Like most Britons, many Danes have identified just one queen all through their lifetime — one who was extraordinarily standard, and identified for her sense of duty, propriety and dedication to her duties.
On Sunday, the Danish queen, Margrethe, said she would step down this month. That paves for the best way for her son Prince Frederik, 55, to ascend to the throne.
Like King Charles III of Britain, who grew to become king after the demise of his mom, Queen Elizabeth II, Frederik is a part of a youthful era of royals who’ve had their lives relentlessly documented within the media and who’ve embraced up to date stances, mainly the fight against climate change.
Whereas Queen Margrethe as soon as upset scientists for saying she was not satisfied that local weather change was straight brought on by people, her son is thought for his preoccupation with environmental points.
Prince Frederik has described how a visit to the Arctic completely modified his perspective on the local weather disaster, persuading him that it was his private obligation to talk out. He has attended United Nations local weather summits and has given many speeches and interviews on environmental issues, underlining the urgency to behave and pressuring traders to make use of capital in ways in which handle international warming.
Pernille Almlund, a communications professor at Roskilde College in Denmark, mentioned that, like most companies, a contemporary royal household couldn’t chorus from being concerned in local weather points. “They also have a brand,” she mentioned.
However Prince Frederik’s dedication to the atmosphere has additionally raised some doubts amongst those that say that having royal members of the family name for emissions reductions whereas residing in castles and touring on non-public planes might backfire.
“The crown prince must strike a balance,” Marie Ronde, a Danish reporter who covers the royals, said in an article on the web site of the broadcaster TV2. “There is a discrepancy between being climate-friendly and showing grandeur and splendor.”
The current coronation of Charles got here as polls confirmed that Britons, notably the younger, really feel a growing fatigue with the hoary rituals and elaborate trappings of the monarchy.
However royal watchers in Denmark say Prince Frederik has proven a propensity for modernizing the monarchy, not less than in its tone. Lars Hovbakke Sorensen, an knowledgeable on the Danish royal household, mentioned Prince Frederik was identified for talking with an open thoughts, with out inserting a lot emphasis on formality and titles.
“When different Danes have met him and spoken with him, afterward they always felt that they have just spoken with Frederik,” Mr. Hovbakke Sorensen mentioned. “And that is something that fits well with the time and the importance of the royal house renewing itself and gradually becoming more informal.”
Mr. Hovbakke Sorensen added that the Danish monarchy had already developed far more rapidly than the British crown, and develop into much less conventional. It is usually a lot much less luxurious. Prince Frederik’s coronation on Jan. 14 is not going to be an hourslong pageantry with a gold-trimmed stage coach and acrobatic jets — as was the case with Charles’s elevation — however will contain a easy proclamation by the prime minister on the Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen.
The monarchy in Denmark can be much less galvanizing. Debates across the royals often flare up within the information media however the Danish monarchy doesn’t face the identical stage of scandal, scrutiny and criticism as its British counterpart. Greater than 75 p.c of the Danish inhabitants helps a type of authorities with a royal head. Compared, about 62 p.c of Britons help retaining the monarchy, according to a recent YouGov poll.
Nonetheless, the information media has watched the Danish royals’ lives up shut. In 1988, Danish reporters extensively coated a automotive accident that Prince Frederik was concerned in whereas in France after his youthful brother misplaced management of their small Peugeot. 4 years later, the prince was a passenger when the police stopped a automotive his girlfriend was driving; she was subsequently fined for driving whereas intoxicated and for not having a license.
In a biography of the prince written by Jens Andersen, Frederik was quoted as saying that in his youth, the prospect of changing into king was “a drawback” that made him insecure, shy and awkward.
Over time although, the prince earned a level from Aarhus College in Denmark and launched into an in depth army profession, serving within the military, the air drive and the navy, the place he was a part of the maritime elite unit, the Frogman Corps.
As he grew to become extra acquainted with his royal tasks, he mentioned, the prospect of changing into a king “has shifted from a certain form of fear to awe.”
Prince Frederik has additionally come to be identified for his dedication to health, having run marathons and accomplished an Ironman competitors, and he has publicly promoted wholesome residing and private well-being.
On Monday evening, Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, made a last-minute change to the subject of her New Yr speech to concentrate on the royal succession.
“The queen has said it in her own way: ‘I have a son whom I have great confidence in,’” Ms. Frederiksen mentioned.
“I can add that we also have that confidence,” she added. “Because we know our future king.”
