The Prince Who Would Be King Is Taking His Anger to the Grave
August 8, 2017 6:07 PM   Subscribe

In the Game of Thrones, you win, or you refuse to be buried next to your wife of 50 years after harboring four decades of spite that you were never named king consort (in Danish). Or at least you do if you're Prince Henrik of Denmark, the world's grumpiest royal, who cites Danish support for gender equality as an important reason he should be king.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (44 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
Too bad for him. As far as glass sarcophagi go, that's a beaut.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:12 PM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


If I might quote the rather long comment I made about this on a friend's FB post? Here goes:

THIS FUCKING GUY.

Ok, so I know *way* more about this than I will generally admit to in public, because as a a child who hoovered up every "history of royal [stuff]" book the libraries had + as an erstwhile history grad student, you just sort of memorize stuff after a while.

Some people know the inner workings of the Kardashians, I know obscure royal trivia.

SO.
THIS FUCKING GUY, and his fake assed fake title. Shut. It. Down. Henri.

House of Monpezat

Read the history behind it. Buncha fakers. And now he's gonna get salty at Margrethe? Someone whose family tree goes back to the 1100s? An accomplished artist and translator (she illustrated the Danish version of The Lord of the Rings!) She chain smokes! She gives absolutely zero fucks and I am HERE FOR IT.

To summarize: he is bad and he should feel bad, and she is awesome, and I'm glad she gets a fancy sarcophagus all to herself.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 6:14 PM on August 8, 2017 [98 favorites]


Sulkier than Prince Philip? That's an accomplishment. Why would you go into the prince consort business if you weren't happy with the arrangement? Did he expect the crown matrimonial?
posted by Countess Elena at 6:21 PM on August 8, 2017 [6 favorites]


I just want Queen Mary to reign over the Danes.

Then I will start a dynastic war and Sjælland's important natural harbor will be mine! Muhahahahaha!
posted by Talez at 6:30 PM on August 8, 2017 [4 favorites]


Wow, imagine when this is what you have left to whine about.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:43 PM on August 8, 2017 [10 favorites]


bitter-girl.com, you had me at THIS FUCKING GUY
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:05 PM on August 8, 2017 [30 favorites]


It's kind of funny because Princess Mary is more than taking after Queen Margrethe and Frederik seems to be more than just a chip off the old block when it comes to his father.
posted by Talez at 7:07 PM on August 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


I don't know a thing about this guy or the situation or the point he is trying to make but there is a possible point in favour of gender equality I feel: Monarchies have the Queen Regnant for a reigning queen and the Queen Consort, Queen Mother, or Queen Dowager for a queen with no formal power. But it's unseemly for there to be such a thing as a King with no formal power, or to have a Queen ranking higher than a King, or something...
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 7:28 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


There have been some kings consort, most notably Francis, Duke of Cadiz and husband to Queen Isabella II of Spain. But the logic in general seems to be: all kings are kings in their own right, but all queens are queens consort, as they typically do not wield power, nor are they in the line of succession. Now, of course, most modern monarchies don't follow that logic, but it remains the case that the spouses of monarchs carry little importance beyond helping to produce heirs. So in the case of Henrik, I feel for him somewhat, but there's an awful lot of special pleading here.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:03 PM on August 8, 2017 [3 favorites]


Good to see the "danishroyalty" tag getting some love.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:15 PM on August 8, 2017 [4 favorites]


The Danish are quite royal. You ever see the tin their butter cookies come in? They gotta be loaded.
posted by Talez at 8:17 PM on August 8, 2017 [11 favorites]


I think it's a sneaky way to get out of going on permanent display in a glass curio cabinet for eternity.

Or senile dementia.

Yeah, probably the latter.

He and the old Greek oh sorry British Nazi should just go get their colonoscopies together or whatever grumpy old men do to bond over life's inequities.
posted by janey47 at 8:34 PM on August 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


"Or senile dementia. "

I did think about that, and avoided a few of his more recent interviews with gossip magazines for that reason (just in case!), but he's been bitching about it for four decades so I feel like it's fair game, plus all the vacationing in Venice while lying and saying he was sick in earlier days, he's kind-of a butthead to his wife in general.

