Frederik rings the Olympic changes

After King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia coming over all tourist and posting a photo of themselves by the Olympic flame in Sochi, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark has gone one better and done a big group pose by the Olympic rings.  The prince is back in Sochi for the last few days of the Games and has been snapped with a group of Danish athletes jumping all over one of the most famous symbols in the world.

Prince Frederik, right in the middle in red, gets arty in his bid to win best royal photo of the Sochi Winter Games

It's one of the most eye catching images so far and made things a bit easier for Frederik - on his arrival, the temperature at the village was so warm he didn't even need to do his jacket up let alone try on one of the patriotic woolly hats other royals have been donning.  No doubt there will be a very fetching red and white number before the games are done.  

The heirs of 1914: Denmark

The heir to the throne of Denmark in 1914 was one of the newest Crown Princes on the continent.  Christian Frederik Franz Michael Carl Valdemar Georg, known as Frederik, had become heir to the throne in 1912 and now, aged fifteen, was enjoying an education that would make him one of the most modern kings his country had known.

Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, photographed in 1914

As king of Denmark, a role he assumed on the death of his father, Christian X, in 1947 he would oversee changes to the constitution which would allow women to inherit the throne for the first time and pave the way for his daughter, Margrethe, to become queen and changes to the way his country was run which included a brand new welfare state and better working rights for women.  The seeds of that modernity were sewn in his childhood when Frederik became the first heir to his country's throne to embark on a naval, rather than army, career.  The little boy who had stood at the feet of the legendary Christian IX, the father in law of Europe, turned his monarchy into one of the most modern on the continent.  And perhaps of all the heirs of 1914, his future was the clearest then.  The boy who would be Christian X never made any secret of his desire to move with the times, not even as a teenage Crown Prince.

The future Frederik X stands on a chair to the side of the then King of Denmark, Christian IX, with another king Christian and king Frederik with them.  This historic photo of four kings together was taken in 1903 when the youngest Fred was just four

Europe's ageing monarchies

Charles, Prince of Wales is the boy who waited.  The prince is the oldest person ever to be heir to the British throne and he's also held that position longer than any other.  And if his mother lives anywhere near as long as her own mother, the boy who became first in line to the throne at the age of just three will be a man approaching eighty when he becomes king.  But Charles is just the beginning of a generation of men and women who will assume their destinies at a much greater age than any of their predecessors.  Europe's monarchies are getting older.

Prince Charles is just the beginning of a new wave of older kings with Prince Frederik among a whole generation of monarchs unlikely to begin their reigns until their sixth or seventh decade

This new wave of blue rinse bods at the top is inevitable given the general ageing of the population.  Although royal families have had the best of everything from nice, warm places to sleep to top doctors to sort out their aches and pains, the general rise in living conditions all round also means they're getting healthier and happier along with the rest of the population.  Plus, all those pesky things that used to do for kings and queens in days of yore are gone.  The chances of dying in battle or revolutions is much lower as is picking up a strange medieval illness with no cure.  But healthier monarchs mean older heirs - will the ageing process bring wisdom with it or leave Europe with a generation of kings and queens too old to do the jobs for which they were born?

Edward IV survived battles, imprisonment and exile but wine, women and song added to stress and all kinds of infections with no cure led to his early death at the age of 41

After the UK, Monaco has the oldest heir to its top title.  In the absence of any legitimate children, Prince Albert II's throne will pass to his sister, Caroline, who is 56 and fast approaching 57 meaning she's second on the list behind Prince Charles when it comes to heirs packing the years.  She's also the only heir to the throne in Europe to be older than the person she could succeed.  Like Charles, she has a son and heir waiting behind her and, like the British royals, that child of the eighties became father to a son this year.  Of course, Caroline and her descendants could be moved out of the way with the arrival of a baby for Albert and Charlene but at the moment, the Princess of Hanover hovers at the foot of her country's throne. 

Caroline of Monaco got the film star looks of her mother but may yet inherit the throne of her father - at 56, she is the second oldest heir in Europe

And then we have the fortysomethings.  The honour of being the most senior of the middle aged monarchs in waiting goes to Prince Felipe of Spain.  Born in January 1968, he's reached the grand old age of 45 with still no sign of a throne.  While social media went mad, almost frenzied, in September with rumours that Juan Carlos I was about to abdicate the reality is that Felipe will succeed in the most traditional of manners.  Only death will bring him a crown.  He has been his father's heir all his adult life and remains firmly in his shadow.  Even a higher profile in recent months as Juan Carlos undergoes treatment for a hip problem has left him clearly as the second man in the Spanish royal house.  Of all Europe's heirs, he perhaps faces the hardest battle to be seen as a king - not least because of the problems facing the family he will one day rule.

