Frederik and Mary's Introduction and Courtship

[stellam]

Thanks Muhler but can we have some more please?

[Muhler]

Originally Posted by stellad

Thanks Muhler but can we have some more please?

You are welcome, StellaD (Nice to see you).

I'm looking into it. Will have to write it down first though.

[missjane]

I actually remember reading ( somewhere, who knows) that they had visited El Questro before Mary moved overseas. I cannot for the life of me remember where though. It might have been in the paper. But all the extra info is really interesting.( thanks Muhler!)

[eliz]

what an amazing love story!
from the information that can be gathered, it seems a very good combination of immediate physical attraction (that night at the pub) and getting to know each other in depth and at a physical distance.

[Muhler]

Excerpts from the chapter: Kærlighed – Love, from the book Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark.
Written by Gitte Redder & Karin Palshøj.

(About meeting Mary for the first time).
Frederik: “I really suffered from jet-lag and I was really burned out after finishing a demanding training as a pilot back home. And then I land in Australia, where everybody is very fond of sports and enthusiastic about sports. Sydney was just in party-mood, and everyone was in town to follow the events and cheer the athletes. We quickly got embroiled in the party-commotion and one of my Greek cousins arranged for him and me to go out dining with some of our other cousins, (*) who were also there to see the games. Some locals would join us. Mary was one of them”.

Already the day after, after way too little sleep, Frederik feels that he must contact Mary again. Test, whether this was just a fun night on the town or whether it was more than that.
“I called first. There was something special about that girl, I felt, and she wasn’t dismissive either, when I called. So we actually met several times during the Olympic Games and got to know each other better and better.
When Jeppe (Handwerk) and I were ready for our long planned drive north along the Australian coast to Cape York, she waved goodbye. And I actually called Mary all the time. As often as I could and where there was a signal. I couldn’t help it”.

(After having returned to DK, after the death of Queen Ingrid).
That winter at home in Denmark, Frederik’s phone bills also become abnormal, because he constantly call long-distance to Mary. And convince her over time, that he really is serious about his pledge to visit her. That he will return at the beginning of the new year.
“I really felt that it was a soul mate. I was drawn to Mary on all fronts. It was fantastic. The beginning was a bit secretive, but very beautiful. If you are to visualize it, it was almost like a summer landscape in moonlight. Tranquil water in a small pond and lots of kindness and beauty. It is like describing a landscape bathed in moonlight. This is how I remember her from the first meeting and it gets better and better, more and more beautiful”. To this day Frederik speaks with a tenderness in his eyes that leaves no one in doubt that his is still smitten/crazy about his Mary.

To the Crown Prince it’s decisive that more than a year passes before the press gets wind of the romance.
“It was enormously good that the press didn’t discover anything and that our love (**) could develop. There were obstacles enough as it was. Not least the distance. But the year that passed before we decided that something drastic/radical had to happen, we had to ourselves. It was exciting and a really good test to see whether we really wanted each other. Several months passed between us meeting each other. It was hard. It was really hard to live with that want. (***) But it was also obvious that for the last month up to our next meeting, we could almost no longer cope with the want any longer. Then the dame came, where I flew down to her, or she came to France. Then we rejuvenated that happiness, joy and love and much more. And then we separated and it was terrible to go apart again. It was really a thriller (a shocker). But it was also a good test of our love. Because it quickly dawned on us, that it wasn't just a blinding crush in connection with the Olympics, which had to recede. Neither of us thought so.
It was easier for me to go to Australia than for Mary to go to Denmark. In Sydney there wasn’t a great interest in me, because I’m no movie star or rock star – and it wasn’t like you were shadowed. During that year we fortunately had some peace to tend to ourselves”.

More later. This book is very easy to translate. It has a good “rhythm”.

(*) Fætre and kusiner.

(**) DK-lesson:
Forelskelse = in love. The initial crush you go through. Some are fortunate enough to remain in love throughout their lives. For most it (hopefully) develops into something deeper; love.
So that next stage is called: kærlighed = love, in Danish.

(***) Really missing each other.

[CrownPrincess5]

Fred Jensen...nice
Nice stories....I wanted to cry after reading one of them:( Thanx Muhler

[Muhler]

Continuation.

