Queen Margrethe
The sad reason her sister didn’t come to her wedding
Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik at their wedding in 1967
© Keystone-France / Getty Images
At her marriage to Prince Henrik in 1967, Queen Margrethe had to do without her beloved sister Anne-Marie of Greece. There’s a sad reason for that.
On June 10, 1967, Queen Margrethe, 82, gave her vows to her Prince Henrik, †83, in a solemn ceremony in Copenhagen’s Holmens Church. In the documentary “Et liv som dronning” (in English: “A life as a queen”), which was already broadcast on TV2 in 2021, the monarch thinks back to her marriage, which was overshadowed by a sad event.
Queen Margrethe: Sister Anne-Marie was not allowed to her wedding
According to the Danish newspaper “Billed Bladet”, the Danish queen reveals why her beloved sister was not allowed to come to her wedding party. Anne-Marie of Greece, 76, and her husband, then King Constantine of Greece, 82, had to be unloaded for political reasons. Those were turbulent times in Greece: from 1967 to 1974 there was a military dictatorship. In April 1967, just before the royal wedding in Denmark, the military staged a coup in Greece and took power.
Queen Margrethe (left) was not allowed to celebrate her wedding with her sister Anne-Marie.
© Andreas Rentz / Getty Images
“I was very, very sad about that”
“There had been a coup that the colonels in Greece had carried out and it became very uncomfortable because it was believed that King Constantine was involved in this coup,” Queen Margrethe also recalls in the documentary. “But he wasn’t. But officials said they didn’t want to see my brother-in-law and sister at the wedding.” She was very depressed that her younger sister was not allowed to be at her wedding: “I was very, very sad about that, as were my parents,” says Margrethe.
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Revenge action by Mother Queen Ingrid
But her mother Queen Ingrid, † 90, wanted to take revenge on the government with a memorable action: On the day of her daughter’s wedding, she had pictures of Anne-Marie and Konstantin set up in all the salons, so that the government representatives during the celebration or not had been badly reminded of their decision.
Queen Margrethe’s sister Anne-Marie had married King Constantine of Greece in September 1964. The couple had a total of five children: Alexia, 57, Paul, 55, Nikolaos, 53, Theodora, 39, and Prince Philippos of Greece, 36. One consequence of the coup was that the Greek royal couple had to go into exile in 1967. In 1974 the monarchy in Greece was abolished.
Source used: billedbladet.dk, tv2.dk