Heir to the throne since the age of seven, Prince Felipe of Asturias has been one step away from his country's crown through his youth and into middle age

The Spanish king is 75, approaching 76, and will celebrate his 40th jubilee in November 2015.  Felipe is looking at remaining next in line well into his fifties.  As is Frederik of Denmark who is just a few months behind his Spanish cousin, arriving in May 1968.  His mother is 73 and descended from a mother who lived to ninety years of age.  Like Juan Carlos, Margrethe has indicated she will never abdicate her throne which means Fred could be running Charles a close second in the wait he has to be king.  Should Margrethe match Queen Ingrid then Frederik will be over sixty by the time he takes his country's throne.

He might not be doing the Copenhagen Iron Man by the time he becomes king - Frederik of Denmark is keeping on running as middle age approaches but might well be a pensioner by the time he takes his country's throne

Prince Haakon Magnus has just joined Felipe and Fred in the forties club but like them faces a wait to be king.  While the Crown Prince of Norway is named regent more often than his counterparts, his role is still the junior one in the regnant relationship.  King Harald of Norway, now 76, shares many of his political responsibilities with his heir but is still very far from handing over power meaning that Haakon is in line to be another older king

.

The beard might well be grey by the time it's topped with a crown - Prince Haakon Magnus of Norway in an official portrait to mark his 40th birthday earlier this year

Sweden's future queen, Crown Princess Victoria, is now 37 years old.  Her father may have just celebrated his fortieth jubilee but he is among the youngest of his generation of European kings, aged 67, and descended from kings who have regularly lived beyond the age of 90 in the last few generations.  Victoria might not take the throne which was made hers by her modern thinking father until she is over sixty.  

Victoria of Sweden on her wedding day as her proud father looks on

The fact that being a monarch is a job for life means the wait is likely, and hopefully, very long for all of them.  In cases of abdication, it becomes easier to predict when a crown might come a prince or princess' way.  The Netherlands now has the youngest monarch in Europe and the youngest heir to the throne and Catharina-Amalia, the Princess of Orange, knows that her father will most likely step aside for her at some point but not for a couple of decades at the earliest.  She will, like him, probably be around 40 when she becomes her country's regnant and is likely to pass her own crown on in a similar way.

The youthful king - Willem-Alexander is Europe's youngest monarch and has the continent's youngest heir.  By the time he is ready to hand on the throne, his daughter will be around forty

Another abdication is less certain in Belgium.  The country's new king, Philippe, was 53 on the day he became monarch and until earlier this year may well have expected to be much older as his father, Albert II, is 79 and wasn't top of anyone's abdicating monarchs list.  Whether this decision to step aside, and the smooth transition which followed, becomes customary as it has in the Netherlands can't be known for decades.  But with the heiress to the throne, Elisabeth, twelve years old the chances are that without an abdication she may join the European trend and start looking forward to being an older monarch.

Elisabeth of Belgium may well lead her country as an older monarch, following the trend being set across Europe

Royal chemistry

Ten years on, some married couples can barely stand to be in the same room as one another.  But according to a new interview to be released in Australia this weekend, Princess Mary of Denmark and her husband are still sending sparks each other's way a decade after they announced their marriage.  The Crown Princess, who the prince refers to as Maz in this interview, will be taking hubby back home again in a few weeks' time for a tour of Australia.  And to mark their arrival, Good Weekend magazine has published an interview and some new photos of the couple.

Walking in high heels down a slippy stone staircase with a future king on your arm is no mean feat

 

The snippets of the article released so far refer to the sparkling chemistry between the two and the ordinary nature of ordinary life for in the extraordinary setting of a European royal palace.  Mary talks about her recent trip to Jordan and tells the journalist interviewing her, later, that she's worried she didn't say all she wanted to say. 

 

 

The Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark just hanging out at home in tux and cocktail dress

 

The couple will be in Australia to help mark the 40th anniversary of the completion of the Sydney Opera House which was designed by Danish architect, Jorn Utzon.  In the early 21st century, it's an Australian who is helping design the future of the Danish monarchy.

