Marriage to Commoners in Denmark


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That's for Frederik X to decide. Personally, I think he will allow marriage to Danish commoners (like the king of Sweden and Norway before him eventually did as well) - although like many other monarchs, he might encourage especially Christian to find a foreign wife as she will have less history in Denmark.

I would say King Frederik would encourage him to find someone he loves. In this day and age, one's history cannot be concealed like it was 25-30 years ago. Being foreign doesn't give you that immunity thanks to social media. And you just need to look at current monarchs and their heirs: Felipe married a commoner from Spain, as did his sisters; Victoria married a a commoner from Sweden, as did her brother and her sister was engaged to one; Prince William is married to a commoner from the UK, as did the King, uncles and aunt; Harald and Haakon married commoners from Norway.

I cannot imagine the Danish people being too happy if their King deny the next Danish King marrying a Danish commoner
 
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I would say King Frederik would encourage him to find someone he loves. In this day and age, one's history cannot be concealed like it was 25-30 years ago. Being foreign doesn't give you that immunity thanks to social media. And you just need to look at current monarchs and their heirs: Felipe married a commoner from Spain, as did his sisters; Victoria married a a commoner from Sweden, as did her brother and her sister was engaged to one; Prince William is married to a commoner from the UK, as did the King, uncles and aunt; Harald and Haakon married commoners from Norway.

I cannot imagine the Danish people being too happy if their King deny the next Danish King marrying a Danish commoner
And all of those spouses you’ve mentioned have received lots of scrutiny some of it fairly and some of it not fair. Madeline married an American. Camilla isn’t a commoner, she’s from landed gentry.
 
And all of those spouses you’ve mentioned have received lots of scrutiny some of it fairly and some of it not fair. Madeline married an American. Camilla isn’t a commoner, she’s from landed gentry.

You have to be titled not to be a commoner. And being a foreigner doesn't protect you from scrutiny so it isn’t an advantage over being from the same country (unless the entire dating happens in the other country perhaps). And currently people are more aware of the national backgrounds of the royal families so I would imagine it would be popular in Denmark someone Danish to marry into the family.
 
You have to be titled not to be a commoner. And being a foreigner doesn't protect you from scrutiny so it isn’t an advantage over being from the same country (unless the entire dating happens in the other country perhaps). And currently people are more aware of the national backgrounds of the royal families so I would imagine it would be popular in Denmark someone Danish to marry into the family.
The point I was making was that one of out of the mentioned spouses was from the upper classes connected to the nobility. Which national backgrounds are you referring to because many of the ancestors of the royal families are not from the country they reign from anyways. If there was an issue with marrying foreigners then they would have been marrying Danes a long time ago.
 
We will see when Nikolai or Felix becomes engaged. I personally doubt that King Frederik X will deny consent to their marriages if the bride is a Danish commoner.

That's for Frederik X to decide. Personally, I think he will allow marriage to Danish commoners (like the king of Sweden and Norway before him eventually did as well) - although like many other monarchs, he might encourage especially Christian to find a foreign wife as she will have less history in Denmark.

As far as I understand, the issue is not so much that a Danish wife would have "more history" in Denmark, but rather that her Danish family could benefit or profit from a royal connection, creating a conflict of interest.
 
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The point I was making was that one of out of the mentioned spouses was from the upper classes connected to the nobility. Which national backgrounds are you referring to because many of the ancestors of the royal families are not from the country they reign from anyways. If there was an issue with marrying foreigners then they would have been marrying Danes a long time ago.

At the end of the day, Camilla is a commoner, who descends from aristocratic families. Same as Sarah Ferguson.

QMII and her sisters all married titled and foreign men. Neither of QMII's sons married aristocratic women; they are all foreign and commoners. Unheard of for a Crown Prince of Denmark. If such a change is palatable for QMII, it'll be palatable for King Frederik X to approve a marriage of any of his children to a Danish commoner
 
At the end of the day, Camilla is a commoner, who descends from aristocratic families. Same as Sarah Ferguson.

