Princess Mary releases private pictures of Vincent and Princess Josephine on their 8th birthday as their public profile grows
The next generation of Danish royals — the children of Crown Prince Frederik and his Australian wife Crown Princess Mary — are stepping out of the shadows and into public life.
The next generation of Danish royals — the children of Crown Prince Frederik and his Australian wife Crown Princess Mary — are stepping out of the shadows and into public life.
Heir-to-the-throne Prince Christian, 13, Princess Isabella, 11, and twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, 8, are making semi-regular appearances with their parents as they go about their lives as working royals.
But only Prince Christian will go on to become a full-time working royal, with the Danish parliament deciding to cut out funding to the other grandchildren of Queen Margrethe.
Only Christian, as heir and future king, will receive a state salary for his royal duties once he turns 18.
The others will have to find jobs.
The four genetically-blessed children of Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary have been
accompanying their parents on royal tours overseas, and have become an important part of the
public face of the Danish royal family, the most popular royal house in Europe.
New photographs were released this week to mark the 8th birthday of the twins, showing the young pair in casual clothes, hair tousled in the wind as they posed for the camera.
The photographs were taken by their mother, former Hobart real estate agent Mary Donaldson, 46, and released on the Crown Prince couple’s Instagram account.
The careful introduction of the children into the public spotlight was most obvious in August, when they joined their parents on an official four-day tour of the remote Faroe Islands, hallway between Denmark and Iceland.
The children visited schools, community centres and met the locals, while Prince Christian, as the oldest child and future king, took centre stage at several events.
He was photographed handling a giant salmon at a fish farm, and attended a formal reception with his parents at the Faeroese parliament.
A disciplined, mature young teenager, he was seen corralling his younger siblings on a royal tour in Japan in October 2017, particularly Princess Josephine, a livewire who is often photographed hamming it up for the cameras.
He was also seen comforting his little brother Vincent, holding his hand at the public funeral of Prince Henrik, Queen Margrethe’s husband and the children’s grandfather, who died in February last year at the age of 83.
Danish kings are always called, alternatively, Frederik or Christian, so his name was chosen for him well before he was born. His full royal name is Prince Christian Valdemar Henri John.
Princess Mary has sought to give the children as normal a life as possible — they all attend the Tranegard School in Copenhagen, the first Danish royal children to attend a public school.
They often spend time outside riding bikes and playing with their dog, a border collie named Grace.
They also hang out with their cousins — the children of their uncle Prince Joachim.
But there is no escaping his destiny and Prince Christian, often photographed in a suit and tie, made his first official appearance with Queen Margrethe as a six-year-old in 2012, when he unveiled a portrait of the monarch, Prince Frederik and Prince Christian himself.
Queen Margrethe, the formidable 78-year-old Queen of Denmark, has ruled since 1972.
She has two sons — Frederik, 50, and his younger brother Prince Joachim, 49.
Prince Joachim also has four children — two older sons, to his first wife, Alexandra Countess of Frederiksborg, and a younger son and daughter to his second wife, Princess Marie.
In 2016, as his oldest son Prince Nikolai approached his 18th birthday, Danish politicians proposed limiting the state salary paid to working royals, saying “simple mathematics’’ made it impossible to pay all eight grandchildren when they reached adulthood.
Joachim and Alexandra’s second son is Prince Felix, now 16. His children with Princess Marie are Prince Henrik, 9, and Princess Athens, 6.
Politicians agreed across the parliament that only Prince Christian, as second in line to the throne, should receive a salary when he turns 18.
The decision required a rule change, as the laws at the time allowed all grandchildren to receive a state salary.
The decision promoted a rare statement from the Danish royal family, with Royal House
spokeswoman Lene Balleby confirming to state broadcaster DR that only Prince Christian would be paid when he came of age.
“It is not the expectation, nor has it ever been, that anyone other than Prince Christian should have the salary when the time comes,” The Local newspaper reported her as saying.
There have been rumours for years that Queen Margrethe may abdicate, but royal watchers in
Denmark doubt this, and the Queen herself has ruled it out, telling the Danish media: “I will remain on the throne until I fall off”.
However, the illness and death last year of Prince Henrik — who endured a slow decline with
dementia — has seen the Crown Prince family take on additional duties and a heavier workload.
Originally published as Princess Mary releases private pictures of Vincent and Princess Josephine on their 8th birthday as their public profile grows
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