Denmark’s Queen Mary and King Frederik celebrate 20th wedding anniversary
The Danish King and Queen’s decision to mark their 20th anniversary by embarking on a hectic royal tour has one expert speculating "the romance is over".
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Denmark’s King Frederik and his Australian-born wife Queen Mary have chosen to mark their 20th wedding anniversary with an event-packed diplomatic tour of Norway.
Europe’s oldest monarch, King Harald V of Norway welcomed King Frederik and Queen Mary, on their second official visit abroad after the Danish monarch’s mother abdicated this year.
The 87-year-old Harald returned to work last month following two surgeries to implant pacemakers and has said he has no plans to abdicate, unlike his second cousin Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, who stepped down after a 52-year reign.
The Danish royal couple arrived in Oslo on May 14, the 20th wedding anniversary of their ‘fairytale’ nuptials and spent the evening at a lavish gala dinner in which Mary looked every inch a storybook queen. The couple maintained a united front, exchanging smiles and eye contact at the dinner table.
The next day was spent on a much more rustic adventure visiting the scenic Ostmarka woodlands and picturesque Nøklevann lake in Oslo, followed by lunch with the prime minister Jonas Gahr Store, and a tour of Oslo.
But the fact that the couple has chosen work public facing obligations over a private celebration or romance and relaxation on this key date had royal fans and watchers debating what it means.
Body language expert Dr Louise Mahler weighed in. Speaking to The Daily Mail, Dr Mahler said the royal couple demonstrate clear commitment to their roles as King and Queen of Denmark, however, on a personal level, “They are not showing any signs of being a couple [romantically],” she said.
Visually, the couple appears tense and on guard when in each other’s company, according to Dr Mahler. Body language indicating intimacy and relaxation are all but absent.
“It can be that after so many years, this is understandable, but given previous tactile behaviour and the rumours before the coronation, one senses a challenge in their relationship,” she said.
“The good news is, here are two people totally committed to their role [as King and Queen] and playing the role as a couple,” she said.
It comes as Queen Mary and King Frederik celebrated the major milestone of their 20th anniversary by sharing on social media the most ‘tactile’ photo from the tour so far, of them on board Denmark’s Royal Ship Dannebrog wearing puffer vests. Frederik’s hand can be seen on Mary’s should but her hand cannot be seen on him.
The Danish royals were on-board the vessel, having sailed from Denmark to Norway to kick off the state visit.
From a chance meeting in a crowded Sydney harbourside pub in 2000 to today, the fairytale love story of now King Frederik and Queen Mary has played out for all the world to see.
The couple maintained a long distance relationship for a year, with the then 32-year-old Frederik making secret trips to Australia to visit his 28-year-old love, but by 2001 it was decided her journey into the royal family should begin.
Frederik proposed on one knee in a medieval chapel in Rome after their whirlwind romance.
Shortly before the summer proposal in 2003, the then Crown Prince had written to her father John Dalgleish Donaldson in Hobart asking for her hand in marriage.
The couple’s engagement was announced at a press conference at Fredensborg Palace on 8 October 2003 and they wed at Copenhagen Cathedral on May 14 2004.
In those early days, Mary recalled in a 2018 biography, Under the Beam: A Portrait of Crown Prince Frederik, that she could never grasp what Frederik saw in her.
“He really knocked me off my feet, this lovely man who also seemed lovely on the inside — positive and humorous, experienced and well-travelled,” she said in the book.
“I mean, he could get, you know, all kinds of women, and he probably had plenty to choose from …” she said.
“I also thought it was so unfair I’d met someone who lived overseas, and as far away as Denmark.
“In the first instance, it was solely about the geographical distance.
“That he would be king one day — I couldn’t get my head round that at all. It seemed even more distant and unreal than Denmark,” she said.
For his part, HM King Frederik X was equally smitten, and recalled in the autobiography the moment they first met, when he was instantly “taken” with Mary.
“I was certain that this was something really, really good for me, and that she and I could go a long way together,” he said.
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Originally published as Denmark’s Queen Mary and King Frederik celebrate 20th wedding anniversary
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