Margrethe II

And now for your number one choice.

My number one, really, really boring, Queen Margrethe abdicating.

Oh, that was not even anywhere on my

list.

You know, it's another one of those situations where when you look back on it, you can say, oh, OK, well, yeah, she was very ill and she'd had to take time off because she'd had this back surgery and was making a lot of big decisions that, you know, in hindsight, people have said were perhaps... spare Frederick from having to make difficult decisions about his brother and their children's titles you know Margrethe was making them as like her final thing to prepare the way for Frederick and so you know in hindsight you might be able to say it wasn't actually that surprising but I again I didn't know that was an option for her because I'd always thought that you know the Danish the Scandinavian royals were much more in line with the Brits where it was like they took you know they'd They promised to do this for their whole lives.

They're not going to abdicate.

I just never thought I thought she'd be a herald.

And essentially, every single adult who could serve as regent was in Norway for the funeral.

And to ha- and to go find your own passion.

You know, we have a, um, the retired queen in Denmark, Queen Margrethe, she's amazing.

Like, 85 or something.

May she live forever.

But, you know, there is always...

I'm even starting to see it with some of, like Victoria, because all, you know, obviously Margrethe abdicated, and Harald's now died, and she's the, and everyone else has taken over, so she's now the last one left from her generation who hasn't.

And so I think there is a sort of attitude of like, "Oh, well, when's Carl Gustaf gonna die?" And she does get asked about it every so often, like, "Do you think about your dad, you know, dying?" and all that sort of stuff.

And so it prevents that narrative from potentially building, that they're, like, sitting in the wings waiting.

Uh, so the second thing I picked out was the closeness to the people.

So you b- touched on Trooping the Colour when you were talking about the Netherlands and about, you know, how ch- different that is, and I think, you know, that is an event where the monarch is on a balcony behind a courtyard, behind armed guards [laughs] and big iron gates, versus, say, Carl Gustaf's birthday, where he goes down into the courtyard and accepts flowers from children.

Or Margrethe's birthday, where the staff and family would sing a birthday song to her to wake her up, and you'd get pictures of her in her pajamas.

You know, it's, it's a very different approach.

The so-called bicycling monarchies of Scandinavia have frequently been the subject of mockery when contrasted with our proper monarchy and its horse-drawn carriages, numerous palaces, and all the pomp and circumstance you could want.

While Queen Elizabeth II reigned for a record-breaking 70 years, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, her third cousin, was a similarly respected figure who was on the throne for 52 years.

Unlike Queen Elizabeth, Margrethe did not reign until her death.

Instead, she announced her abdication at the age of 83 in a speech televised to the nation on New Year's Eve in 2023.

It was the first time in nearly 900 years that a Danish sovereign had voluntarily stepped down to make room for a younger generation of royals and came as a major shock because Margrethe had always insisted that her job was for life.

Before she abdicated in favor of her elder son, King Frederik X, who was married to the Australian-born Queen Mary, Margrethe made a point of doing something which caused deep upset.

In September of 2022, she announced that the children of her youngest son, Prince Joachim, would no longer be styled as prince or princess from the following year onwards.

The dramatic decision affected four of her grandchildren: Prince Nikolai, Prince Felix, Prince Henrik, and Princess Athena.

Especially in summer

because Queen Margrethe, she loves roses and roses are beautiful.

Rosarium and yeah, it's a very special place.

I wish I would walk there a little bit more often than I do.