Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

One would think that writing about royalty would be easy; given that royal lives - whether they be English, Dutch, or Danish - are so similar, so prescribed, so much the property of the state that despite world travel and easy access to the best and brightest of their respective nations the only differences between them would be in their scandals.

This is where I am thwarted; the eldest son and heir of Denmark's Queen Margrethe II and her consort Prince Henrik is a conscientious, shy man without so much as a speeding ticket to his name, at least as far as my research can uncover. I actually typed 'Crown Prince Frederik scandal' into Google while conducting my research into this piece and it laughed at me; if you've never been laughed at by Google, let me tell you it's a humiliating experience. Just to see what it's like try typing in 'michael sean morris dating' and wait for hilarity to ensue!

A n y w a y... About the only untoward thing the Prince has ever done is to court and then wed an Australian named Mary Donaldson, whom he married at Copenhagen Cathedral in May 2004 (as previously reported by the Pop Culture Institute). In the commission of said courtship he wrote her some rather florid poetry - and that is the extent of it. Despite what could have been a really ripping scandal - even knowing what little I do about sheilas* - Ms. Donaldson has proven to be an exemplary princess-in-training, giving birth to Prince Christian in October 2005 and Princess Isabella in April 2007.

Today is His Royal Highness' 42nd birthday, and a biography of him (cleverly entitled Frederik – kronprins af Danmark) was recently published which relates the whole completely seemly and utterly unlurid story. Written by Gitte Redder and Karin Palshøj, whose previous work was a similarly unauthorized look at the life of Crown Princess Mary, as far as I can tell there are no plans to publish it in English, and since I have no plans to learn Danish the situation remains at an impasse...

*Australian slang for women.
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