The undiscovered dates between the Crown Prince and Mary takes place in Porter Street, where Mary lives with others in a charming post-Victorian townhouse from the 1920’s. The quiet Porter Street with the dense rows of Eucalyptus trees, which are so characteristic for Australia, become a haven and hiding place for Mary and Frederik. Here they can ride by bicycle down to the famous Bondi Beach in just a little under ten minutes, go for a swim and end the day with a barbeque on the beach or the local specialty, pizza with pumpkin.
Mary meets Frederik on her home-turf and gets to know him as if he was any other young man. In the unpretentious commune everybody take turn cleaning, cooking and washing up, and Fred, as he is simply known by Mary’s friends, impress the other with his skills as a cook and don’t mind flagging the dishtowels. Frederik is also introduced to two of Mary’s very best fiends. The mate from her youth and college mate from Tasmania, Hamish Campbell, who later becomes godfather for the little Prince Christian. And the (female) friend Amber Petty, whom Mary knows from Melbourne.
In Sydney Frederik and Mary also spend a lot of time together with the Australian sail-sportsman and real estate manager Chris Meehan and his Danish girlfriend and now wife (formal word), the sail-sportswoman Michaela Ward. The Danish-Australian double romance remains undiscovered by the Danish press, even though it involves an unmarried Crown Prince above the age of 30.
The two couples go sailing together and Chris Meehan and Frederik establish a close friendship. When Frederik visits Sydney, he picks up his sweetheart (*) at Belle Property, where Mary as sales director often works long hours. But the employees don’t know that Mary’s sweetheart is a genuine Crown Prince, and neither Mary nor Chris disclose that.
“Frederik also spend a lot of time with some of my friends. I didn’t think it was necessary to tell, neither my employees, nor my acquaintances exactly who he was. And I’m convinced Frederik enjoyed that freedom it was to be perceived as everybody else”, tells Chris Meehan.

During 2001 Frederik and Mary also go on a couple of holidays alone. (**) Mary borrows summer cottages by some friends and abducts Frederik to Australian scenic gems of nature.
“During one of my visits we lived in a small cottage almost up at the border to Queensland, where the climate is sub-tropical, lush and very, very beautiful. During a second visit Mary took me south of Sydney to a beautiful house, next to the beach. We went for long walks along the water, cooked good meals – or rather I cooked, because Mary isn’t that good at it – then we also really got to know each other. It was about laughing and talking, and getting further out into the bush, in regards to each other. Be present for each other”.
The secret love-vacations in Australia are remembered by Frederik down to the last detail. And as Frederik puts it himself, he made no fuss in telling Mary about the Danish Royal House, and what it takes to be a crown princess in the oldest monarchy in the world.
“Not al all. It was more the joy and innocence. She naturally knew who I was. I don’t know how much she had checked me out on the Net – but certainly not enough to find the horror-scenarios. We didn’t talk much about how it was at home and how our parents were, and where we came from. It was more funny things, loving things, as it is in the beginning of a great relationship of love. That thing being in love (***) is being build up. It was really lovely. Innocent, but totally in love. We took very much care of each other and of ourselves. We weren’t to show too much, how much it meant, (****) even though we couldn’t hide how fond we were for each other”.
Frederik smiles a little shy/awkward at the memory of the difficult act of balance it was to show your love and at the same time hide it, in order not to be too vulnerable.

