Last month, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark lost the love of her life. But who was the raffish, unconventional, at once charming and grouchy, Prince Henrik? William Langley investigates.
During his 51-year marriage to Denmark’s Queen Margrethe, Prince Henrik, a free-spirited French aristocrat, managed to baffle, amuse, intrigue and infuriate his adopted country. It was only with his death in mid-February, aged 83, that the Danes finally acknowledged their fondness for him. Tens of thousands took to the streets, and the simple funeral he insisted upon brought the country to a standstill. Apparently taken aback by the scale of the mourning, TV pundits took to asking if they perhaps had Henrik all wrong.
Not that he was an easy man to make sense of. Born in south-western France as Henri de Laborde de Monpezat, he spent much of his early life in Vietnam, where his father, André, an autocratic and slightly cranky count, owned rice and tea plantations. The experience left Henrik with a lifelong passion for Indochinese art, culture – and women, whose “company”, as he delicately puts it in his memoirs, he craftily contrived to charge to the family business accounts.
With the end of the colonial era in the mid-1950s, the Monpezats were forced to return to France. Henri harboured plans to become a classical pianist, but his father, rattled by the loss of his lucrative Vietnamese holdings, ruled that the family could afford no more risky ventures, and enrolled his son in a law course at the Sorbonne in Paris. After three years of military service in Algeria, he joined the diplomatic corps, and in 1964 was handed a junior posting to the French embassy in London.
Newly arrived in town, too, was Margrethe, a 23-year-old postgraduate student at the London School of Economics. They first met at a dinner party in Chelsea, hosted by the raffish gay socialite, Nicholas Eden, son of former British Prime Minister Anthony Eden. Henri appears to have been rather more impressed by Margrethe than she was by him.
この記事は The Australian Women's Weekly の April 2018 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は The Australian Women's Weekly の April 2018 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Hitting a nerve
Regulating the vagus nerve with its links to depression, anxiety, arthritis and diabetes - could aid physical and mental wellbeing.
Take me to the river
With a slew of new schedules and excursions to explore, the latest river cruises promise to give you experiences and sights you won’t see on the ocean.
The last act
When family patriarch Tom Edwards passes away, his children must come together to build his coffin in four days, otherwise they will lose their inheritance. Can they put their sibling rivalry aside?
MEET RUSSIA'S BRAVEST WOMEN
When Alexei Navalny died in a brutal Arctic prison, Vladimir Putin thought he had triumphed over his most formidable opponent. Until three courageous women - Alexei's mother, wife and daughter - took up his fight for freedom.
The wines and lines mums
Once only associated with glamorous A-listers, cocaine is now prevalent with the soccer-mum set - as likely to be imbibed at a school fundraiser as a nightclub. The Weekly looks inside this illegal, addictive, rising trend.
Jenny Liddle-Bob.Lucy McDonald.Sasha Green - Why don't you know their names?
Indigenous women are being murdered at frightening rates, their deaths often left uninvestigated and widely unreported. Here The Weekly meets families who are battling grief and desperate for solutions.
Growing happiness
Through drought flood and heartbreak, Jenny Jennr's sunflowers bloom with hope, sunshine and joy
"Thank God we make each other laugh"
A shared sense of humour has seen Aussie comedy couple Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall conquer the world. But what does life look like when the cameras go down:
Winter baking with apples and pears
Celebrate the season of Australian apples and pears with these sweet bakes that will keep the midwinter blues away.
Budget dinner winners
Looking for some thrifty inspiration for weeknight dinners? Try our tasty line-up of low-cost recipes that are bound to please everyone at the table.