Frederick X

Current king of Denmark . The eldest son of Margaret II and Prince Henry , he ascended the throne on January 14, 2024 following his mother's abdication during his lifetime.

He was born through emergency caesarean section at 11:50 pm on May 26, 1968 at the National Medical Center in Copenhagen . He was the first son born to Princess Margrethe and Prince Henry, who was the eldest daughter of King Frederick IX of Norway at the time and first in line to the throne . At the time of her birth, she was second in line to the throne after her mother , Margrethe II , and was already designated as the next heir to the throne.[5]

He was named after his maternal grandfather Frederick IX , grandfather André de Laborde de Montpezat, father Prince Henrik , and maternal great-grandfather Christian X. It follows the Danish royal family's long-standing tradition of alternately naming the heir to the throne as Frederick or Christian. On June 24th, Lutheran Church at Holmen Church. Received baptism as an infant . His godparents are his great-aunt , Queen Anamaria of Greece , his second cousin, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg , Princess Josephine-Charlotte of Belgium , and distant relative, Prince Georg of Denmark.[6] , uncle Etienne de Laborde de Montpezat, etc.

On June 7, 1969, his younger brother, Prince Joachim of Denmark, was born and became his older brother.

On January 14, 1972, when his maternal grandfather Frederick IX died, his mother Margrethe II ascended to the throne. Frederick was also crowned prince as he was first in line to succeed to the throne. According to Jens Andersen's biography, as a child he was shy and reserved, anxious that he could become king. However, as he became more familiar with the responsibilities of a king, he is said to have changed from his fear of being king to his awe.

I attended Krebs School from 1974 to 1981. During my first and second years, I received private tutoring at Amalienborg Palace, and it was not until my third year that I received regular classes at Krebs School. From 1982 to 1983, he studied at École des Roches, a boarding school in Normandy, France , and graduated from Öregor Gymnasium in 1986. After finishing high school, he entered Aarhus University in the fall of 1989 and majored in political science . He also studied abroad at Harvard University in the United States for two years from 1992 to 1993 .[7]

After studying abroad at Harvard, Frederik gained practical experience by working at the Danish Permanent Mission to the UN in New York for three months in 1994. The following year, in 1995, he earned a master's degree in political science from Aarhus University. He not only completed the prescribed curriculum on time without taking any leave, but also passed the graduation exam with above-average grades, becoming the first member of the Danish royal family to hold a formal master's degree.[8] After graduating from college, he continued his diplomatic career and worked in France for a year from October 1998 to October 1999. He worked as a first secretary at the Danish Embassy in Paris .

Since 1986, he has received military training through all three services - the Army, Navy, and Air Force. In particular, he received diver training from the Naval Process Control Group (Frømandskorpset), the Navy's elite special forces unit.[9] In 2001 and 2002, he took the senior commander's course at the Royal Danish National Defense College. From 2002 to 2003, he served as a staff officer at the Danish National Defense Command. Since 2003, he has also served as a senior lecturer at the Royal Danish National Defense College's Institute of Strategic Studies. By faithfully building his military career, he rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Navy and major general in the Army and Air Force in April 2015.[10]

On May 14, 2004, he married Mary Donaldson at Copenhagen Cathedral. The two first met at the 2000 Sydney Olympics , became lovers, and got married after a long-distance relationship.[11] It received a lot of attention for its novel-like marriage story between an Australian woman and the Crown Prince of Denmark . #

In February 2023, when Margrete II was suspended due to back surgery, he was appointed regent and acted as a king.