 

Mary and Letizia: falling in love

The marriages of kings and queens are told and re-told throughout their lives and for centuries after their deaths.  Even the most obscure of monarchs with a consort has a tale of love, hate or something in between attached to the story. And while many crowned heads of the past met their match at the altar, or sometimes after someone had done the marriage deed for them by proxy, by the end of the 20th century it was accepted and expected that heirs to the throne would pick their own husbands and wives.  Which meant that the sentence just after 'once upon a time' suddenly got interesting.  Instead of 'my father wanted to stop a war/ start a war/ bolster the wool trade' as the following line, a whole new world of possibilities opened up.  Time to look back at the first lines of the love stories that led to Mary Donaldson and Letizia Ortiz becoming royal fiancees a decade ago.

The girl who would be queen - Mary Donaldson photographed as rumours surfaced that she was seeing Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark

The early years of the marriages of the men who will one day be king of Denmark and king of Spain were beyond similar with engagements, weddings and babies following one another sometimes with gaps of just days between them.  But the start of their relationships with their future queen consorts couldn't be more different.  While Frederik and Mary's first meeting has been described many times, sometimes by the couple themselves, the beginning of the Asturias' relationship is still pretty much a mystery.  There are many different tellings of how Spain's most photographed man managed to woo a woman who was on TV every day without anyone knowing.  But while Fred and Mary's once upon a time is easy to fill in, the first chapter of Felipe and Letizia's life together remains all but unknown.

 

Hiding in plain sight - Letizia Ortiz was hardly invisible in Spain in the months leading up to her engagement but very few had even the slightest idea that she was dating the country's future king

What will future royal historians do?  We know more about Henry VIII hooking up with Anne Boleyn than we do about Felipe, darling of the gossip mags, plighting his troth to his girl from Oviedo. There are several versions of their first meeting.  Some trace it back to November 2002 when the ship, the Prestige, sank off the coast of Galicia unleashing a massive oil spill.  The then Letizia Ortiz was sent to cover the story by her bosses at TVE while the prince was on his own work trip looking at the rescue operation and offering words of encouragement. 

Letizia Ortiz during one of her reports on the environmental disaster that accompanied the sinking of the oil tanker, the Prestige, in November 2002

 

Others say that the couple had already met at that point, having run into one another at a dinner party hosted by Pedro Erquicia, another TV journalist.  The date of that dinner party changes according to the version of the romance being told - some put it in early autumn 2002, before the Prestige, and others place it afterwards. And there several different versions of how they all ended up around the same table with some tellings of this love story casting a prince already fascinated by the girl he'd seen on TV asking acquaintances to help him meet her.

 

The lonely prince.  By the time Felipe met Letizia he'd seen several relationships founder after intense press interest. 

 

It all comes back to the fact that no one, apart from the two of them, really knows.  The announcement of their engagement was a massive surprise and journalists of the time had to scrabble to find a photo of them together to illustrate the story.  No such problem with Mary and Frederik.  By the time they were engaged in October 2003, there was an all but official version of their first meeting which has been bolstered in the following years.  They met at the Slip Inn Bar in Sydney when the prince was in town for the 2000 Olympic Games.  Frederik said, many years afterwards, that it was love at first sight. 

 

 

 

Frederik and Mary at a wedding before the announcement of their engagement

 

The second line of their story, to follow once upon a time, will be a neat summing up for the storytellers of the future.  Boy meets girl in a bar also hits all those early 21st century buttons that marks many a modern romance.  In the end, the moment a couple who will spend the rest of their lives together first lock eyes is only known to them but if you marry a monarch, you have to expect plenty of others to try and tell your love story for you. 

 

 

From eyes across a crowded bar to up close and personal in a palace - Mary and Frederik's love story has been pretty easy to retell from day one

A decade of Mary and Letizia

This month marks ten years since those heady few weeks back in 2003 when Europe went royal wedding crazy.  After the excitement of Haakon and Mette-Marit's do in Oslo in August 2001 and the splendor of Willem-Alexander's wedding to Maxima just six months later in February 2002, Europe's heirs had gone a bit quiet on the marriage front.  And then suddenly there were diamonds, rubies and photocalls as far as they eye could see.

