Shortly before she met Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, Mary Donaldson paid a visit to a tarot card reader. The 28-year-old advertising executive was told she would leave her job, meet a man from overseas, move to Europe and, finally, become very famous.
“So I left there and thought, ‘Well, yes, that was a lot of fun, but nothing more,” she later told Jens Andersen, author of the authorised biography of her husband, Under the Beam.
The tarot card premonition came true during the 2000 Sydney Olympics when Mary and her friends were having a night out at inner-city bar the Slip Inn. Also at the same bar was Denmark’s Crown Prince Frederik, who was with his brother, Prince Joachim, cousin Prince Nikolaos of Greece, and Princess Martha of Norway. There, they met up with Prince Felipe of Spain, who knew the sister of Mary’s flatmate, Andrew Miles.
From there, Donaldson – unaware of the company’s royal lineage – and Frederik talked all night. “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?’”
By the end of the night, Donaldson had given the young prince her phone number, and he called her the next day. Over the next few months, the couple’s relationship blossomed over phone, email and frequent visits jetting back and forth between Denmark and Australia. In November, while working in Paris – having quit her job and moved to Europe as the tarot cards predicted – Donaldson was outed as the prince’s girlfriend by Danish magazine Billed Bladet. With their relationship out in the open, Mary moved to Copenhagen – where she worked for Microsoft – and started taking Danish language lessons.
“I got to know you in shorts and T-shirt, and I remember very clearly the first time you changed from casual to gala,” Mary said in a heartfelt speech to celebrate Fred’s 50th birthday on May 26, 2018.
“It was during my first visit to Denmark where we had celebrated our first New Year’s together. I was sitting in the couch in your living room when you said that you should get ready for dinner, a dinner that is always held on the 1st of January. At that time, I really didn’t know so much about that part of your world. So, I didn’t give it much thought. “You left the room, as the man I knew, and came back in full gala uniform. It was suddenly a very different image of you that was new to me. Deeply impressive and daunting at the same time. But your eyes and your smile were the same. Gala or not.”
In 2003, the couple announced their engagement and Mary resigned from her job to take up official royal duties. The couple wed on May 15, 2004, at Copenhagen Cathedral. Upon marrying her prince, she was crowned Her Royal Highness, The Crown Princess of Denmark, renouncing her Australian citizenship as per royal protocol. She also holds the title of Countess of Monpezat after her mother-in-law bestowed the title on her in 2008.
The grandeur of Amalienborg Palace – the couple’s home which Mary describes as “warm and cosy” – was a far cry from Mary’s modest Tasmanian upbringing. Born on Feb. 5, 1972, the youngest of four children, she was raised by her mother, Henrietta, an executive assistant, and father, John, a maths professor in Hobart. An avid athlete at Taroona High School, she was the captain of the girls’ hockey and swimming teams. In 1994 she graduated from the University of Tasmania with a bachelor’s degree in commerce and law, and fleetingly showed an interest in modelling and acting, appearing in a commercial for V Line.
Yet Mary has taken to royal life with relative ease. The mother of four children – ensuring the future of the Danish royal family – Mary founded the Mary Foundation, which aims to combat social isolation and she is a patron of many charities, including the International Patron of Twins Research Australia and is an Honorary Life Governor of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute.
Mary has recently increased the number of her official duties, a sign royal watchers say is in preparation for becoming Queen.
“[My wife] comes from an entirely different background and it’s fantastic to be able to mix our values – and like Lego, brick by brick,” Frederik has said of the ease in which she has stepped into her royal role. “The Crown Princess wants to do better all the time. I’m very proud of that attitude and her achievements in general.”
For more Princesses, including the Women of Windsor and the European Royals, pick up the Who Collector’s Edition The Princess Files, on sale now!
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