King Frederik X of Denmark, Crown Prince Christian of Denmark and Queen Margrethe of Denmark visit the National Historical Museum of Frederiksborg to unveil and place the coat of arms of Crown Prince Christian of Denmark as he becomes “Knight of the Order of the Elephant” in Hillerød, Denmark -April 23rd 2024.

📷 : Det Danske Kongehus.

What do you think of the argument that royals do a lot of behind the scenes work that's not counted. Danish press is talking about how Fred has only worked 19 days since his coronation about 100 days ago. Personally I don't know what to say about that. A royals job is to be a representative in public, I highly doubt Fred is the one doing ceo type work for his patronages like the royal run. So whats do you think is going on with him?

I don't really support that argument for a few reasons:

Firstly, all royals do work behind the scenes. To use the UK as an example, people often say William and Kate's low numbers are ok because they do work behind the scenes. But Anne can do 400 engagements while still doing behind the scenes work. What would make people believe she's not doing anything other than rocking up at events? lol.

Secondly, as you say, the "behind the scenes" work isn't quite what people think. They don't do the leg work to plan events, they don't usually have any formal leadership role in the charities they run, they aren't personally writing the captions on their Instagram pages. There is other work that goes into these events but a large proportion won't be carried out by them personally, they just give the rubber stamp. However...

...the third and most important point is that even if we say that all of those things above are incredibly important, the royals choose not to share them. They choose not to put them in the royal calendar. They choose not to release pictures of them. And there might be very good reasons for that. But the reality is that if we are trying to come up with some data which we can use for comparison, we have to have some kind of inclusion criteria. We don't know how much work they do or don't do from day to day behind the scenes so we cannot establish any kind of figure. We have to use the data they give us.

So basically I don't think that the work they do behind the scenes is worthless or unimportant by any means. But I also don't think that we can make it a factor when we look at engagement numbers because we just can't put a number on it in any fair way.

As for Fred, you can't really compare engagement numbers across different families - we covered that in Episode 95 of the podcast - so it's difficult to establish his levels. But the articles I saw weren't particularly critical of Frederik, they were just commenting. He's only been monarch for 100 days and time will tell what kind of monarch he'll be. Ultimately the Danish people will decide. What I think of his work rate - what anyone who isn't from the Kingdom of Denmark thinks about his work rate - is secondary to what Danish people think about it so something might seem low to me but until the Danes get upset it's not really my place to tell them how to feel.

King Frederik X and Queen Mary of Denmark on the balcony of Christiansborg Palace | January 14, 2024

"(Frederik and I) have a very close relationship. He has always been very protective. Crown Prince Haakon has also been, and it has meant a lot to me."

- Crown Princess Victoria, who was the youngest of the Scandinavian heirs for over 40 years, talking about the protective role the Crown Princes played in her life

Our queen is stepping down and letting her son take over. So the national tv has been nothing but celebration of her and her life.

Countless of people telling stories about meeting their queen and how much it ment to them.

So different from England and the discussion about how much money the coronation cost when people are living in poverty.

Perhaps because the danish royal family is extremely popular and perhaps because we don’t actually get a coronation.

The prime minister will announce the new king from the balcony of parliament and that’s pretty much it. So everyone is making their own party.

So wierd by the way to have a king. It has been a queen for the past 52 years.



MONARCHS OF EUROPE (that I care about, sorry not sorry to the others)

INTRODUCING THEIR MAJESTIES KING FREDERIK X AND QUEEN CONSORT MARY OF DENMARK 🇩🇰 👑

First statedinner hosted for The Parlament by King Frederik and Queen Mary

The Danish royal family released their annual report and we've studied all 65 pages so you don't have to! Join @princesscatherinemiddleton and @duchessofostergotlands as we explore what the report reveals about their working patterns and their financial arrangements.

Episode 95 - “Another fourteen sofas” - on Spotify, Apple, Google Podcasts and Amazon!

Here are some links!

DR (Danish) they already have a special coverage https://www.dr.dk/drtv/

Billed-Bladet (Danish) is live blogging with plenty of photos, I'm sure they'll video too when everithing starts https://www.billedbladet.dk/

The independent (English) youtube stream https://www.youtube.com/live/hfbqBKtClRM?si=oDoDYEXPiMrymUfD

Daily Mail (English) youtube stream https://www.youtube.com/live/l3KBCrkKUdI?si=eGS1C6L0CQaLWZG-

Sky News (English) youtube stream https://www.youtube.com/live/eE38WPDGDyo?si=Z67pw62rwxpXpeLd

RTVE 24h (Spanish) will connect because they just did to say that at 2PM everything will start (it's a news channel, so don't watch it before everything starts because you will mostly see what's happening in Spain instead) https://www.youtube.com/live/mzdfGCdNSHQ?si=4ags_fIfy-gk_NcY

RAI (Italian) is the same as RTVE https://www.youtube.com/live/OYFD1LwRHlc?si=DaFejmQAyFY06B9b

ARD (German) just like RTVE and RAI https://www.ardmediathek.de/live

There's a variety of links, but DR or the youtube streams I think are the best to not miss it.

King Frederik X of Denmark, Queen Mary of Denmark, Crown Prince Christian of Denmark, Princess Isabella of Denmark, Prince Vincent of Denmark and Princess Josephine of Denmark attend the proclamation of King Frederik X of Denmark and Queen Mary of Denmark on January 14th 2024, in the Throne Room at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen, Denmark -January 19th 2024.

📷 : Mads Nissen.

Backstage at King Frederik X's proclamation | January 14, 2024

"Many probably shared the joy, seeing their joy. And that someone actually found that soulmate."

-Crown Princess Victoria on King Frederik X and Queen Mary's wedding

They had to shut down parts of Copenhagen for the announcement of the new Danish king.

People were cheering and waving flags.

The crown prince had a blast on the balcony while his father the new king had to fight the tears. I’m tempted to say as usual because he often fights tears when emotions are high.

At his wedding he cried when his bride walked up to the altar.

Wild how much noise the crowd made.

Nice that the queen “only” abdicated and didn’t die. Had she died the mood would’ve been so different somber and sad but this way it’s a folkefest as we say in Denmark. A party for the people.

In a crowd of 300,000. || “Frederik X. King of the People.” • Copenhagen, Denmark. 1.14.2024.