QMII and her sisters all married titled and foreign men. Neither of QMII's sons married aristocratic women; they are all foreign and commoners. Unheard of for a Crown Prince of Denmark. If such a change is palatable for QMII, it'll be palatable for King Frederik X to approve a marriage of any of his children to a Danish commoner


QMII's sisters married "equally" into foreign sovereign (or formerly sovereign) families, respectively a (mediatized) princely family and a (reigning at the time) royal family. Margrethe herself, somewhat surprisingly as she was the heir, married a French commoner or, if you prefer, a false/ pretend aristocrat.


Frederik X belongs to a different generation from either his mother or his grandfather. As I said, I would be surprised if consenting to marriages with local commoners would be an issue for him, especially after we have seen those kinds of marriages, as mentioned by other posters, in Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
 
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Summaries of the evolving standards for legally approving marriages of members of the Danish Royal House:


  • Christian X (reigned 1912-1947) stripped Prince Aage, Prince Erik and Prince Viggo of their HRH predicates, "to Denmark" territorial designations, and rights to the throne due to their marriages to foreign noble (Aage) or foreign commoner (Erik and Viggo) women.
    He fully stripped Princess Dagmar of her royal titles due to her marriage to a Danish nobleman.

  • Frederik IX (reigned 1947-1972) liberalized enough to approve marriages to foreign noble(wo)men, but stripped Prince Oluf, Prince Flemming, Prince Ingolf and Prince Christian of all their royal titles and rights to the throne upon their marriages to Danish commoner women.

  • Margrethe II (reigned 1972-2024) liberalized even further and approved the marriages of her two sons to foreign commoner women.
    However, she made it clear to Princess Elisabeth, who was in a twenty-year partnership with a Danish commoner until his death in 1997, that if Elisabeth married her partner she would be stripped of all her royal titles (and presumably her rights to the throne).


In terms of the numbers of approved and (officially) unapproved marriages of persons in line to the throne:

  • In the reign (1912-1947) of Christian X, when only males had rights to the throne, three marriages of Princes to Denmark were deemed "equal" and dynastic, while three marriages of Princes to Denmark were deemed "unequal" and non-dynastic.

  • In the reign (1947-1972) of Frederik IX, two marriages of a Prince or Princess to Denmark were granted approval, while five were denied approval (I am including the marriage of Princess Benedikte, as she never fulfilled the conditions for the conditional approval, but excluding the special case of Princess Anne-Marie's marriage to a foreign king).

  • In the reign (1972-2024) of Margrethe II, three marriages of a Prince to Denmark have been approved. No unapproved marriages were concluded during her reign.

In summary, during the reigns of the three previous monarchs (1912-2024), 50% of marriages of princes and princesses in line to the throne have been unapproved and therefore non-dynastic, which has served to limit the size of the Royal House.
 
Prince Georg of Denmark would have been demoted from a prince of Denmark to a count of Rosenborg when he married Queen Elizabeth’s first cousin Anne Bowes-Lyon but George VI stood up for his niece by telling Frederik IX that if a Bowes-Lyon was good enough for the king of England, a Bowes-Lyon was good enough for a prince of Denmark. Coincidentally Queen Anne was married to Prince George of Denmark.
That sounds very mean and 19th century of the Danish king. I saw a couple of pictures of him at a Brititsh event, very formal and he was darting some unkind looks at younger members of the British family of Royals for no apparent reason. I may have been mistaken but the images and footage looked very strange. No one was out of line, I couldn't understand why it would be.

I would say the "mean" one in this anecdote was the British king George VI, for being presumptuous enough to dictate to King Frederik IX, a sovereign monarch, how he should regulate matters of state in his (Frederik IX's) own country.

At the time, the settled precedent in Denmark was that princes or princesses who married non-royals would cease to be members of the Royal House. This standard had already been applied to Prince Aage, Prince Viggo, Prince Erik, Princess Dagmar, Prince Oluf, and Prince Flemming who lost some (Aage, Viggo, Erik) or all (Dagmar, Oluf, Flemming) of their royal titles for marrying non-royal nobility (Aage and Dagmar) or upper-class commoners (Erik, Viggo, Oluf, and Flemming).

King George VI was essentially insisting that King Frederik IX should breach the rules of his own monarchy and grant special treatment to Anne Bowes-Lyon, simply because she was a relative of George VI's wife and/or because that was the custom of the British monarchy.

