Denmark’s royal family: a ‘Game of Thrones’ drama

Royal-watching in Denmark can be rather a dull pastime, said Kim Bach in Ekstra Bladet: we don’t do pageantry like the British; we don’t get the kind of juicy scandals that can plague other monarchies.

Last month, however, “the dusty royal theatre we’re usually bored by” was transformed into “a pure drama along the lines of Game of Thrones”: our queen, Margrethe II, Europe’s longest-reigning monarch, announced she was stripping four of her grandchildren of their royal titles.

From January, the children of her younger son, Prince Joachim, will no longer be called princess or prince; they will simply be addressed as count or countess. The 82-year-old queen claimed she was just following the lead of other monarchies in downsizing, but the move has caused a huge outcry and enraged Prince Joachim, who had a very public tantrum about it.

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It is very sad, he told Danish media, to see one’s children being “mistreated” in this way. “Why must they be punished?” Margrethe acknowledged she’d “underestimated” her family’s likely reaction – but insisted that the move was necessary to “future-proof” the monarchy.

Rumours of tensions in the Danish royal family have abounded for years, said Laura Schäfer in Stern. Now, thanks to this almighty PR blunder, they’re visible for all to see. Other European monarchies – Sweden’s for example – have slimmed down without the kind of bitter recriminations that we’re seeing in Denmark; with a bit more care, the Danish royals could have done likewise.

“The handling could have been more elegant,” agreed Sarah Skarum in Politiken, but Margrethe was right to act. Denmark’s monarchy is already bloated by the scions of the Greek royal family: Greece’s King Constantine was deposed in 1973, but he remains a prince of Denmark and his children have the right to Danish royal titles.

Most of Europe’s royal houses recognise that they need to streamline their families to stay relevant: in the United Kingdom, the new King Charles is reportedly cutting the number of working royals.

For a long while now, Denmark’s monarchy has enjoyed high approval ratings, said Alexander Preker in Der Spiegel. But Joachim, who lives in Paris, has a reputation for being “aristocratic and arrogant”, and most Danes think it’s crazy to fight over titles at a time of war and economic turmoil.

Margrethe is now planning to “muzzle” her family and stop the bickering. The future of Denmark’s monarchy may depend on her success in doing so.