Queen Margaret of Denmark left her subjects stunned with her New Year's speech, announcing that next Sunday, January 14, the 52nd anniversary of her accession to the throne, she will abdicate in favor of her first-born son, Prince Frederick.
The 83-year-old monarch leaves her place as sovereign to her son, who will become known as King Frederick X. Along with him, his wife, Princess Mary, who will become queen consort of the Danes. On that big day, luckily, Mary will not be alone, because she will have the support of someone very special by her side.
A title that comes after weeks of her becoming the protagonist of the controversy, caused precisely by her husband and some photos in which she appeared walking through the streets of Madrid on an unscheduled trip to Spain with the Mexican socialite Genoveva Casanova.
A controversy that the princess decided to live in the most dignified way possible; first fulfilling her professional commitments, then leaving for her native Australia to get away from it all.
Upon his return and after meeting as a family at Christmas, he will assume new duties this coming Sunday. A historic event in which she will not have the support of her sister-in-law, Princess Marie, or her children; but with that of her sister, Jane Stephens (Donaldson), who will travel from Australia to be present on her big day - as she already did on the day of her wedding with the Danish heir, where she served as bridesmaid with her another sister, Patricia.
A day in which, as is tradition, the Danish Prime Minister will be the master of ceremonies. Thus, Mette Frederiksen is the one who proclaims Prince Frederick as King Frederick X from Christianborg Palace, the royal residence.
Australian lawyer and former executive, Mary Elizabeth Donaldson will become the queen consort of Denmark on January 14. The future queen crossed her destiny for the first time at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, when she was 28 years old. In the Australian capital, in a pub, she met Frederick of Denmark, who was with her cousin, Prince Nicholas of Greece, and her brother, Prince Joachim; as well as Princess Martha of Norway and the then Prince Philip of Spain.
"The first time we met, we shook hands. I didn't know it was the Prince of Denmark. Half an hour later someone came up to me and said, 'Do you know who these people are?'" Princess Mary recalled in a interview with Australian magazine New Idea in 2005. "Something clicked."
The two began a long-distance relationship and, a year later, Mary Donaldson moved to Europe. On October 8, 2003 she and Prince Frederick announced their formal engagement.
Since then, the princess, married in 2004 to Prince Frederick - with whom she has had four children - has proven to be an example, learning the customs, language and protocols of Danish royalty by heart. She has become a symbol, and is currently one of the country's favorite members of the Danish royal family.