"Good to see the "danishroyalty" tag getting some love.

I feel like I should have stretched myself for some Hamlet jokes in the tags and regret my laziness now. Even just, "Good night, sweet prince" seems obvious. "Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"? OMG I AM THINKING OF MILLIONS OF HAMLET JOKES NOW, THE WHOLE PLAY IS ABOUT DANISH ROYALS DYING, IT IS NOTHING BUT APROPOS QUOTES!

posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:45 PM on August 8, 2017 [12 favorites]


(I just realized this is my third post about Denmark, and my second about the Danish royal family; who knew I was so interested in Denmark? I certainly didn't until I checked my tags! The Hamlet jokes made me remember I may have made these Hamlet jokes before ...)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:51 PM on August 8, 2017


I mean it is kind of BS that generally there aren't things like king consorts and king fathers and king dowagers, but then again it is also hard to care about the titles of people who marry in to royalty.
posted by ckape at 12:16 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


SO.
THIS FUCKING GUY, and his fake assed fake title. Shut. It. Down. Henri.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Monpezat


Oh dear lord y'all have to read that. Priceless when you realize the tacked-on Monpezat name actually comes from a 1648 marriage to... a noblewoman.
"However neither the nobility nor hereditary title of the Laborde de Monpezats is acknowledged as historically valid by the Encyclopédie de la fausse noblesse et de la noblesse d'apparence (English: Encyclopedia of False and Seeming Nobility). Charondas, in his 'A quel titre' (Volume 37, 1970), describes the Laborde de Monpezat as "false nobles, low folk in the 17th century, not received in the states of Béarn due to 'alleged nobility,' and as having never had nobility in their family."
[...]
"Danish law never officially required that royal spouses be of aristocratic origin. Nonetheless, no prince's marriage to a person who lacked male-line descent from royalty or titled nobility had been accepted as dynastic by the sovereign in the course of Denmark's history as a hereditary monarchy prior to Hereditary Princess Margrethe's marriage in June 1967. From the date of that marriage "Count" Henri de Laborde de Monpezat was designated Prince Henrik of Denmark. In 2005, his wife having reigned as Queen Margrethe II since 1972, Henrik was officially declared Denmark's Prince Consort."
Personally I roll my eyes at white dudes supposedly magically transmitting nobility while the women who bear them don't – but Henri's hypocrisy comes out clear as day with that backstory. Not to mention behaving like an ass towards his wife for all the world to see. How noble of him (not).
posted by fraula at 1:27 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


The Danish are quite royal. You ever see the tin their butter cookies come in? They gotta be loaded.

You'd think. But over here in reality they've just got tens of millions of home sets of sewing supplies.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:57 AM on August 9, 2017 [15 favorites]


So the current Pope seems like a genuinely nice guy... but he's still head of the RC church, which has been responsible for some terrible things, historically (currently?). Ultimately it's like polishing a turd.

I kinda have similar feelings here: Gender equality is an important thing, and perhaps the point he makes is valid, but he's talking about royalty and nobility and all things unfair and unequal that are represented therein...

So Henri can get stuffed. No sympathy. Suck it up and do something worthwhile to account for your privilege, you ignorant ass.
posted by trif at 2:50 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


He doesn't get to be King consort because women have less value than men, in that Kings can convey the royal title and Queens cannot.
posted by muddgirl at 2:59 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Lest I be misunderstood to mean that I am anti-Denmark in any general kind of way, I hasten to note that Denmark makes remarkably kickass films (Lars Von Trier, who joins Steve Bannon in the Trying To Suck Own Cock Derby and probably wins handily, notwithstanding).
posted by janey47 at 3:27 AM on August 9, 2017