 

They even saved the date of the engagement - Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Mary Donaldson on October 8th 2003 following the official announcement they were to marry

In just a few days' time, Mary and Frederik will find themselves exactly ten years on from the official announcement of their engagement.  The news was widely expected after a courtship of around three years.  Even the date of the official proclamation was known in advance as at the end of September 2003, Queen Margrethe II let it be known that on October 8th 2003 she would give the royal approval needed for her heir to marry his Mary.

 

 

A queen consort in waiting begins her journey towards the throne. Mary Donaldson during her first interview after it was confirmed she would marry the future king of Denmark

 

And just as all the excitement of the first royal wedding in Europe for over a year was being absorbed, we got two of a king as Prince Felipe stunned everyone by announcing his engagement to Letizia Ortiz Rocosolano without anyone really realizing they had been seeing one another.

Prince Felipe of Spain, future king, presents his future queen to the media a few days after the surprise announcement of their engagement on November 1st 2003

 

For several years afterwards, the couples' lives seemed to jog along in tandem with weddings and babies happening literally within days of one another.  But the decade has treated both pairs quite differently and over the next few weeks I'm going to be marking that mad marriage month of 2003 by looking back at the beginnings of two of Europe's most famous royal romances and charting how they, and the people involved in them, have fared on the road to becoming modern monarchs.  There will be plenty of polls about it too, changing through the month.  Ten years on, how has life treated these two very different queens in waiting?

Extreme royalty

A little bit of extreme sport seems to be a growing trend for Europe's royals at the moment.  Albert of Monaco might have decided petanque was the way to go after a lifetime of bobsleighing for Monaco but the heirs and the spares have started going a bit daredevil in recent months.  Latest member of the club is Princess Mary of Denmark who had a go at abseiling during her Home Guard training.

 

It might look like a smile of relief but this is Princess Mary of Denmark looking happy and excited before she began her abseil.

 

Hubby Frederik had already had a go at the Ironman Copenhagen competition in August which involved him swimming almost four kilometres, then hopping on his bike for a 180 km ride and finishing off with a 42 kilometer run.  It took him 10 hours and 45 minutes.  And just a few weeks later he was off to America to have a go on one of the boats in training for the America's Cup.  And then no doubt a bit of a lie down.

 

 

Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark at the start of his participation in this years' Copenhagen Ironman competition

 

Across the bridge to Sweden and Prince Carl Philip has been indulging his love of fast cars this summer.  The prince has a racing licence from the Swedish Motor Sport Association and this year he got his own fast car tournament when he launched the Carl Philip Racing Cup for karting which is part of a competition to encourage young drivers to improve their skills. 

 

 

Prince Carl Philip of Sweden presenting the cup that bears his name for the first time - August 2013

 

But none of them come close to their Norwegian cousin, Crown Prince Haakon.  In surely one of the most bizarre announcements ever made by a royal household, Norway's court let everyone know in July this year that the heir to the throne had just arrived at his fortieth birthday party by parachute.  Normally, courtiers document audiences with ambassadors or the opening of events but every now and again you have to expect to issue information on a parachuting Crown Prince.  He's set the bar pretty high for other royals to follow.

 

 

Back on terra firma, the heir to the Norwegian throne at the start of his 40th birthday party

Mary scales the heights

Princess on parade, Mary of Denmark, is back from her training with the Danish Home Guard and while we were expecting lots of camouflage and soldiers, we weren't expecting the wife of the heir to the throne hanging off a stone cliff face.  But there she is, up in the air, held only by wires and seeming to enjoy the enjoy the whole experience.  We expect royals to keep smiling but surely there must be times they're allowed a pass on that one.

 

Even from this distance the mega watt smile is there for all to see - Crown Princess Mary of Denmark on her Home Guard training exercise earlier this week

 

The princess is a lieutenant in the Home Guard which she joined in 2008 after her initial training.  She now takes part in regular operations to maintain her skills.  The latest involved a firing exercise, training in guarding ports and a spot of light abseiling. 

 

 

 

The princess training to guard ports and ships in her Home Guard training

 

The princess obviously escaped from the quarry wall in one piece.  And what with Crown Prince Frederik taking part in the Copenhagen Ironman Competition and the princess now leaping off cliffs, it looks like this autumn might be ever so slightly competitive in the Amalienborg Palace.

