Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark

Categories: 1972 births | Danish royals | People of Hobart | Princesses

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark (née Mary Elizabeth Donaldson), born 5 February 1972 in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, is the wife of Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.

Family

Crown Princess Mary's father, Dr. John Dalgleish Donaldson, serves as a guest professor at the University of Aarhus (Crown Prince Frederik's alma mater). He was a professor in the Division of Applied Mathematics at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in South Korea. Until 2003, he was employed by the University of Tasmania, where he was head of the Department of Mathematics and, later, Academic Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology. He has taught at Oxford University. He also was a senior fellow at the National Science Foundation in Houston, Texas, in the 1970s, and was a visiting professor at the University of Houston. The Crown Princess's mother was Henrietta Clark Donaldson (née Horne), who was the executive assistant to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Tasmania. She died in 1997, following a heart operation. Both of the Crown Princess's parents were born in Scotland and moved to Tasmania in 1963.

In 2001, John Dalgleish Donaldson married Susan Elizabeth (née Horwood). As Susan Moody she writes popular crime novels. She also writes under the names Susannah James and Susan Madison.

The Crown Princess has three siblings:

• Jane Alison Stephens (b. 26 December 1965)
• Patricia Anne Bailey (b. 16 March 1968)
• John Stuart Donaldson (b. 9 July 1970)

Education and career

After having attended elementary school in Houston, Texas, and high school in Australia, the Crown Princess attended Hobart Matriculation College for two years. She completed her studies at the University of Tasmania, which she attended from 1989 until 1994, at which time she graduated with Bachelors of Commerce and Laws (BCom.LLB) degrees. She later qualified for professional certificates in advertising and direct marketing. Prior to her marriage, she worked for DDB Needham in Melbourne, Young and Rubicam in Sydney and Microsoft Business Solutions in Copenhagen, among other employers. She worked as a sales director at Belle Properties, a real estate firm in Sydney. She also taught Business English at a language school in Paris.

Courtship

Mary Donaldson met His Royal Highness Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark at the Slip Inn, an inner-city pub in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia during the 2000 Summer Olympics. Mary has told about the evening she and her four flatmates went to meet some Spaniards who participated in the Games: "It was a party of some Australians and two nephews of the Spanish king, plus Crown Prince Frederik, Prince Joachim, Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Princess Märtha Louise. I didn't know who they were," she told Danish journalist Anne Wolden-Raethinge (Ninka) in a series of interviews in 2004 that became the basis of a bestselling book called "Kronprinsesse Mary". "Half an hour later one my flatmates came up to me and asked: Do you know these people are prince this and princess that? Of course we have Queen Elizabeth as head of state, but in many ways we are a kind of republic, we don't have royals in Australia, so it was kind of unusual to run into that kind of people. But it was nothing more than that to it."

Mary Donaldson and Crown Prince Frederik became engaged 8 October2003 and were married on 14 May, 2004, in Copenhagen, at Copenhagen Cathedral. In connection with the marriage, she became Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess of Denmark. The Crown Prince and Crown Princess reportedly spent their honeymoon in Tanzania and Zanzibar, though a Danish newspaper, Ekstra Bladet, said that the royal couple spent part of their honeymoon in Kenya.

Change of citizenship and prenuptial agreement

The Danish Folketing (parliament) passed a special law giving Mary Donaldson, who was a citizen of Australia and the United Kingdom, Danish citizenship upon her wedding, a standard procedure for new foreign members of the royal family. A Presbyterian, she agreed to become a Lutheran. She signed a prenuptial agreement exactly like the ones her commoner father-in-law and her commoner sister-in-law had signed when they entered the royal family. The agreement limits any claim on the assets of her spouse and the royal family. It was officially registered moments before the court registry closed on Friday 14 May 2004, the day of the wedding.

Birth of an heir

It was widely expected after their wedding that the Crown Prince Couple would soon have children. Crown Princess Mary told Andrew Denton in an interview for Australian television in February 2005 that it was "no secret" that they were planning to start a family. Crown Prince Frederik jokingly told Danish reporters that he hoped there would be "kænguruer i pungen" or "kangaroos in the pouch" by the 2008 Olympics, an allusion to the female kangaroo that carries a juvenile (called a joey) in a pouch on the belly for up to a year.

On 25 April 2005 the Danish royal court announced that the Crown Princess was pregnant with her first child, due to be born in October.

At 01:57 local time on 15 October 2005 Crown Princess Mary gave birth to a boy, speculated to be named Prince Christian of Denmark, at the Copenhagen University Hospital [1]. The last 10 hours of Mary's labour were spent at the hospital. The child was healthy with an apgar score of 10 (out of 10) after 1 minute. The boy was 3.5 kg / 7.7 lbs and 51 cm / 20 ins, Crown Prince Frederik was present during the delivery of his son.

Residences

The official residence of the Crown Prince and his family is the Chancellery House, an early 18th-century structure that is built by Fredensborg Palace, about 25 miles north of Copenhagen. It was previously the home of the Crown Prince's maternal grandmother, Queen Ingrid. They also have a temporary apartment in Copenhagen, at Moltke's Palace, a part of the Amalienborg Palace complex, which will be their home until renovations are completed on their new home, Brockdorff's Palace, which is also part of Amalienborg and was the home of the Crown Prince's maternal grandparents, King Frederick IX of Denmark and Queen Ingrid, formerly HRH Princess Ingrid of Sweden.

External links

• Official website
• Interactive fullscreen panoramas from the Royal Wedding (Quicktime)

References

Australian Associated Press Ltd, 'Mary expecting new heir to Danish throne', Sydney Morning Herald, 25 April 2005. [2]da:Kronprinsesse Mary de:Kronprinzessin Mary fo:Krúnprinsessa Mary fr:Mary Donaldson it:Mary Donaldson ko:메리 왕세자비 nl:Mary Elizabeth van Denemarken ja:デンマーク皇太子妃メアリー no:Mary av Danmark pl:Maria Elżbieta (księżniczka duńska) sv:Kronprinsessan Mary av Danmark