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Queen Mary and King Frederick make their first public appearance as Denmark’s new monarch.
Three days after becoming King of Denmark, Frederick X published a book out of nowhere.
The book came as a surprise to Danes, and the national media rushed to react by live blogging passages from the book.
The king’s words promise Frederick’s thoughts on such topics as Denmark’s place in the world and his relationship with his wife, Queen Mary.
Frederik ascended the throne on Sunday after his mother, Queen Margrethe II, abdicated on New Year’s Eve.
According to reports, “Words of the King” has already surpassed last year’s best-selling book on the online bookstore Saxo. A Saxo spokesperson told Danish media that the book was selling 25 copies per minute in the hours after news of its publication broke.
The book costs up to 250 Danish kroner (£29, €33.50) and is approximately 110 pages long.
The book was written with Jens Andersen, who wrote Frederick’s biography in 2017, and is based on interviews conducted over the past year and a half.
In one section, Frederick says that as a child he had a hard time accepting that he would become King of Denmark, and that he “just wanted to be like other boys my age.”
Copies of King’s book disappeared from shelves when news of the publication broke Wednesday morning.
“I remember my 18th birthday feeling like the end of the world. It felt like everything fun and exciting was coming to an end. Luckily, it wasn’t. ” says Frederick.
Later in the book, the king reportedly also spoke about his faith, saying that he and his Australian-born wife pray every night with their children.
He also spoke about his family life, saying that his father, the late Prince Henrik of Denmark, who died in 2018, was “very patriarchal” and “tried to pass that pattern on to his two sons.” Stated.
Frederick said: “I’ve learned a lot from having a wife, who of course understands that I’m not always right and that just because I’m the man of the house doesn’t mean people automatically believe what I say. It reminds me sometimes.”
An estimated 300,000 people turned out Sunday to watch Frederick X succeed his mother as monarch of Denmark.
With tears in his eyes, Frederick told a cheering crowd outside Copenhagen’s Christiansborg Castle that he wanted to be a “unification king” someday.
His mother, Margaret II, abdicated after 52 years on the throne.