Imagine it in reverse. How would it make Britons feel if King Frederik X called King Charles III of Britain asking him to grant special treatment under British law to members of the Donaldson (his wife Mary’s) family? Or what if King Frederik X tried to force King Charles III to remove the Prince/Princess titles from Prince Harry’s children, because removing titles from younger sons' children is good enough for the Danish monarchy so it ought to be good enough for the British monarchy?
 
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First of all, don’t forget the kings were second cousins themselves. It’s a little different than being dictated to by a complete stranger. And while it may not be completely fair to the demoted royals, it’s a rather ingenious argument on George VI’s part, especially for a man who wasn’t known for thinking out of the box. It bears some resemblance to arguments made in the past for the marriages of Lady Louise Mountbatten and Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg.

As far as I know, King George didn’t threaten or coerce his cousin in any way, so the decision was Frederik IX’s, and if someone with personal powers wants to alter precedent, they can.
 
Apparently at the time the divorce of his wife's niece was not an issue for King George VI. Though it could perhaps also have played a role for King Frederik, in 1950, as it would later do for QEII and her sister's situation.

It is interesting that while an exception was made for Prince Georg, who married the granddaughter of an Earl and for Crown Princess Margarethe - who married fausse nobiliy, the King did not extend this flexibility to his nephews Christian and Ingolf who did not seek for his permission as they knew they would not get it. Likewise Queen Margrethe allowed her sons to marry commoners while her cousin Elisabeth's title was not greeted with the same generosity.
 
A correction to my previous post: The controversial 1950 marriage of Prince Georg was to Anne, Viscountess Anson, the divorced wife of a British viscount. Anne Bowes-Lyon was her maiden name.

First of all, don’t forget the kings were second cousins themselves. It’s a little different than being dictated to by a complete stranger. And while it may not be completely fair to the demoted royals, it’s a rather ingenious argument on George VI’s part, especially for a man who wasn’t known for thinking out of the box. It bears some resemblance to arguments made in the past for the marriages of Lady Louise Mountbatten and Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg.

As far as I know, King George didn’t threaten or coerce his cousin in any way, so the decision was Frederik IX’s, and if someone with personal powers wants to alter precedent, they can.

Thank you for sharing another point of view.

I hope you are right that George VI was merely trying to persuade his second cousin, not pressure him. To me, the important question is whether their relationship would have been equally amenable to Frederik IX asking, and receiving, an equally major favor from George VI involving alterations to British traditions. If this degree of influence only ran in one direction, then that would have been presumptuous on George VI’s part, I think.


The cases of Princess Victoria Eugénie of Battenberg and Lady Louise Mountbatten were rather different, since Queen Victoria and King George V of the UK never asked the Spanish or Swedish monarchies to loosen their rules on marriage equality.

They simply reassured the Spanish and Swedish monarchies that although the women did not possess the title of Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, they were still formally members of the British Royal Family (and in the case of Victoria Eugénie, a British Royal Highness), and so they fulfilled the existing requirements.


However, unlike his father and grandmother, King George VI was clearly asking for King Frederik IX to modify Denmark’s marital standards to accommodate Anne, Viscountess Anson.

Both the Anson family (Earls of Lichfield) and the Bowes-Lyon family (Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne) were “only” comital houses. A marriage of a Prince to Denmark to a member of a comital house already occurred in 1914, when HRH Prince Aage to Denmark married Countess Mathilde Calvi of Bergolo. Aage was demoted from HRH Prince to Denmark to HH Prince without a territorial designation, and removed from his rights to the throne.

Thus, George VI was asking Frederik IX to treat Prince Georg more generously than his father Christian X treated Prince Aage, who married the exact same rank of bride.


Why didn’t George VI simply create Anne a Princess himself? Then Anne and Georg could have become TH Prince Georg to Denmark and Princess Anne of Denmark without nepotism and without arguable unfairness to Aage’s son Count Valdemar of Rosenborg, who was still alive and would have been a Prince to Denmark if his parents had been treated like Georg and Anne.

Of course, George VI creating his wife’s cousin a Princess would have gone against British royal tradition. But George VI was asking Frederik IX to go against Danish royal tradition for Anne’s sake. If George VI felt that Anne deserved to be treated like she was a royal princess, regardless of tradition, why didn’t he put his money where his mouth was?
 
