She subsequently chaired the meetings of the Council in the absence of the King. In 1960, with her first cousin, Princess Margaretha of Sweden, and Princess Astrid of Norway, she travelled to the United States, which included a visit to Los Angeles, and to the Paramount Studios, where they met several celebrities, including Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis and Elvis Presley.
She paid her first visit to the Faroe Islands in 1959, alongside her parents and sisters, and to Greenland in 1960.
Marriage and family
While Margrethe studied in London, she met the French diplomat Henri de Laborde de Monpezat, who was legation secretary at the French Embassy in London. Their engagement was announced on 5 October 1966. They were married on 10 June 1967, at the Holmen Church in Copenhagen, and the wedding reception was held at Fredensborg Palace. Laborde de Monpezat received the style and title of "His Royal Highness Prince Henrik of Denmark" because of his new position as the spouse of the heir presumptive to the Danish throne. They were married for more than fifty years, until his death on 13 February 2018.Less than a year after the wedding, Margrethe gave birth to her first child, a son, on 26 May 1968. By tradition, Danish kings were alternately named either Frederik or Christian. She chose to maintain this by assuming the position of a Christian, and thus named her elder son Frederik. The following year, a second child, named Joachim, was born on 7 June 1969.
In 1974, she and Henrik purchased Château de Cayx in the wine district of Cahors in Southern France.
Margrethe announced in 2008 that her male-line descendants would bear the additional title of Count or Countess of Monpezat in recognition of her husband's ancestry.
In 2022, the Queen announced that, from the start of 2023, the descendants of Prince Joachim will only be able to use their titles of Count and Countess of Monpezat, their previous titles of Prince and Princess of Denmark ceasing to exist. To allow the children, who were never expected to hold an official role within the royal family, to have normal lives, the Queen wanted "to create a framework for the four grandchildren, to a much greater degree, to be able to shape their own existence without being limited by the special considerations and obligations that a formal affiliation with the Royal House as an institution implies". Her son, Joachim, daughter-in-law, Marie, former daughter-in-law, Alexandra, and eldest grandson, Nikolai, publicly expressed shock and confusion because of the decision, after which Margrethe released a statement in which she said that it saddened her that she had upset Joachim's family.
Along with her late husband, Margrethe has kept dachshunds since the 1970s. She currently has one dog, the dachshund Tilia, who was Prince Henrik's dog until his death in 2018.
Reign
Accession
On 3 January 1972, three days after King Frederik IX delivered his New Year's address, he suffered a heart attack and was admitted to the Copenhagen Municipal Hospital. Margrethe was subsequently designated regent due to her father's declining health. She ascended the throne on Frederik's death on 14 January, becoming the first female Danish sovereign under the new Act of Succession. The following day, Prime Minister Jens Otto Krag led her formal proclamation ceremony from the balcony of Christiansborg Palace, in which she also announced her royal motto as "God's help, the love of the people, Denmark's strength". Her regnal number was chosen in recognition of Margrethe I, the 14th-century queen regnant of the Kalmar Union.As queen, she relinquished all the monarch's former titles except the title to Denmark, hence her style "By the Grace of God, Queen of Denmark".
Constitutional role
The Queen's main tasks were to represent the kingdom abroad and to be a unifying figure at home. She performed the latter by opening exhibitions, attending anniversaries and inaugurating bridges, among other things. She received foreign ambassadors and awards, honours and medals.As a constitutional sovereign, Margrethe took no part in party politics and does not express any political opinions. Although she had the right to vote, she opted not to do so to avoid even the appearance of partisanship.
The Queen held a meeting with the prime minister and the foreign affairs minister every Wednesday, unless either she or the prime minister was outside of the kingdom.
After an election where the incumbent prime minister does not have a majority behind him or her, the Queen held a "Dronningerunde" in which she met the chairmen of each of the Danish political parties.
Each party has the choice of selecting a royal investigator to lead these negotiations or alternatively, give the incumbent prime minister the mandate to continue his or her government as is. In theory each party could choose its own leader as royal investigator, as the social liberal Det Radikale Venstre did in 2006, but often only one royal investigator is chosen plus the prime minister, before each election. The leader who, at that meeting, succeeds in securing a majority of the seats in the Folketing, is, by royal decree, charged with the task of forming a new government.
Once the government had been formed, the Queen formally appointed it. Officially, it was the monarch who was the head of state, and she therefore presided over the Council of State, where the acts of legislation which have been passed by the parliament are signed into law. In practice, nearly all of the Queen's formal powers were exercised by the Cabinet of Denmark.
It was customary for Margrethe, as the Danish monarch, to host the annual New Year levées. Every year on 1 January, a banquet was held for the government, the Speaker of the Danish Parliament, representatives of official Denmark and the Royal Court at Christian VIII's Palace at Amalienborg. On day two, a levée was held at Christian VIII's Palace for the justices of Supreme Court of Denmark and the Officer Corps of the Royal Life Guards and the Guard Hussar Regiment, followed by a levée at Christiansborg Palace for the diplomatic corps. On day three, a levée was held for officers from the Ministry of Defence and the Danish Emergency Management Agency, the I., II. and III. ranking classes as well as invited representatives of major national organisations and the royal patronages.