COUSIN OF THE QUEEN OF DENMARK DEAD
June 19, 2018, the Royal House of Denmark suffered another loss. Princess Elizabeth of Denmark, a cousin of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, died at the age of 83. She was the eldest daughter of Prince Knud of Denmark (1900-1976) and Princess Caroline-Mathilde of Denmark (1912-1995).
Prince Knud of Denmark, Princess Elizabeth’s father, married before his elder brother and had two children by April 1940, one of whom was a boy, Prince Ingolf (he will have another son later, Prince Christian). Since the elder brother, Prince Frederick, had only daughters (Margrethe, Benedikte and Anne-Marie), King Christian X appointed the younger son a Heir, his wife a Crown Princess, and the inheritance was supposed to pass through the younger branch of the Royal House of Denmark. This fully satisfied the ambitions of Elizabeth's mother, who was proud to have united all the branches of the royal blood - Glücksburg, Oldenburg and Augustenburg, and married her cousin, by the will of the future King's father.
But later, in 1953, after the death of King Christian X, the order of succession to the throne of Denmark was changed from the Salic Law to the male-preference cognatic primogeniture, so, after King Frederick IX, the throne of Denmark passed not to his brother Knud and his sons, but to his eldest daughter Margrethe, who became Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. This split the Royal House, and the younger branch virtually cut contact with King Frederick IX and his family.
The only link between the family of Prince Knud and the Royal Family of Frederick IX was Princess Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Prince Knud, who did not participate in the “war for the throne of Denmark” inside the ruling House. It was she who represented her father's family at all official ceremonies of the Royal House of Denmark. From 1956 to 2001, Her Highness Princess Elizabeth worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. She worked at the Danish Embassy in Washington from October 1973 till 1976, and at the Danish mission of the United Nations in Geneva from May 1989 till 1993. Princess spoke Danish, French, English and German. She was never married, and left no descendants. Princess Elizabeth bequeathed all available assets and property to her nephew, the son of the younger brother of Prince Christian of Denmark.
The funeral of Princess Elizabeth of Denmark took place on Monday, June 25, 2018.