The love for Mary grows during the first year. Frederik feels a depth, a seriousness and obviousness in regards to his feelings for Mary, which he has never experienced before. He is completely without doubt as to the character of his love.
“It was just everything about her, that I was drawn to. What it was exactly is difficult to say, when I love my wife (informal word) as I do. In the beginning it was her eyes and relatively deep voice and then Mary is an exciting person, but also very responsive”.
In October 2001 Frederik again goes to Sydney in order to enjoy both Mary and the Australian Spring. For thirteen months they have known each other and during Frederik’s two weeklong visits, they decide that Mary should go to Europe. It’s simply unsustainable for the couple in love to settle with seeing each other so rarely. Now their love must pass the big test. To Mary it’s a decision with big consequences to break up from her family, friends and job, but none of them are in doubt that it’s the right thing, when they kiss goodbye on Friday the 9th November 2001.
It will be the last anonymous date between the two of them in Australia. After more than a year’s secret romance the Danish press corps have finally gone into action. Who will be the first in revealing the identity of the sweetheart of the Crown Prince?
Less than flattering methods are used. The gossip magazines sales rise proportionally with royal romance and that’s why Se & Hør (*****) Billed Bladet put everything in on being the first with the news. Already in September 2001 Se & Hør reveals, to the undivided amusement of Frederik, that his new girlfriend is Belinda Stowell and that she is a gold-medallist at the Olympics in Sydney. After decades with the constant attention of the press, the Crown Prince knows it’s only a matter of days or weeks, before the revelation comes, but he and Mary has had a years solid lead ahead of the Danish weeklies and still enjoy being able to stroll around in Sydney without curious glances.
That changes three days after Frederik returned home. When Mary Donaldson Monday the 12th November in the late afternoon leaves her office at Belle Property, Anna Johannesen, the Billed Bladet Journalist is waiting for her and asks whether she is the sweetheart of the Crown Prince.
“No comments”, replies Mary Donaldson. But a photographer is snapping away and Thursday that same week, Mary ends up on the cover of Billed Bladet, which thereby lives up to it’s slogan: “Denmark’s Royal Weekly”. In one go Mary Donaldson in Belle Property becomes famous in Denmark. The peace and anonymity vanish forever. Her workplace is put under siege by photographers and journalists, yes, a Danish gossips weekly hire an Australian free-lance journalist to empty Mary’s waste bins in order to get a look into the shopping habits of the sweetheart of the Crown Prince.
But Mary and Frederik have made up their minds and Mary hands over the lease contract for Porter Street to her roommate Andrew Miles, packs and move initially to Paris. Closer to Frederik. Now it’ll become a weekend-relationship.

More later.

(*) May this charming word never vanish from the English language.

(**) With the usual anonymous gentlemen trailing behind.

(***) Forelskelsen = the initial stages of love. See also note in previous post. – You English speakers really need a few more words in your language…

(****) No, lest you scare her away.

(*****) Which in 2001 still treated its victims, let alone the readers with some respect.

[Sternchen]

Originally Posted by Muhler

In Sydney Frederik and Mary also spend a lot of time together with the Australian sail-sportsman and real estate manager Chris Meehan and his Danish girlfriend and now wife (formal word), the sail-sportswoman Michaela Ward. The Danish-Australian double romance remains undiscovered by the Danish press, even though it involves an unmarried Crown Prince above the age of 30.
The two couples go sailing together and Chris Meehan and Frederik establish a close friendship. When Frederik visits Sydney, he picks up his sweetheart (*) at Belle Property, where Mary as sales director often works long hours. But the employees don’t know that Mary’s sweetheart is a genuine Crown Prince, and neither Mary nor Chris disclose that.
“Frederik also spend a lot of time with some of my friends. I didn’t think it was necessary to tell, neither my employees, nor my acquaintances exactly who he was. And I’m convinced Frederik enjoyed that freedom it was to be perceived as everybody else”, tells Chris Meehan.

To me it sounds like Mary worked for Belle Property even before she got to know Fred

[Kataryn]

Thank you so much Muhler for posting this very interesting report. We already had Mary's interviews and its so nice to see how fond both have been for the first steps in their relationship. I'll never forget the moment when Frederick saw his beautiful bride for the first time in her wedding finery and how absolutely adorable he was with this happiness beaming from him. Ah, and I'm one of the group who thinks that his brother Joachim's joy on seeing his beautiful bride Marie in church was as genuine as Frederick's.

[ashelen]

wow, how exciting to know alll that, anyone has that first cover of her in Bulled Bladet? thank you so much for the translations1

[Sternchen]

Here it is

http://www.hola.com/famosos/2001/11/...imgs/din2a.jpg

[ashelen]

Originally Posted by Sternchen

Here it is

http://www.hola.com/famosos/2001/11/...imgs/din2a.jpg

Thank you so much, I never saw it before, she looks quite upset! and what a different look!

[Muhler]

My ladies, it's my pleasure.
And Kataryn, you are in the group, that noticed Joachim go: Wow! When he saw our Marie for the first time.

Continued.

