Inside the life of Denmark’s ‘Ashtray Queen’ Margrethe II and the husband who would never become her king

Always a planner, the Queen of Denmark in 2003 commissioned an artist to construct an elaborate glass sarcophagus that she envisioned as the final resting place for herself and her husband.

Reflecting Margrethe’s artistic sensibilities, the four-tonne tomb that rests upon silver elephants in Roskilde Cathedral took 20 years to complete.

But when the sarcophagus with room for two was almost finished, Prince Henrik announced his wife would be spending eternity alone.

“If she wants to bury me with her, she must make me a king consort,” he told Danish magazine Se og Hør in 2017.

“Finished. I do not care.”

The schism between the queen and her French-born consort was decades in the making.

Despite falling “madly in love” when they met in London in 1965, having two sons together, and representing the hopes and dreams of Danes for a generation, the relationship was riddled with jealousy and resentment.

The girl who dreamed of being an artist was never meant to rule.

Born into a war-torn nation that constitutionally banned women from wearing the crown, Margrethe had an unlikely ascension to the throne.

But once she was there, the queen put her country before everything else — even her marriage.

“Denmark is more important to me than anything else. I do not think I have ever even flirted with the idea of putting my marriage before the throne,” she told biographer Anne Wolden-Ræthinge.

“All over Denmark I had already been met with such great expectations and received so much kindness and respect.

“To turn my back on all this would be to fail everyone who depended on me.”

After five decades on the throne, Margrethe is now abdicating in favour of her son, Crown Prince Frederik.

The 6-foot tall chain-smoking monarch is expected to dedicate her retirement to the things she loves most: languages, the arts and taking long walks around Copenhagen alone.

Despite the personal sacrifices she made to wear the crown, Margrethe said she never once regretted her surprise role.

“It is not a life sentence, but a life of service,” she told the BBC.

Born into a royal family who never expected her to rule

The arrival of Margrethe Alexandrine Þórhildur Ingrid in April 1940 came with a somewhat subdued announcement.

Her parents — Frederik, the eldest son of Denmark’s King Christian X, and Ingrid, the only daughter of the crown prince of Sweden — had been under virtual house arrest inside the Amalienborg Palace since the invasion of Adolf Hitler’s forces.

“Church bells were tolled throughout Copenhagen, but due to the present situation, no guns were fired,” the British United Press remarked of the royal baby’s arrival.

The cherubic little princess, known affectionately as Daisy, was not destined to rule her country.

According to rules of succession set out in 1853, only male heirs were entitled to inherit the throne, and it was thought that the crown would be passed instead to her uncle.

The childhood of Margrethe and her two younger sisters Benedikte and Anne-Marie was spent playing, drawing and exploring the grounds of the royal palaces, where the eldest princess painted an undersea mural in one of the bathrooms.

But Frederik’s ascension after World War II signalled a shift in the House of Glücksburg.

The father of three daughters began the complicated process of adapting Denmark’s constitution to allow his progeny to rule — a change that would require approval from two successive parliaments and the Danish public.

In 1953, Danes voted in a referendum to make Margrethe the heir presumptive and future queen.

It would be almost two decades before that inevitability became a reality, but Margrethe has publicly recalled how her fate changed on that day.

“[Becoming queen] has been my purpose in life since the age of 13,” she told Wolden-Ræthinge in 1989.

“I am, I am yours! My task now is my country, for my country, for my Danes.”

The teenaged princess was a dedicated student, spending a year away at boarding school in England before graduating high school with exemplary marks and a flair for languages.

At 18, Margrethe was given a seat on the State Council, where she practised the intricacies of royal diplomacy and chaired meetings on her father’s behalf.

The princess launched herself into every aspect of young royal life, training with the Danish Women’s Flying Corps and jetsetting around the world with her Scandinavian cousins to rub shoulders with Hollywood stars.

Margrethe’s thirst for knowledge drew her to Cambridge University to study archaeology, a passion she’d discovered during childhood “excavation holidays” in Italy with her grandfather, the Swedish king.

