Three days after the Queen Margrethe II of Denmark’s dramatic announcement that she was abdicating the throne in favor of her son, the mood between Crown Prince Frederik, and his wife, Princess Mary, reportedly seemed to be “at freezing point.”
Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet cast doubt on the state of the couple’s connection in a terse account of their appearance at a reception to mark the New Year on Wednesday morning. It was their first public engagement since the abdication bombshell was dropped.
Their cutting analysis of the couple’s appearance began with an acerbic suggestion that they had perhaps been served cold coffee—Denmark has one of the world’s highest consumptions of coffee in the world and citizens of the chilly state are noted for not tolerating subpar cups.
Ekstra Bladet went on to say, “In any case, the future royal couple did not look like someone enjoying themselves when they arrived on Wednesday morning at Christiansborg Castle.
“When the doors opened, and Frederik and Mary had to stroll past the press, words were exchanged between the two, and it didn’t exactly look like they wished each other good luck…The mood was at freezing point.”
The newspaper used the expression “stram ud i betrækket” which translates to “tight in the cover” to describe Mary’s bearing. In Danish, this expression describes a person who is very strict and inflexible, like a cover that is stretched tight over an object.
The commentary by Ekstra Bladet said that Mary did not “look like someone who was delighted to soon be able to call herself Denmark’s queen,” and said that Prince Frederik was similarly unable to muster a “big smile” for the reception.
The gloomy appearance by the couple looks set to reignite rumors that their relationship is struggling, rumors first sparked when Frederik was photographed on an evening out in Spain with a glamorous Mexican socialite.
“It was really a huge surprise when she announced she would stand down, and it is hard for people not to connect it with the recent trouble.”
— Danish aristocrat
There has been intense speculation that Margrethe, 83, made her New Year’s Eve announcement that she will abdicate to help salvage the marriage of Frederik and Mary. The couple met in 2000 and married in 2004. Mary is a middle-class Australian by birth.
One Danish aristocrat who is acquainted with the royal family told The Daily Beast this week, “There had always been an assumption that [Margrethe] would carry on, if not forever, then certainly for many more years. So it was really a huge surprise when she announced she would stand down, and it is hard for people not to connect it with the recent trouble.”
The British royal journalist Phil Dampier told the Daily Mail, “I think Margrethe may have worried that their marriage was in trouble and therefore she had to act. The Queen always thought Mary was a fantastic asset to the royal family and if she thought she might leave, it would have been a disaster. She will now hope that Frederik and Mary patch up any differences and work together as the new King and Queen.”