Already after some months in Paris, Mary Donaldson moves to Copenhagen in the spring of 2002. She gets a job a project consultant at the it-giant Microsoft in Northern Zealand and tries to live as normal a life as possible. (She) Explores her new city from the saddle of a bicycle and buy groceries at Irma. (1)

“It was good that Mary could stay here in this country as Miss Donaldson, lived in her own apartment and had a fine job. I was also busy in the military with a leadership education, (2) so we each had our things to get up for in the morning. We kissed each other in the morning (3) and again in the evening. That entire process was fantastic and again – we didn’t try to rush things. Mary should experience Denmark, the Danes and me, and in many ways she got her own life and network and could go around at Strøget, (4) without anyone spotting her. She was to get to know her country from below and not from the top. We had an everyday-life and build each other up for something, we both felt became better and better. We didn’t directly speak about wedding, but we felt we were aiming for something. We laid down the keel, as if we were to build a ship and kept on building more and more all the time, so that the boat could float at some point.
It was lovely to have that opportunity to develop us together in my country. It was really the right way to go. It isn’t all a rose garden for someone like us to attract a future partner. Say: Here you go, we are sweethearts, you have to go to Denmark – I can’t leave my country, you can leave yours”.

Asked directly as to whether he during the first years of them being in love, before the official engagement, thought about whether Mary would be able to handle the difficult and demanding role as crown princess, whether he at any point examined her, Frederik replies at once and unmistakably: “No”!
“It was all about me being crazy/infatuated with that girl, she was my sweetheart. It would be too speculative for me, if I said that I have already selected her for becoming crown princess and to be manipulated in that direction. I really didn’t think like that at all. I thought about what was best for her, and how we could have the best time in Denmark. It succeeded – and if you really want it, and we did, and I in particular, then you can get some time together. In stead of saying: Oh, it’s never possible to go outside, because the press is ready – and it’s here, there and everywhere (5), because then it’s the press who decide our relationship, and that must not be. If you are wild about a girl, then being in love is fortunately way above practical and material considerations. So yes, it was really big”, determines Frederik and reject again that he at any point made a sober assessment at whether Mary was suitable or not as the future crown princess and queen of Denmark.
“But, when you are in love and engaged – and we are still in love – that’s not what decides it. Speaking for myself, if you have a good/solid/adequate experience of life, sensibility and intuition, I don’t have to see and look at her and assess whether she can fit in, in an official function and handle the pressure. You are just pleased that you get something from each other, every day you are together”.

(During 2002 and 2003 the press is tripping from impatience, but M&F will not rush things).

In January 2003 Frederik and Mary travel to Tasmania. The Crown Prince to take part in the world championships in sailing a two-man sailing boat competition (6) with his boat Nanoq. Mary to a loving family visit and play with those nieces and nephews she haven’t seen during that year she has now lived in France and Denmark. At the quay at the port in Mary’s hometown, Hobart, the love-smitten couple for the first time kisses in public. It’s really just as kiss on the cheek, but it becomes a sensation in Denmark. Its like Mary has kissed not only Frederik, but also the entire kingdom and again and again the kiss on the cheek is shown in slow replay on several TV-channels. Editorials are even written about it. Such a kiss commits! (7)
“This time it’s a sure thing. The public kiss on Tasmania was the final seal. A crown Prince cannot run away from that unpunished. The timing was perfect, if not a feat of diplomatic proves by the Crown Prince. He is on Tasmania, the homeland of Mary Donaldson. He cannot publish the engagement here. That naturally has to happen at home in Denmark. But as a gesture, he could here in the hometown of Mary Donaldson, for the first time publicly call her his sweetheart. The next step was the photo session at the harbor, to which he had invited (the press), and where the young ones sealed the connection with the kiss A future king cannot have a photo like that lying around in photo archives all over the world, if he intends to choose another one as his future queen sometime. So what on the face of it could look like an innocent summer-greeting down there on Tasmania, was really the dress rehearsal for that engagement, which must soon be at hand”, writes Jyllands Posten in an editorial on 21st January 2003. (8)