Trond Norén Isaksen was told two different angles of the story about how Prince Georg got about to keep his title from his sister-in-law and his stepdaughter respectively:
"According to Countess Ruth of Rosenborg, Flemming did not care about his title, while Prince Georg attached great value to his royal position and implored King Frederik IX to let him remain a prince. Anne’s daughter from her first marriage, Lady Elizabeth Anson, once told me that King George VI of Britain intervened on Georg’s behalf by telling King Frederik that «If a Bowes-Lyon was good enough for me, a Bowes-Lyon is surely good enough for one of your Princes»".
 
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Prince Axel did not seem lucky on the Wedding Pictures
Count Flemming Family sold Prince Axel and Prince Georg row of Decorations at Drouot years ago.
 
Trond Norén Isaksen was told two different angles of the story about how Prince Georg got about to keep his title from his sister-in-law and his stepdaughter respectively:
"According to Countess Ruth of Rosenborg, Flemming did not care about his title, while Prince Georg attached great value to his royal position and implored King Frederik IX to let him remain a prince. Anne’s daughter from her first marriage, Lady Elizabeth Anson, once told me that King George VI of Britain intervened on Georg’s behalf by telling King Frederik that «If a Bowes-Lyon was good enough for me, a Bowes-Lyon is surely good enough for one of your Princes»".
Those don’t seem contradictory, though. Aka Georg could have also implored King George directly, or via Anne or the QM?

It is pretty striking how marrying a divorcée was no objection at all compared to what it would have been in the UK (@Tatiana Maria has a point about the tables being turned).
 
Why didn’t George VI simply create Anne a Princess himself? Then Anne and Georg could have become TH Prince Georg to Denmark and Princess Anne of Denmark without nepotism and without arguable unfairness to Aage’s son Count Valdemar of Rosenborg, who was still alive and would have been a Prince to Denmark if his parents had been treated like Georg and Anne.

Of course, George VI creating his wife’s cousin a Princess would have gone against British royal tradition. But George VI was asking Frederik IX to go against Danish royal tradition for Anne’s sake. If George VI felt that Anne deserved to be treated like she was a royal princess, regardless of tradition, why didn’t he put his money where his mouth was?
1. How would George VI have been able to create his niece a princess of Denmark?
2. As I said in my last point Anne was George VI’s wife’s niece, not cousin.
 
1. How would George VI have been able to create his niece a princess of Denmark?
2. As I said in my last point Anne was George VI’s wife’s niece, not cousin.
TM argued that he could have created her a princess of Great-Britain. In that case their marriage would have been one between equals and the end result would be the same: Anne’s future husband could remain a prince (without the Danish king needing to bend the rules) and she would have become a princess of Denmark upon marriage.
 
TM argued that he could have created her a princess of Great-Britain. In that case their marriage would have been one between equals and the end result would be the same: Anne’s future husband could remain a prince (without the Danish king needing to bend the rules) and she would have become a princess of Denmark upon marriage.
Oh okay that makes sense.
 
TM argued that he could have created her a princess of Great-Britain. In that case their marriage would have been one between equals and the end result would be the same: Anne’s future husband could remain a prince (without the Danish king needing to bend the rules) and she would have become a princess of Denmark upon marriage.
I can't see how it would be possible for King George to create Lady Anne a Princess of the United Kingdom.
 
Thank you, @Somebody. :flowers:

I can't see how it would be possible for King George to create Lady Anne a Princess of the United Kingdom.

There have never been any constitutional restrictions on the British King’s right to confer princessly titles on whomever he wishes, to the best of my knowledge. It is only a matter of tradition. And, in reality, George VI asked Frederik IX to violate Danish tradition.

If George VI wanted tradition to be broken for the benefit of his wife’s niece and her fiancé, he could and should have acted on his own end, rather than meddling with another sovereign monarchy’s internal affairs.

Note: If anyone does believe the UK has constitutional limitations on who can be created a Prince or Princess and wants to debate that issue further, I suggest we move it to Questions about British Styles and Titles 3: Aug 2023 -.