On December 31, 2023, his mother, Margrethe II , announced her intention to abdicate in a New Year's Eve speech, and she ascended the throne two weeks later, on January 14, 2024, at 2:15 pm local time in Denmark . This day was the 52nd anniversary of his mother's accession to the throne and 52 years since the death of his maternal grandfather, Frederick IX . No separate enthronement ceremony or coronation ceremony is held.[12] In accordance with the tradition of the Danish royal family, the coronation ceremony was replaced by presiding over a cabinet meeting at Christiansborg Palace and then proclaiming the enthronement from the palace balcony at 3pm local time, according to tradition. The coronation proclamation was made by Mette Frederiksen. It was read by the Prime Minister , and the governing motto was "Unity and devotion to the Kingdom of Denmark."[13]

On January 15, the day after his coronation, the king and his wife and other members of the royal family visited Parliament and attended an official ceremony commemorating the new king's coronation. Then, on January 21, a service celebrating the enthronement was held at Aarhus Cathedral with the royal priest and Bishop of Aarhus, Henrik Wipoulsen, officiating. On January 31, he visited Poland on his first overseas trip as king and was welcomed by President Andrzej Duda .[14]

Afterwards, the first official state visit took place in May of the same year, and as was customary, he visited neighboring countries Sweden and Norway in turn. In June of the same year, he toured Greenland , an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, but the trip to the Faroe Islands , another autonomous territory , was postponed in the aftermath of a general strike by local workers, and ended in 2025 the following year.

Since his accession to the throne, Frederick In November 2024, the Danish royal family announced that it would gradually abolish the Royal Warrant system, which has been in place since the 19th century. This was a result of the King's firm determination that the outdated system of privileges, in which certain companies were recognized for their special status by borrowing the name of the royal family, no longer matched the sentiments of modern society. Accordingly, all previously issued royal certifications and related titles are scheduled to be completely abolished as of December 31, 2029.

Then, in January 2025, when US President-elect Donald Trump sparked controversy by once again mentioning the ownership of Greenland, King Frederick At the same time, while revising the existing royal emblem established by my mother in 1972 in a modern way, the size of the emblem symbolizing Greenland and the Faroe Islands within the emblem was made much larger than before to visually stand out. The Danish royal family stated its position, saying, "This is a measure to further solidify the status and solidarity of the kingdom community encompassing mainland Denmark and its autonomous territories within the royal coat of arms."

They are very active in encouraging their citizens to participate in sports. He serves as a sponsor and honorary member of various sports organizations, and even served as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the past.

King Frederick X himself is a huge sports fanatic . He has completed marathons held in Copenhagen , New York , and Paris . In particular, he ran 42.195km in the Copenhagen Marathon with a respectable record of 3 hours, 22 minutes, and 50 seconds. In 2013, he participated in the KMD Ironman Copenhagen competition and crossed the finish line with a record of 10 hours, 45 minutes and 32 seconds, earning him the title of being the first royal in the world to complete a triathlon .

Even in yacht racing, he boasts skills comparable to those of professional athletes. He is said to have outstanding skills as a professional skipper of the Farr 40 class and the international Dragon class yacht. At the 2003 Dragon European Championships, in which a total of 51 boats participated, he led the team until the fourth race out of six races and finished fourth, and at the 2008 Par 40 World Championships, where 33 boats competed, he led the team and took fourth place. In the 2010 Danish Fyn Cup, he won the Swan 60 IRC category at the helm of the ship 'Emma', and in the 2011 Danish Dragon Championships, in which 27 ships participated, he drove the ship 'Nanoq' and placed fourth again.

In an interview with the media during the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics , he said that after meeting his wife, he no longer pursued his dream of participating in the Olympics, but that he had no regrets about it. Training and participating in the Olympics had always been in the back of her mind, but in order to do so, she had to drastically cut back on other royal activities and focus solely on training, so she chose to focus her energy on other important areas of her life. Meanwhile, in October of the same year, while jumping on a trampoline with his eldest son , he fractured his spine and had to cancel his attendance at the royal welcoming ceremony for the Danish Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

His sporting challenges did not discriminate between disciplines , and he even participated in the relay form at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Cross-Country Championships held in Aarhus in March 2019 . He was also interested in cross-country skiing, a winter sport, and completed Sweden's 90km Vasaloppet competition, the world's oldest cross-country skiing competition, for four consecutive years from 2012 to 2015. In 2016, he ran the 54km course of the Birkebeinerrennet in Norway with Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, and in the same year, he completed the extreme 160km Arctic Circle race held in Sisimiut, Greenland, showing off his status as a sports fanatic.