I should have been paying more attention to the Danish royals because MY GOD are they petty. In 1967, then-Princess Margarethe married a Frenchman named Henrik de Laborde de Monpezat. In 1971, Margarethe became the queen of Denmark, and per custom, Henry became her prince-consort. Not king! Which is what happens with most – if not all? – European monarchs, if they happen to be women. When you’re a lady and you ascend to the throne, your spouse does not become king, they become prince-consort. Queen Elizabeth gave Prince Philip the somewhat gaudy title of HRH Duke of Edinburgh, but let’s be clear: he was never king. Philip seemed fine with it in the end. Prince Henrik has never been fine with it, and he’s going to take his pettiness with him to the grave (literally).
Prince Henrik of Denmark is taking his bitterness to the grave. Today, a representative for the Danish royal family announced that Queen Margarethe’s husband, 83, has elected not to be buried next to her when his time comes, in a designed-just-for-them sarcophagus at Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark. The Danish royal has long been salty about the fact that he never got the title of “king” when his wife ascended the throne. Instead, he’s a prince consort (the traditional title for a man in his position), and he says the fact that he has a lesser title is a form of gender discrimination.
“It makes me angry that I am subjected to discrimination,” he said told the French newspaper Le Figaro. “Denmark, which is otherwise known as an avid defender of gender equality, is apparently willing to consider husbands as worth less than their wives.”
You’d think 45 years — the length of Margrethe’s reign thus far — would be enough to, well, get over it. Apparently not.
“It is no secret that the prince for many years has been unhappy with his role and the title he has been awarded in the Danish monarchy,” the family’s director of communications told B.T., a Danish newspaper. “For the prince, the decision not to be buried beside the queen is the natural consequence of not having been treated equally to his spouse — by not having the title and role he has desired.”
Henrik, who said in February 2015 that he will “never accept” the fact that he doesn’t get to be king, retired from royal duties in January 2016, at the age of 81, after 40 years of service. And though he clearly has some animosity towards the title the Danes were willing to give him, the representative for the family says he still wants to be buried in Denmark, not his native France. (Just not next to his wife.) It seems that for this royal couple, at death they will part.
To be fair, he is King. King of Petty. There’s nothing quite like old-man crotchety bitterness. There’s nothing quite like a white dude squawking about reverse discrimination either. I mean, discrimination? RLY? Male fragility, I’ll tell you. I mean, I can see how a man would take issue with this situation, and I’m not slamming Henrik for grumbling about it in interviews. But to have this kind of angst about it to the point where he’s refusing to buried with his wife? No. The Queen should just shrug and say “fine, I want a divorce.” I’m sure she’s sick of his bulls–t too.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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