As heir to the thrown, the Crown Prince has always known that one day he would become the 10th Frederik in the long succession of monarchs.
For more than 500 years the name Frederik has been linked to the Danish monarchy. Even though several of the Crown Prince’s forefathers, also called Frederik, have not always been equally peace-loving, it is characteristic for our age that the name Frederik is a composite of the Nordic word for peace – Fred – and the Old Germanic word for “ruler”.
The history of the Danish Kings called Frederik is also the history of Denmark in recent times – from a past rife with feuds for power and territory, to the present where the monarch is a logical part of a democratic Denmark, which has its own place in the international community.
If one looks back to the line of descendant kings and queens, one meets all the Crown Prince’s forefathers and predecessors who have actually reformed and improved the kingdom. Their problems with everything from the treasury and financing the realm, other claims to the throne, and threats from foreign enemies are no longer concerns of a modern monarch. Today a king or queen is not expected to lead the way on the battlefield to defend the kingdom.
Denmark’s coming king has already undergone a very extensive education in political science and many of the disciplines in the armed forces because the Danish Royal Family and the Danes themselves, expect the Regent to be able assess and understand his country’s political challenges.
A Crown Prince of his own time
The day Crown Prince Frederik ascends the throne of Denmark he will be the sixth monarch in the line of Glücksborg, a family which took the Danish throne when Christian IX was crowned after Frederik VII died without an heir in 1863. The Crown Prince’s Great, Great, Great, Grandfather was often described as the Father in Law of all Europe, because 4 of his 6 children became monarchs on the thrones of Europe. It is possible to see in the current Crown Prince himself, many similarities, parallels and personal traits from his many descendants.
When the Glücksborg family ascended the Danish throne, the new King’s eldest son was 10 years old. Prince Frederik prepared himself for a future as King – just as his “Brother in name” the Crown Prince is doing – by undertaking extensive military training and by studying Political Science. His reign was short – only six years, but he played an important rôle in the monarchy’s co-operation with the modern parliamentary system which was introduced with a change of system in 1901.
Crown Prince Frederik’s Great Grandfather, King Christian X was very involved in politics and he became a unifying figure for the entire nation during the German occupation WW II. In the many years when the Crown Prince’s Grandfather Frederik IX reigned with Queen Ingrid at his side, public interest in the royal family increased gradually, and the view of the Danish people were sought in a referendum on question of accession. In connection with As part of the referendum to amend the Danish Constitution in 1953, the Danish people voted for female succession so that Princess Margrethe, the eldest daughter of three girls, could succeed her father on the throne.
Queen Margrethe II became the first in the order of succession. Since the King’s death in 1972 the Kingdom of Denmark has had a Queen on the throne.
Crown Prince Frederik is a man of his own time – as every succeeding monarch has been in the history of Denmark. His life and training has therefore also always been aimed towards his position as the “man of the future” in the Danish royal family. In a time where the monarch no longer has any significant political influence, the importance of the monarch for public life has consistently been maintained at a very high level, not least because it has manage to keep abreast of the times.
Crown Prince Frederik is the common denominator between the historic perspective and modern society.
A torch bearer
When a new Danish prince was born in 1968, his parents, Queen Margrethe II and Prince Consort Henrik, brought the natural order back to the names of the Danish kings. The king called Christian had always been one or two numbers ahead of the king called Frederik. So when the heir to the throne was christened Frederik it brought the alternate sequence back on track between the traditional name of Danish Kings – Christian or Frederik. The last Christian was King Christian X, and the next Frederik will be King Frederik X – the balance has been restored.
And this balance has since shown itself to be key word for the Crown Prince.
Absolutely everything the Crown Prince does has the total attention of the media – as “good material that will sell”. His youth, his upbringing, school days, maturing years – the official duties, representative tasks, international training and study and his professional career in the armed forces have all been presented to a fascinated public. The Crown Prince has managed to find a balance in his various activities between his private life which is his own, and his public life which is considered as belonging to the Danes.
Crown Prince Frederik has also quite literally been a torch-bearer for the Danish royal family.
When he carried the Olympic torch through the streets of Copenhagen on its way north to the Winter Olympics in Norway in 1994, it looked to many like a symbol of the Crown Prince’s own life and destiny. As a future king he would receive and carry forward the torch from his mother, and in that way create continuity from his grandfather and maintain those links to other Royal Houses.
The Danes feel they almost know the Royal Family personally. Crown Prince Frederik has become more and more in harmony with this privilege and challenge as the years pass. What it actually means be mean to be a fully experienced reigning monarch is something only a very few will ever be destined to know. The next in succession will be Frederik X who, with his attitudes and actions, will shape the future of the Danish monarchy.
For this reason Crown Prince Frederik has trained himself to lead the monarchy onwards into the 21st Century, both as an academic with his studies at Harvard University in USA and as a Master of Political Science from Aarhus University, and as a military man, with a high level of training and achievement in all three services, followed by specialist training in the navy’s Special Boat Squadron (similar to the USA’s Navy SEALS).
But besides his academic achievements, his broad military career and his many official duties, Crown Prince Frederik has found time to round out his profile himself as an all-rounder – a sportsman and a person who appreciates nature. He is a very competent tennis player and skier. He has taken part in marathon runs, sailed in the World Cup “Dragon class” yachting championships and has been part of the expeditionary Sirius Patrol 2000 where he travelled a gruelling 2500 kilometres around the northern perimeter of Greenland in the Arctic Circle.
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