Revealed: A day in Crown Princess Mary’s new life as Queen of Denmark
From making more speeches to at times stepping in for the King, Mary’s new life as Queen is set to be jam-packed.
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Queen Margrethe tipped her hand on the most-important role she planned for Crown Princess Mary to play in the daily life of the Royal House of Denmark.
When it was announced Australian-born Crown Princess Mary would receive the official title of Her Majesty Queen Mary, it stood in stark contrast to the Danish Monarchy’s previous foreign-born “Consort”, Prince Henrik.
Queen Margrethe II refused to make her French husband King. An open wound he took to his grave in 2018. For Queen Mary, however, she had bigger ambitions.
“It means she will also play the role of substitute for the King,” historian Lars Hovbakke Sørensen said.
“She can reign over the country for some days, or weeks, when both the King and the Crown Prince are travelling abroad.”
But the professor at Copenhagen’s Absalon University and author of several distinguished European history books, including “Denmark: From Ancient Times to Today”, said it’s how Mary will spend her days – between the state visits and official duties – that will set the new Queen apart and define the future of the Crown.
From the moment she wakes up until when she goes to bed, it’s not so much the number of engagements on her calendar – though there will be many if not more than Queen Margrethe – but how those appointments are conducted.
“They are famous for being more informal in the way of talking to people and to speaking to ordinary people than Queen Margrethe,” Sørensen said, adding their regular days won’t be filled with the trappings of pomp and formality.
“They are very close to being like ordinary people. And that is really a strength because it appeals to how people see the Monarchy today in a more informal way.”
That’s not to say her days will be spent making vegemite sandwiches and packing lunch boxes. Sørensen said the new King and Queen are expected to engage in notably more royal responsibilities and official duties than Queen Margrethe, who received between 50 to 150 audiences a day and, since 1972, had more than 50,000 conversations with Danes at Christiansborg Palace every other Monday.
“Frederik the 10th will have his wife by his side, and that is different from Queen Margrethe who lost her husband in 2018,” he said.
“They will have a lot of work to do and they will be having more activities as two instead of one. They will go on a lot of official visits abroad and receive a lot of respected guests from other countries.
“So she’ll play this traditional role of what a Queen Consort is expected to do,” Sørensen said, adding Queen Margrethe will step back as a more of a “Patroness” post-abdication.
“In her daily life, Queen Mary will be engaged in a lot of different things: Opening exhibitions, working to improve the conditions for the poor, children and single women, and a lot of different affairs.
“She is very much engaged in social issues and she has a lot of protections, as it’s called, of different organisations.”
The new Queen is expected to continue her work with The Mary Foundation, which she established in 2007 to combat the social isolation that comes with bullying, domestic violence and loneliness.
She is also expected continue as a patron of Danish organisations such as Children, Youth & Grief, The Christmas Seal Foundation, and the Danish Mental Health Fund.
As patron of the Danish Swimming Federation and The Danish Heart Foundation, Queen Mary could also continue focusing on creating communities through sports. As patron of the United Nations Population Fund and Maternity Foundation, her work focuses on promoting the rights of girls and women.
She is expected to also highlight health issues in Europe with the World Health Organisation, and remain a member of the UN’s International Centre for Research on Women’s Leadership Council.
Queen Mary likely will deliver more official speeches than she did as a princess; when she addressed the People’s Movement Against Loneliness conference in 2022, Prince Frederik’s official 50th birthday in 2018, and the opening of the UN’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development conference in 2016.
Mary was first made a “rigsforstander” in 2019 as Crown Princess. On the occasion she rises to the acting Head of State of Denmark as Queen, it will be one of the rare times in the country’s history that anyone other than the Crown Prince will be allowed to act as regent in the absence of the Monarch.
It places a heavier weight of responsibility on Queen Mary’s shoulders than her predecessor Prince Henrik, who renounced his role as Consort and spent most of his final years at his private vineyard in southern France.
Rather than being put out to pasture like Prince Henrik, Sørensen said that Queen Margrethe sees Mary in the mould of her beloved mother Queen Ingrid, who was widowed after King Frederick IX died in 1972.
“After he died, Queen Ingrid of Sweden very often was a substitute for Queen Margrethe when she was abroad,” Sørensen said. “So we have seen it before that you have foreigners, so to speak, in taking that role.”
The importance of Queen Ingrid continues to resonate in the Danish royal family today. She became the first member of the royal family other than the Crown Prince who was allowed to act as regent in the absence of the Monarch.
That move is what allows Queen Mary to become Denmark’s acting Head of State and fulfil official functions in place of Frederik X, as Queen Ingrid did “innumerable” times after the death of Frederik IX.
“Queen Ingrid’s importance for the present Danish Royal Family can hardly be over-estimated,” Amalienborg Palace’s official history of the late royal said.
“She helped her husband rise to the occasion as king, and with her perceptiveness and sense of style set an example for the current generations of the Royal Family.”
By making Mary a Queen, Margrethe gave the Tasmanian her most important royal duty of setting an example, daily, for the future generations of the Danish royal household to follow, as Margrethe’s mother, Queen Ingrid, did a generation ago.
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