From fairytale wedding to ‘humiliated fool’.
Not all royal relationships are roses. Once the honeymoon is over, real life presents itself, and not everyone can accommodate that well. A good example of this was the marriage between the Danish Queen Margrethe and the late Prince Henrik, who tied the knot exactly 57 years ago yesterday.
Dream wedding
The engagement of Queen Margrethe and the French aristocrat Henri de Laborde de Monpezat in October 1966 did not come as a complete surprise. A few weeks earlier they were spotted in a warm embrace at the airport. Ooh la la!
On June 10, 1967, just two years after they met at a party at the French Embassy in London, the couple tied the knot. Naturally, the occasion was enhanced with a lot of galas, dinners, and other festivities beforehand. Extra fun: Margrethe’s younger sister, Princess Benedkeek, also got engaged in the spring of 1967. So there was a double celebration in the palace!
Resentment
Although the new crown princely couple seem very happy with each other, the first cracks appear in their idyllic relationship in 1972 – the year Margrethe ascended the throne, exactly. As a French macho, it bothered Henrik that he had to walk behind his wife according to protocol. The frustration remained: he could not stomach the fact that he was not called king.
In 2002, Margrethe and Henrik went through a major crisis. Henrik was disappointed that his son Frederik was taking on an increasingly prominent role as heir to the throne, and sulked to his castle in France. “I feel pushed aside, degraded and humiliated by being put in third place,” he told the people and country at the time. “I have been number two in Denmark for years and I can live with that, but I don’t want to be pushed to third place after all these years of service.”
Margrethe quickly followed her love, and the riot was calmed at their French estate. In August that year, the couple posed again as usual for some nice photos together. Despite all the bitterness, the two continued to love each other dearly.
Riot of lavish proportions
If you thought this was the end of the matter, you would be disappointed – just like the Danes. The prince consort’s latent anger continued to grow, and in his later years he frequently lashed out at his once great love.
“It makes me angry that I am being subjected to discrimination,” the prince fumed against French newspaper Le Figaro at the end of 2015. “Denmark, normally a champion of equality between the sexes, is in this case prepared to regard husbands as less than their wives.”
Eternally a shame
In January 2016 he resigned from his royal duties, and in April that year he renounced his title as prince consort. As if that wasn’t enough, he announced in August 2017 that he even refused to be buried next to his wife when the time came. In an interview with the Danish daily BT, which was intended to calm things down, he added fuel to the fire.
“If she wants me to be buried next to her, she must make me king consort, it’s that simple,” the prince said. “My wife has not shown me the respect that an ordinary woman should show her husband. She is the one who treats me like a fool,” Henrik stated. A few weeks later, the Danish court shared the sad news that the prince was suffering from dementia.
Ultimately, the prince no longer recovered and was cremated after his death in January 2018. This put an end to the age-old tradition of the Danish royal family of interring their royal couples in a shared sarcophagus in the Roskilde Cathedral. This royal bitterness managed to drive a wedge between the once so madly in love royal couple for eternity.
Source: Glamial archive, BT.dk, TheLocal.dk | Image: NL Image