Yes, Fredrik is barely an aristocrat, but that matters because, until recently, no one could be monarch of Denmark unless BOTH parents were noble. Several Danish cousins married commoners knowing that their issue would never be allowed Royal status. Margrethe changed that. Her boys married commoners (the crown princess is an Australian) and will rule and their children will rule and so on. Margrethe's succession was made possible by her father's creating a new rule (which the Danes made law in 1953), otherwise his children, both daughters, could not have ascended the throne. In other words, there is a clash here between monarchic rules and new gender parity. Danes want to see themselves as feminist, yet Danish feminists have opposed Fredrik's desire for some kind of status, citing the old rules. "King" worries people because it reflects paterfamilias-type family status, yet there is no recognition for the male family member who actually was caretaker for the royal children. This goes much deeper than Fredrik being grumpy and touches on some of the more tender aspects of the Great Human Sexual Revolution that began last century.
A couple of other things: Fredrik is 83 and made his non-interment statement after a week long stay in hospital. Old folks get to dwelling on funerals and such in these circumstances. The sarcophagus is Margrethe's monument. Fredrik wants his own grave.
And, just so no one is confused: the corpse(s) will not be interred in the glass sarcophagus, but buried beneath, under the floor of the church.
posted by CCBC at 3:36 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


Henrik comes across utterly cogent and with it in interviews, even if I do think he's being unbelievably petty about something that is of literally no consequence. The language he uses in Danish ("hun gør mig til nar") is... less flattering than the translations. He's proper laying into his wife personally, as well as the traditions and institutions she represents. He clearly puts at least some of the blame at her feet specifically.

I feel like I should have stretched myself for some Hamlet jokes in the tags and regret my laziness now.

As a Dane living in Britain, all I can say at is: thank fuck you didn't.


Also, all the butter cookie shit and asides about film and what have you - does every thread tangentially about France devolve into a discussion about baguettes and berets? No, because that would be about as bullshit as this is.
posted by Dysk at 3:49 AM on August 9, 2017 [10 favorites]


Dysk, I hadn't realised that was bothering me until you mentioned it. It's like somebody asked me if I could hear humming, and now it's all i can hear.

But yeah, i'm with you on that.
posted by trif at 4:11 AM on August 9, 2017


(Just for posterity: I believe CCBC meant 'Henrik' rather than 'Fredrik' above. Crown-prince Frederik will be King Frederik Ⅹ in due time, though hopefully later rather than sooner).

The prince-consort actually managed to generate some good will in the populace at large some years back – as I recall the national celebration of his 80th birthday was generally well received, but any lingering good will have flash evaporated at this point. If he was senile, they presumably wouldn't be putting him on camera, and as such he comes across as astoundingly spoiled and tone-deaf.
posted by bouvin at 6:05 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


the corpse(s) will not be interred in the glass sarcophagus

I was kind of hoping we could get Damien Hirst to put himself in one filled with formaldehyde.
posted by Segundus at 6:20 AM on August 9, 2017


Someone whose family tree goes back to the 1100s?

All royal titles are fake. There's no such thing as noble blood. Everyone's family tree goes back equally far, too. It's just that some of us have records and others don't. So we give thrones to those with the best record keeping, a bizarre thing. But there is absolutely no "reality" behind claims of nobility. They are all bullshit.
posted by 1adam12 at 6:33 AM on August 9, 2017 [33 favorites]


Henrik married the Danish crown princess, knowing ahead of time that Margrethe would become the ruling queen and that at best her spouse (whether that was him or someone else) would become prince consort: nobody ever suggested, let alone promised, that he would become a king. If he didn't like the deal he was offered, to be prince consort, he could have chosen to walk away pre-marriage. But no: he chose to accept, and then he got cranky when he got precisely what he was offered, no more and certainly no less.

It really annoys me when people chose to accept or do something, knowing in advance exactly what the situation includes/excludes, then they turn around and bitch about what a rotten deal they got!

