Crown Princess Mary of Denmark: Australia celebrates the birth of an unexpected queen

History was made in a faraway land when the world’s last reigning queen announced her abdication.

Queen Margrethe II of Denmark said, “I will hand over the throne to my son, Crown Prince Frederik.”

Her decision to make way for the “next generation” of the Danish royal family sent ripples around the world.

But at the same time, Crown Prince Mary of Denmark, wife of Crown Prince Frederick, the first Australian-born queen consort, also gave birth.

Less than a month after Queen Margrethe II took over the throne after the death of King Frederick IX in 1972, a baby girl named Mary Donaldson was born halfway around the world in a small hospital in Hobart.

The daughter of a mathematics professor and an executive assistant who immigrated to Australia from Scotland, Mary grew up in a middle-class suburban home with her siblings Jane, Patricia, and John.

By most reports, she was a natural leader by the time she graduated from high school. A former principal told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 2003 that Mary was known as a young woman who was “attractive, very outgoing and very personable”.

“She was a popular student and stood out in the crowd,” her old teacher Geoff Lockhart told the Sydney Morning Herald.

After graduating from the University of Tasmania with a law and commerce degree, she went on to have a successful career in advertising and then luxury real estate.

But a chance encounter at a noisy Sydney watering hole during the 2000 Olympics ultimately changed her life forever.

According to the story, 28-year-old Mary had gone to the Slip In pub to go drinking with friends.

The group included several Europeans, including Frederick and his brother Prince Joachim, his cousins ​​Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark, Princess Malta of Norway, and the current King of Spain, Philip VI.

There were no security details or prying paparazzi, and the fact that Mary and her friends were royalty wasn’t even mentioned.

Rather, the topic of most serious debate was whether men looked better with or without chest hair.

“Thirty minutes later, someone came up to me and said, ‘Do you know who these people are?'” Mary told Australian comedian Andrew Denton in 2005. He spoke while remembering that.

“I gave Frederic my number and he called me the next day. You could tell it clicked. It wasn’t like fireworks in the sky, but there was a sense of excitement,” she added. Ta.

They soon began a long-distance relationship, and by 2002, Mary decided to move to Denmark, where she began learning Danish and accepted a job at Microsoft.

Two years later, when the couple wed at Copenhagen Cathedral on May 14, more than a million Australians woke up in the middle of the night to watch the ceremony live.

Back in Tasmania, students from Mary’s alma mater, Tarona High School, donned Viking helmets and tiaras for the royal gala dinner.

“The girl who captivated the nation,” was the front-page headline in the Copenhagen Post that day, and a poll showed that five out of six Danes believed she would one day become a great queen.

Queen Margrethe II remained a popular figure in Denmark for most of her reign, and many expected her to remain on the throne until her death.

The longest-reigning monarch in the country’s history, she is known for her brightly colored clothing, love of archaeology, and chain-smoking.

In recent years, she has overseen a series of reforms aimed at “future-proofing” the age-old system, which has no jurisdiction but continues to play a symbolically important role.

Most notably, she reduced the number of members of the royal family and restructured the palace’s finances so that only the heir to the throne received a state-funded salary.

Now, it’s up to the Crown Prince and Princess to shape the next chapter.

Known for their modern values, the couple sent their children primarily to state schools and tried to provide them with as normal an education as possible.

They have also focused on a variety of issues.

The Crown Prince has made climate change his life’s work, and the Crown Princess has gained recognition as a champion of LGBTQI+ causes, maternal health and women’s reproductive rights.

“I’ve always had a strong sense of justice: everyone should have the same opportunities, no matter where they come from,” she told the Financial Times in 2022.

The transition, scheduled for January 14, is likely to be a moment of both sadness and celebration, as millions of Danes bid farewell to the only queen they ever knew.

In her abdication speech, Queen Margrethe II said, “I hope that the new king and queen will be received with the same trust and devotion that I have received.” She said: “They deserve it. Denmark deserves it too.”

But in Australia, the crown princess is already hailed as the country’s “ambassador”, even though she renounced her citizenship long ago.

“I look forward to seeing the next generation succeed. [of royals] And Tasmania’s own born queen will lead Denmark’s future,” Tasmania’s premier, Jeremy Rockliffe, said in a statement.