The Crown Prince explains that the famous kiss on the cheek on the quay in Hobart wasn’t carefully planned – neither to get some peace, nor to signal that it was to be them.
As soon as he put his foot on Tasmanian soil, Frederik noted that there was an incredibly lot of Danish press present. “And not to cover the world championships in racing, mind you”, he laughs.
“We were not out to hide or flee or pretend we didn’t know each other. And the harbor was a public place, so we might just as well kiss each other anyway – and then the press will use that as they will. Why should I put restrictions on myself, when she whom I love is standing next to me, and why should I pretend we’ve only just met and avoid kissing. Then the press could interpret the kiss, as they wanted. But it’s a classic seaman thing to do. When the seaman go out, the wives and later the children where standing to bid farewell and kiss goodbye, because it might be the last kiss. It became so for many seamen, because many never returned. It’s a good thing to kiss. One ought to kiss each other more than you do. Kiss on the cheek, when you leave each other when you leave each other in the morning and say: Have a nice day, and again when you come home. Kiss good day/hello and ask: Have you had a nice day? It’s a natural thing to do”. (9)

The proposal tomorrow.

(1) A supermarket chain.

(2) Presumably as a staff officer.

(3) Meaning that she de facto had moved in with Frederik, even though she officially had her own apartment.

(4) The main pedestrian and shopping street in Copenhagen. Tourist trap!

(5) They seek them here, they seek them there.
Those reporters seek them everywhere.
Are they in heaven or are they in… Sorry, got carried away.

(6) Sorry, don’t know what this type of boat is called in English. Doesn’t matter though.

(7) The authors are not exaggerating!

(8) Jyllands Posten is DK’s largest newspaper. It’s a serious newspaper, which doesn’t deal that much in the DRF. Even less back then.

(9) Cannot agree more!

[Duke of Marmalade]

Originally Posted by Muhler

Already after some months in Paris, Mary Donaldson moves to Copenhagen in the Spring of 2002.

Thanks Muhler. Do we have any information about Mary's time in Paris? I've never seen any information about what she did there / pictures / French language skills from that time.

[eliz]

first of all, thanks muhker for the beautiful translation!
then... wow, pretty damn romantic our frederik, isn'he? has mary's side of the story been published someplace? e.g. what didi she think when she realized he was not frederik from danemark but THE frederik, crown prince et caetera? or how hard was it to her to leave her family and country, or to face the press?

[Sternchen]

Originally Posted by Duke of Marmalade

Thanks Muhler. Do we have any information about Mary's time in Paris? I've never seen any information about what she did there / pictures / French language skills from that time.

She was teaching english at that time

I første halvår af 2002, efter en beslutning om at ville flytte til Europa, arbejdede Kronprinsessen i en kort periode i Paris, hvor hun underviste i engelsk på en engelsk erhvervssprogskole.

http://kongehuset.dk/publish.php?dog..._familien_mary

In the first half of 2002, after taking the decision to move to Europe, Crown Princess Mary worked for a short period in Paris, where she taught English at a Business English School.

http://kongehuset.dk/publish.php?dogtag=k_en_fam_mary

[Duke of Marmalade]

Originally Posted by Sternchen

She was teaching english at that time



Kongehuset - Kongehuset - HKH Kronprinsessen



The Danish Monarchy - The Royal House - HRH The Crown Princess

Thanks Sternchen but I meant apart from the official biography promoted by the Royal House that will include the usual airbrush that can be found in almost any royal biography

[Muhler]

Originally Posted by Duke of Marmalade

Thanks Sternchen but I meant apart from the official biography promoted by the Royal House that will include the usual airbrush that can be found in almost any royal biography

Very little in fact.

I recall a few articles about Mary in Paris. That she did indeed teach English but how much and where, I can't remember.
The Danish press tried to follow her, but not much came out of that. - How interesting (not mention expensive) is it to follow a young woman around Paris to and from work or shopping for groceries?
And Mary was after all just the latest of a number of girlfriends Frederik had been associated with.

[Duke of Marmalade]

Originally Posted by Muhler

Very little in fact.

I recall a few articles about Mary in Paris. That she did indeed teach English but how much and where, I can't remember.
The Danish press tried to follow her, but not much came out of that. - How interesting (not mention expensive) is it to follow a young woman around Paris to and from work or shopping for groceries?
And Mary was after all just the latest of a number of girlfriends Frederik had been associated with.

Yes, there were rumours that at least in the beginning of the relationship with Mary Frederik was still with his then-girlfriend, cant recall her name.

[T4phage]

Bettina Odum I think it was.