(I got presented to Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik briefly almost thirty years ago; she was very warm, but he seemed like kind of a stuffed shirt even then.)
posted by easily confused at 6:47 AM on August 9, 2017 [12 favorites]


A few weeks ago I was watching The Crown, the episode about the London Smog, in which Queen Elizabeth comes within minutes of dismissing Winston Churchill and setting off a constitutional crisis.

Well, right now, as an American, I have to say I found it particularly appealing to have a box marked Royal prerogatives - in case of emergency, break glass and have someone trained from childhood onwards to sit by that box with a jewel encrusted hammer. It's a bit of a lazily written rex ex machina, but right now I have to admit the US could use something like it.

But then along come stories like this..
posted by ocschwar at 7:14 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


Happily, this particular upperclass twit is well down the line of succession, so royal prerogatives do not apply. We do not have a constitutional court in Denmark (so whenever our politicians, bless their little hearts, decide on a bad law, it takes a while before our supreme court can throw it out), and I for one would be happy to see the Queen flex her power a bit from time to time (laws must be signed by her in order to be valid – I believe that it has happened a few times that the signing process has become delayed so that she could not sign them within the allotted time, and then the laws have to go through the whole parliamentary process again).
posted by bouvin at 7:56 AM on August 9, 2017


I vaguely recall something about the Prince Consorts of the Netherlands not being called “King” because officially the Queen was actually King, as the title King designates the ruling monarch. So you had a King already, you’re just calling her Queen for the moment. No source for this, but wonder if something like this might apply in Denmark.
posted by Martijn at 7:58 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


He seems like a real peach. Makes you wonder what she ever saw in him.
posted by orrnyereg at 8:04 AM on August 9, 2017


Love is blind, orrnyereg, love is totally blind.
posted by easily confused at 8:29 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


Why would the Danes, a proud and independent people, abide the usurpation of their crown by this French pretender? He should be grateful, since his purpose (continuing the Glücksburgische line) has been completed, his wife the Queen has not packed him off to spend the last of his days in some Godforsaken abbey in the hinterlands.
posted by Chrischris at 9:08 AM on August 9, 2017 [8 favorites]


does every thread tangentially about France devolve into a discussion about baguettes and berets?

No, it's usually french toast and freedom fries
posted by zippy at 9:09 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


I feel like I read this in a Valdemar novel once.
posted by offalark at 9:15 AM on August 9, 2017


He and the old Greek oh sorry British Nazi should just go get their colonoscopies together or whatever grumpy old men do to bond over life's inequities.

Prince Philip can be criticised for a lot of things, especially by those of who do not favour a monarchy or welcome his views on race, but calling someone a Nazi who actually saw 5+ years of military service against the Nazis, ie did more than any of us to fight Nazism, only supports those who argue that fascism is just a term the left throws around without any understanding of its meaning.
posted by biffa at 11:19 AM on August 9, 2017 [14 favorites]


Yeah, Philip is an asshole, but not a Nazi.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:15 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yeah, he was just Nazi-adjacent. We can't choose our family I suppose.
posted by muddgirl at 12:29 PM on August 9, 2017


Is he complaining about salary and staff, though? I don't read Danish but in the english language translations he is mostly complaining about the fact that his wife and son outrank him in the made-up royal hierarchy. It seems to me from news reports that His Royal Highness Prince Henrik does have an independent salary of about $600k a year, granted by the state.

He also has a strange claim that queens always make their husband's kings, which has never been true in English monarchy, and I don't think there's ever been a Danish Prince Consort before this one.
posted by muddgirl at 1:07 PM on August 9, 2017


Thank you for the correction, Bouvin. I shouldn't post late at night.

Hendrik was not Prince-Consort until he complained. He did not get an allowance until he complained. So, why not complain again and see if you can be King?
Monarchy is a ridiculous institution, yet sometimes monarchs are useful: Elizabeth II of the UK, Bhumipol of Thailland each served as a moral exemplar at an important time. Juan Carlos was vital to establishing some kind of bridge to democracy in Spain. As a Canadian, I am all for anything that makes Canada different from the US.

