It must be quite annoying for Queen Margrethe today to learn that Prince Konstantin Alexios of Greece and Denmark has received new pressure.
No, it has nothing to do with the identity of the lucky lady: the still-married British socialite, model and blogger Poppy Delevingne.
It is more because tabloids and glossy mags worldwide describe Alexios as a prince of Denmark.
After all, she’s just revoked four of her grandsons’ princely rights, so it’s a bit rich that the grandson of a dead exiled Greek king is using a title bequeathed as part of a bizarre promise made in the 19th century.
READ MORE: A Danish queen’s work is never done: Four HRH titles down, hundreds more to go
Going under the knife today
To be fair, Queen Margrethe probably has more on her mind this morning: an impending back operation, which is to be carried out today at the Rigshospitalet.
Apparently the back surgery explains why the 81-year-old monarch tends to sit at all his recent engagements – so no, it wasn’t just good manners.
Margrethe is expected to take a long rest after the operation, with Crown Prince Frederik, Crown Princess Mary, Prince Joachim and her sister Princess Benedikte all set to step in at official engagements.
Putin had the coldest eyes she had ever seen
The operation is Margrethe’s second news of the week after her admission that Russian President Vladimir Putin has the coldest eyes she has ever seen.
“I remember thinking that he was not pleasant. I have never seen such cold eyes in my life,” she told Weekendavisen about the meeting with Putin in 2011 and 2014.
Although it was probably good practice for her meeting with Prince Joachim to break the news that his four children were losing their HRH titles.
“I do not look away from death”
That Weekend newspaper interview also covered some other topics of interest – not least her opinion on ‘The Crown’, which she doesn’t see out of respect for the British royals she knows all too well – especially Elizabeth II, with whom she shared a special bond and has now succeeded as the world’s longest reigning queen.
On her own inevitable death, she said: “I don’t look away from death, I don’t avoid it, but I don’t dwell on it. That’s the thing about death: It’s under no circumstances in one’s own hands.”
But she is sure of her successor, Crown Prince Frederik: “When I let go of the reins, he will be there. I am a link in a very long chain that will continue.”
Marie: No truth in the Joachim rumours
Clearing the way for Frederik was part of her thinking behind her decision about her grandchildren’s royal titles.
“For me, it has been important that it should not be Frederik’s lot to make such a decision. It was better that it was me,” she explained.
Meanwhile, Joachim’s wife, Princess Marie, has dismissed rumors that her family intends to move to the US later this year. “Nothing has been confirmed, nothing has been announced. The rumors do not come from us,” she told Paris Match.
Source: The Nordic Page