Who is Queen Margarethe?
Educated at Cambridge, the LSE and the Sorbonne, and speaking five languages fluently, she is not afraid to make nuanced, often subtle arguments in her New Year speeches, which are watched by three million people, more than half the population.
“It’s not just a formal speech, but to a much larger extent than other monarchs in Europe, she gives advice to Danes on how to live their lives,” says Mr Hovebakke Sorensen.
At the same time, she is lively and fun, an unapologetic smoker with a ready, husky laugh. She can even be quite flamboyant, wearing brightly coloured, self-made outfits to events. In her younger days, she sometimes went shopping in Copenhagen on her own.
“The general security level of society has changed since then,” says Karin Palshøj, author of Royal Denmark. “But she still attends performances of ballet and theatre, and she is a frequent churchgoer, where she sits among the other churchgoers.”
This is not to say she is informal, and she insists on being addressed with the Danish polite form for “you” (now more or less reserved for her alone), and is always well turned out.