Just a minor clarification: Anne was never Lady Anne, as she was born Miss Anne Bowes-Lyon as the daughter of a younger son of an earl, was styled Viscountess Anson during her first marriage to a courtesy viscount, and became Anne, Viscountess Anson, after divorcing him.



It is pretty striking how marrying a divorcée was no objection at all compared to what it would have been in the UK (@Tatiana Maria has a point about the tables being turned).

Remarriage after divorce had already taken place among senior male members of the Royal House, without any loss of titles or succession rights, so I suppose they lacked the moral high ground to object to a divorced spouse.

Prince Christian Frederik obtained a divorce from his first wife and remarried in 1815. His son Prince Frederik Carl Christian was divorced and remarried twice, in 1846 and 1850. The princes respectively succeeded to the throne as Christian VIII in 1839 and Frederik VII in 1848, while their ex-wives were still living.

(Although perhaps some would argue that the princes were members of the Church of Denmark while Anne, Viscountess Anson, was presumably a member of the Church of England and had a duty to observe her own church’s stricter rules on divorce and remarriage.)


Yes, it is difficult to envision George VI changing the British monarchy’s marriage criteria to fully accept divorcées as royal brides in 1950 just to accommodate a divorced relative of Queen Ingrid who wanted to marry a British prince, if the tables were turned.
 
There have never been any constitutional restrictions on the British King’s right to confer princessly titles on whomever he wishes, to the best of my knowledge. It is only a matter of tradition. And, in reality, George VI asked Frederik IX to violate Danish tradition.

If George VI wanted tradition to be broken for the benefit of his wife’s niece and her fiancé, he could and should have acted on his own end, rather than meddling with another sovereign monarchy’s internal affairs.
Realistically making a non-royal a princess was never going to happen in the 20th century. This was the Court of St James not Napoleon forcing his adopted-daughter-aka-his-wife's-deceased-husband's-niece on a German princeling.
If King Frederik wanted to refuse King George's supposed request/demand he could just have said no. It's not as if the UK could have done anything about it. Personally I think it was Georg's constant nagging that tipped the scale, not the request of a foreign monarch.
 
Personally I think it was Georg's constant nagging that tipped the scale, not the request of a foreign monarch.
It could have been the nagging aided by the excuse provided by a fellow sovereign.
 
It could have been the nagging aided by the excuse provided by a fellow sovereign.
That would be a good excuse to shut up disgruntled relatives with.
 
This was the Court of St James not Napoleon forcing his adopted-daughter-aka-his-wife's-deceased-husband's-niece on a German princeling.

I can’t speak to Napoleon’s actions. But George VI’s approach actually came closer to “forcing his wife’s niece on a foreign king” than the alternative would have, I’d say.

George VI’s argument to Frederik IX that “If a Bowes-Lyon was good enough for me, a Bowes-Lyon is surely good enough for one of your Princes” essentially translated to “The king of Denmark ought to accept whatever the king of Britain decides is good enough for him.”

If he had created Anne a British princess to meet the Danish marriage standards, it would have communicated a more respectful “I shall make no demands on Denmark, which is entitled to make its own decisions. Because I am the one seeking to have my wife’s niece be treated like a born princess by the Danish king, I will be the one to take responsibility and act. In this way we will ensure that Britain respects the traditions and sovereignty of Denmark.”


Realistically making a non-royal a princess was never going to happen in the 20th century.

“Making a non-royal a princess” consort in the 20th century, against Danish 20th century tradition, is what George VI asked Frederik IX to do. :flowers:

But I imagine you mean that George VI creating his wife’s niece a British princess in her own right, for the sake of her marriage to a foreign prince, would have been viewed as outdated and out of touch by the British public of 1950.


If King Frederik wanted to refuse King George's supposed request/demand he could just have said no. It's not as if the UK could have done anything about it. […]

Of course Frederik IX could have said no in principle, but one can still hold the opinion that George VI overstepped the boundaries. I’ve certainly had times when I caused offense by making a request, even though the other party was free to refuse.

Frederik IX would surely have felt some pressure not to displease a fellow head of state, especially one with more power and influence than the Danish monarch.


We are all speculating to some extent, given that we cannot see into Frederik IX’s or George VI’s private thoughts and correspondence. This is simply my own point of view.
 
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