It was this pursuit of prestigious education and travel that would lead Margrethe to her future husband.

The young royal meets her loyal consort and takes the throne

In 1965, a 25-year-old Margrethe was studying political science at the London School of Economics when she was invited to a dinner party.

There, she met Henri de Laborde de Monpezat, who was working as the French embassy secretary.

“Apart from the fact that I found him very likeable, I did not really take much notice of Henri,” she told her biographer.

“He was just a young man I met occasionally, and in fact, I believe it was he who noticed me, and not the other way round.”

They were reunited several months later at a wedding in Scotland, and Margrethe said she then “fell in love with a bang”.

After dating in secret for a year, Henri proposed with a “moi et toi” ring — two enormous diamonds sitting side by side.

To marry a future queen, Henri was forced to make many sacrifices, which he claimed to be happy to to in the name of love. 

He changed his name to Henrik to sound more Danish, he converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism, and he gave up his fledgling diplomatic career.

The couple had two sons: the heir to the throne, Frederik, in 1968, and the spare, Joachim, the following year.

On New Year’s Eve, 1971, Margrethe’s father King Frederik gave his annual address to the nation to wish his subjects well for the year ahead.

Just two weeks later, he was dead.

Margrethe ascended the throne at the age of 31, becoming the first female monarch of Denmark since her namesake ruled the Scandinavian kingdoms in the 14th century.

“My beloved father, our king, is dead. The task that my father had carried for nearly 25 years is now resting on my shoulders,” she said in her first speech.

“May the trust that was given to my father also be granted to me.”

As queen and prince consort, Margrethe and Henrik immediately began to modernise the Danish monarchy.

Both artists and intellectuals, they opened up their court to Danes of all walks of life, travelling the country to get to know their subjects.

Margrethe gave televised press conferences and travelled the world with her husband, meeting heads of state and politicians.

Known for her colourful and flamboyant fashion sense, Margrethe wanted to be a queen of Danish hearts as well as the arts.

The queen weaves a legacy beyond her royal duties

While juggling her roles as a mother and reigning monarch, Margrethe also established a reputation as a talented artist.

She became captivated with JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings while reading it as a bedtime story to her two sons in the early 1970s.

Inspired by Tolkien’s work, Margrethe painted a series of water colours depicting the landscapes of these imaginary worlds.

She sent another series of ink sketches to the author under the pseudonym Ingahild Grathmer, and they were eventually published in a new edition of Tolkien’s epic story in 1977.

Margrethe maintained this passion for the arts throughout her reign, dabbling in painting, textiles, decoupage, embroidery, costuming and set design.

Her scenery and costume design has graced the stages of the Royal Danish Ballet and Copenhagen’s Tivoli, while her paintings and embroideries have been exhibited in museums and churches across Europe.

According to the Royal House, the queen still blocks out a day each week to dedicate to her crafts and regularly bestows her loved ones with her own creations, hand stitching evening bags for her friends, linens for the Christmas table and advent calendars for the grandchildren.

For many Danes, Queen Margrethe has been the mother to a nation. 

While she has long been a warm presence, always eager to chat to her subjects, she also had a no-nonsense manner and was not afraid to scold Danes for their bad behaviour. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed havoc across the globe in 2020, she lectured her subjects about the need to stay home. 

“Sadly, not everyone is taking this seriously,” she said in a grumpy televised address. 

“Some are still hosting celebrations and birthday gatherings. This is not acceptable behaviour. It is thoughtless, and first and foremost inconsiderate.”

This direct approach and her willingness to weigh in on controversial topics that her royal contemporaries largely avoided has been widely appreciated by her subjects.

“She isn’t afraid of telling people off a bit. It only adds to her popularity and respect,” Danish fashion designer Julie Brøgger told Vogue.

Not all of Margrethe’s quirks have been so fully embraced by the public.

A chain-smoker since her late teens, the Queen has often been publicly chided for encouraging her subjects to indulge in — or at least not to give up — the habit.