Royal votes for the Olympics

Prince Felipe of Spain might be pinning his hopes to a big win for the Madrid 2020 Olympic bid but he isn't the only royal in Buenos Aires ahead of the vote - and I'm not talking about Letizia turning up to join him ahead of the big envelope opening on Saturday September 7th 2013.  Because as the prince continues his lobbying for the Games to return to Spain for the first time since Barcelona 1992 he will have seen some friendly faces in the audience of all those presentations and Q&A sessions he's been taking part in.  Five of the members of the IOC who decide on the venue are Euroean royals.

 

The Princess of Asturias arrives in Buenos Aires ahead of the final decision on where the Olympic Games of 2020 will be held. Madrid's bid, headed by her husband, is tipped to win

 

These princes and princesses get a big say in where the biggest sporting event on Earth will take place in seven years' time.  But there's no king involved in the decision - Willem-Alexander had been a member of the committee for several years but gave up his place when he took over as monarch of the Netherlands in April.  But he will be there, possibly with Queen Maxima, as the votes are cast.

 

Willem-Alexander gave up his membership of the International Olympic Committee to spend more time with his kingdom

There is a sovereign prince though.  Prince Albert II of Monaco has had a say in where the youth of the world gather every four years since 1985.  The prince took part in the bobsleigh in seemingly twenty or thirty Winter Olympics - just look at his biography on the IOC webpage.  And he certainly lists far more sports of interest to him than any other royal member of the IOC.  And of course this time round he's had advice from a summer Olympian over the dinner table.  Princess Charlene swam for South Africa in the Sydney games of 2000 but the royal couple will be hoping that the combination of their sporting genes will produce stronger results for any future child.  Neither of them won a medal.

 

Albert of Monaco has taken part in multiple Winter Olympics - on Saturday 7th September he will help decide where the 2020 games take place

There's also a ruling hereditary duke on the committee as Henri of Luxembourg has been a member of the IOC since 1998.  He lists his favourite sports as swimming, sailing and water skiing but there's no Olympic past for this royal deciding the future of the Games.  He'll be hoping there's no major recounting as he has to get back to his duchy to oversee final preparations for the marriage of his second son, Felix, is due to get married on September 21st.

 

Henri of Luxembourg is an old hand at picking cities for Olympic Games

Newest royal kid on the voting block is Prince Frederik of Denmark who was elected to the IOC in 2009 and who is casting his ballot for the first time.  The Olympics have a pretty special place in Frederik's heart - if the IOC hadn't plumped for Sydney as the 2000 host city then he might never have met Mary.  And he's good pals with Felipe, already joking that he's stopped taking the prince's calls about Madrid 2020. 

Crown Prince Frederik will need to pick his Olympic venue carefully - by 2020, his eldest son Christian will be 15 and looking for a  girlfriend and we all know what happens when Danish princes go to the Olympic Games

 

The longest serving royal on the committee is Princess Anne.  She's been involved since 1976 - joining not long after her own appearance at the Montreal Games.  She didn't make the podium but did get to present her daughter, Zara, with a silver medal when she and her colleagues came in second in the team eventing at London 2012.  The Princess Royal has worked for decades to promote sport in the UK and has lent her support actively to the charity Riding for the Disabled for many years.  And she's one of the most enduring members of the IOC so will be able to keep the youngsters right if the voting starts to drag on.

 

The Princess Royal presents Zara Philipps with her silver medal at London 2012

One more princess rounds off the complement of European regal voters on the IOC.  Princess Nora of Liechtenstein, younger sister of the grand duke, has been a member since 1987.  She's also the president of the Special Olympics Association in Liechtenstein. 

Princess Nora of Liechtenstein has been on the IOC for 26 years

 

Felipe does have two relatives on the committee but sadly for him his auntie Pilar and uncle Constantine are honorary members and don't have a vote. But the Infanta Pilar has been praising her nephew's efforts to bring the Games to Madrid, describing his work as colossal and telling journalists how integral he's been to getting IOC members to consider backing Madrid.  He's working, she said from 8 in the morning until 11 at night most days so he needed an evening off and last night he and Letizia headed out for a catch up.  It also gave them photographers the first chance to snap them together since their stint in Mallorca and those rumours of a rocky summer. If the envelope on Saturday does contain the name Madrid, all those whispers will be forgotten quicker than you can say opening ceremony.