Who is Mary Donaldson: The former executive who will be queen consort of Denmark

 Australian lawyer and former executive, Mary Elizabeth Donaldson will become the queen consort of Denmark on January 14, joining other European monarchs born abroad such as the Argentine Máxima of the Netherlands or the Cuban Maria Theresa of Luxembourg.

The Australian, born in 1975 to Scottish immigrant parents in the city of Hobart, on the southern island of Tasmania, will play the role of monarch consort following Queen Margaret II’s surprise announcement on December 31 to abdicate in favor of her son Frederick. , Donaldson’s husband, who will ascend to the throne on. January 14.

Sydney Olympics

The daughter of a mathematics teacher and an executive assistant, Donaldson first crossed her path at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, when she was 28 years old.

Then he was chatting in a relaxed way with his roommate and a friend in the “Slip Inn” pub in the city where Frederick of Denmark was with his cousin, Prince Nicholas of Greece, his brother, Prince Joachim, as well as such as Princess Martha of Norway and the then Prince Philip of Spain.

“The first time we met, we shook hands. I didn’t know he was the prince of Denmark. Half an hour later someone came up to me and said, ‘Do you know who these people are?'” Princess Mary recalled in an interview with gossip magazine New Idea in 2005.

“Something clicked,” Donaldson added to the Australian media, referring to the beginning of a relationship that began from a distance through phone calls, emails and trips between Denmark and Australia.

More than a year later, Donaldson moved to Paris to teach English at a business school and later near Copenhagen with a job as a communications consultant for Microsoft, until on October 8, 2003, she and Prince Frederick announced their formal commitment.

Foreign, modern and “rational”

Since then, the princess, married in 2004 to Federico in a ceremony in Copenhagen Cathedral followed live by more than a million Australians despite taking place in the middle of the southern dawn, has had a long journey to learn the customs, language and protocols of Danish royalty.
“All I can do is work hard and do my best,” the princess told Australian television Channel 9 two decades ago.
Donaldson also renounced British and Australian nationalities to become a Danish citizen, and although she did not need to abandon her Presbyterian confession, very close to the Lutheran-evangelical of Denmark, she has followed the tradition of registering in the National Church of this country.
The fact of being a foreigner has not prevented Donaldson, who years ago was described by the Bishop of Copenhagen, Erik Norman, as an independent, modern and mature woman, from being part of the Danish royal family, as has happened in other countries. of Europe.

Other cases in European monarchies

This is also the case of Queen Consort Máxima of Holland (Máxima Zorrreguieta), who was born in Argentina and is married to King William Alexander; that of Queen Silvia of Sweden (Silvia Renate Sommerlath), with a German father and Brazilian mother and married to Carlos Gustav XVI, and that of the Cuban María Teresa of Luxembourg (María Teresa Mestre Batista), married to Enrique de Luxembourg, who is since 2000 head of state.
In addition, former swimmer Charlene Lynette Wittstock, born in Bulawayo (Rhodesia), now Zimbabwe, but living in South Africa since 1989, is the princess consort of Monaco due to her marriage to Prince Albert II in 2011.
Donaldson, a mother of four children and a great defender of LGTBI rights, claims to have “a strong sense of justice,” as she told the Financial Times newspaper in 2002.
Meanwhile, Australia, which has Charles III as head of state and questions the ties it maintains with the British crown, celebrates that Donaldson will become the first Australian to be queen consort in Europe.

By Nadeem Faisal Baiga