People may not have noticed but, when Margrethe and Henrik are together, there seems to be genuine affection between the two. Henrik is a poet and he speaks his feelings; Margrethe seems to understand this and to value it. There are complaints that the Windsors are too stiff. Yet, when Henrik breaks silence, it is the public who seems stuffy. The Danish Royal Couple have a sense of humor which is reflected by those around them. Nørgaard's sarcophagus may never be more than a model but he did do a series of tapestries depicting Danish history. This is the one showing the marriage of Margrethe and Henrik. (If that link doesn't work, got to Nørgaard's site, find the tapestry page and click on the last one, the box at lower right marked "nutid".)
posted by CCBC at 2:17 PM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


I don't really follow this because it's like watching a slow train wreck, but my FB seems to have diagnosed him with dementia. As with the Trump discussion I'm not very happy with long distance diagnosing, but in this case there might be something to it. On one hand, he has always wanted to be king. On the other: for the last decade he's been doing and saying more and more absurd stuff including wearing the most ridiculous clothes, and for a while that made him a hero with the tabloids, which again seemed to fire him up. It's hard to say, IMO both queen and prince are the very definition of upper class twits and how does one know wether they are ill or twit-like? (I'm still a monarchist, though. Every time someone suggests we all fire them, I note that someone like war-criminal Bush lapdog Anders Fogh Rasmussen could be elected president. At least the royals haven't engaged the country in illegal wars).

Yes, Fredrik [Henrik] is barely an aristocrat, but that matters because, until recently, no one could be monarch of Denmark unless BOTH parents were noble. Several Danish cousins married commoners knowing that their issue would never be allowed Royal status. Margrethe changed that. Her boys married commoners (the crown princess is an Australian) and will rule and their children will rule and so on. Margrethe's succession was made possible by her father's creating a new rule (which the Danes made law in 1953), otherwise his children, both daughters, could not have ascended the throne. In other words, there is a clash here between monarchic rules and new gender parity
Well, there is a less published aspect to this. The old king Frederik (Margrethe's father) had a brother, Knud, who was seen as extraordinarily stupid. Since Frederik had no sons, Knud and then his equally stupid son Ingolf stood to inherit the throne. No one at the time wanted this to happen, so they changed the constitution. Stripping Ingolf and his brother of their titles as they married commoners was an extra assurance that they would never ever get close to the throne. Crown prince Frederik's younger brother Joachim seems to have taken a lot after that side of the family, but since Frederik and Mary have four children, the monarchy is probably safe for another generation. However, when the princes were young, there was a fear that Frederik would abdicate, so when Joachim married a commoner from Hong Kong, there was a lot of pressure to let him keep his title and privileges and make her a princess, just in case. He wasn't as openly idiotic as Margrethe's cousin back then and many elder Danes thought he appeared more "noble" than his older brother. In the end that marriage paved the way for Frederik marrying Mary which was probably best for everyone, since he has said in public that she helped him accept his fate. I think if Frederik had abdicated we would have had a republic when Margrethe dies. As it is, Joachim's children will have to get normal educations and jobs.

The Danish royals can't be total idiots, because the queen/king has a similar role to that of the British queen/king, where they have consultations with the Prime Minister and meet with heads of state and stuff. In Sweden, the royals have no political roles at all, so there is less of a constitutional crisis when they do something wild.
posted by mumimor at 2:30 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh my goodness that is the most horrible tapestry that I've ever seen
posted by glasseyes at 3:53 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Monarchy is a ridiculous institution, yet sometimes monarchs are useful: Elizabeth II of the UK, Bhumipol of Thailland each served as a moral exemplar at an important time. Juan Carlos was vital to establishing some kind of bridge to democracy in Spain.

It can go the other way round too though cf. the Glücksburgs in Greece whose meddling with the parliament was a factor in enabling dictatorship.
posted by ersatz at 11:50 PM on August 12, 2017


The Danish royal family have released a statement saying Henrik has senile dementia. DR news story in Danish.
posted by Dysk at 10:12 AM on September 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


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