On 1 May 1920, a ten-year-old girl dressed all in white marches through the streets of her native Stockholm behind a coffin draped in a flag accompanied by her four siblings. All around her in the procession are the great and good from among the royalties of Europe. In the coffin were the mortal remains of the child’s mother, Crown Princess Margareta of Sweden (born Princess Margaret of Connaught, the elder child of Britain’s Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught {third son of Queen Victoria} and his wife Princess Louise of Prussia.) The child in question was ten-year-old Princess Ingrid of Sweden. She was the third child and only daughter of Crown Princess Margareta’s marriage to Crown Prince Gustav Adolf, the eldest child of King Gustav V of Sweden. The royal couple had met in Cairo, in early 1905, and it seems to have been something of a coup de foudre. Prince Gustav Adolf (as he then was) proposed to Princess Margaret at a dinner party given by the British Consul-General in Egypt, Lord Cromer, and they were married at St George’s Chapel in Windsor on 15 June 1905, in the presence of Britain’s King Edward VIII, who was pleased by his niece’s union to the Swedish prince, for it was indeed a happy love match. Interestingly, Margaret was not the only English princess to venture to northern Scandinavia that year, as her cousin Maud (a daughter of King Edward VIII) arrived in neighbouring Norway as Queen, being the spouse of Prince Charles of Denmark, who was elected as King of Norway following the recent dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden. He took the title of King Haakon VII.

Ingrid was born in the Royal Palace in central Stockholm on 28 March 1910. A twenty-eight gun salute rang out from the battery at Skeppsholmen to announce the arrival of a princess. She was christened on 10 May in the Royal Chapel. The Crown Prince couple had four other children-all boys: Gustav Adolf (b. 1906), Sigvard (b. 1907), Bertil (b. 1912) and Carl Johan (b. 1916). Being the only daughter, Ingrid and her mother-who unusually for the time breastfed her children-soon formed a close bond, as Margareta preferred to be closely involved in the upbringing of her children, rather than rely heavily on help from a nurse or nanny, as was the case among most European royalties. A visiting Spanish Princess, Eulalia wrote that the Crown Princess gave the Swedish court ‘just a touch of the elegance of the Court of St James’s [in London].’ And here lies the key to Ingrid’s personality: the English influence that was imbued in her from birth by her mother. Soon the young child was immersed in reading English-language nursery books such as ” Kate Greenway’s “Under the Window” or “Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens” by Arthur Packham. Margareta was also a keen gardener and photographer. She indulged herself by taking some wonderful rare colour photographs (for this was after all 1912) of her English-style garden at the family’s summer home, Sofiero Palace, near Helsingborg. These later featured in two books which were published in Sweden and accompanied by illustrations and drawings by the English princess, who counted artists such as the English sculptor Clare Frewen Sheridan as a friend. Often by her side in that wonderful garden was young Ingrid, doubtless entranced by the tripod camera which her mother used to capture such clear images. Another English trait was the use of nicknames en famille. Ingrid became known as ‘Sessan’ or ‘San’, abbreviations of the Swedish word for princess, prinsessan. It goes without saying that English was also widely spoken at Sofiero, although Margareta had been able to speak fluent Swedish within two years of her arrival in Sweden. This fluency in English-without the drawback of a heavy foreign accent-would serve Ingrid well in her future role as Queen of Denmark, as the Scandinavian languages are not widely understood in an international context.

During Ingrid’s formative years, Margareta encouraged her children to participate in amateur dramatics. In one play, Ingrid was tasked with playing a princess and was quite insistent that she must have a tiara, ‘otherwise you are not a real princess.’ Ingrid’s brothers were also willing players in these productions, although they were more likely to dress up as sailors. However, all of the children liked nothing better than a game of cowboys and indians in the summer palace garden, with a white conical-shaped tent serving as a tepee. These images were caught for posterity by Margareta on her new cine camera. The camera also captured Ingrid being led on a horse and cart or feeding swans on the boating pond. She was also a bit of a tomboy, happy to indulge in a little football with her brothers or watch a game of curling with her mother and brothers in winter. Yet, Margareta also made sure Ingrid received an education. In old age, Ingrid would recall that ‘I had classes at the [Royal] Palace. My mother …thought [as the only girl] I should have [female] companions’ to study alongside her ‘as she did not think it was a good idea for children to be on their own.’ Some commentators have mentioned that the Princess may have been dyslexic. Like her mother, Ingrid showed an aptitude for art and would later enjoy photography. The family, on occasion, made visits to their grandfather at his home, Bagshot Park, in leafy Berkshire. This further imbued Ingrid with an understanding of English ways and gave her an understanding of her place in the British Royal Family. A particular focus of the day-whether it be at Sofiero, in Stockholm or at Bagshot Park-was afternoon tea. This wonderfully English feast usually consisted of tea, sandwiches, scones and cakes and was served around 4pm-5pm each afternoon.

Nonetheless, there was another side to Crown Princess Margareta which Ingrid must have observed. As a British princess, she always understood (for it had been drilled into her) that with privilege came duty. During World War I, Margareta set up a knitting guild to provide garments for the Red Cross. She also put her name to a scheme to encourage women to work on the land. Margareta was also interested in matters involving the welfare of mothers and their children and set up a charity to promote this. She was also Honorary President of the Association for the Blind in Sweden.

In 1918, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark paid a visit to Sofiero, which was not unusual as the links between the Danish and Swedish royal families were close, both through marriage and descent. At that time Frederik was a mere nineteen and Ingrid but a child of eight. This was also the year that King Gustav V celebrated his 60th birthday and there was a large gathering of the extended royal family, including Ingrid, at Tullgarn Palace. Indeed, images from that time make it clear that there were not many royal family events where Ingrid was not present. Of this period, Ingrid would note that ‘We were children who were happy. Everything was joyful and we were happy in a warm family atmosphere.’ Meanwhile, Ingrid was asked to be a flower girl at the wedding of her mother’s sister, Princess Patricia of Connaught, in 1919. Patsy married the a British naval officer, Captain Alexander Ramsay and relinquished her royal title, being known thereafter as Lady Patricia Ramsay.

In early 1920, 38-year-old Crown Prince Margareta was pregnant with her sixth child when she had endured a bout of measles which aggravated an ear. An operation then took place for the removal of diseased mastoid air cells. There seem to have been complications, as she died of sepsis (blood poisoning) on 1 May of that year. Ingrid’s father was devastated with grief (‘It was so unexpected’ Ingrid remembered) but gathered his children around him for comfort. Thereafter, he never spoke about their mother to them again, which must have been very difficult for all concerned. The joy had suddenly gone from all of their lives. Ingrid summed it up succinctly, ‘It’s a grief you never overcome. Never, never,’  adding ‘I stopped being a child.’ Crown Princess Margareta’s funeral took place in Stockholm’s Storkyrkan and she was buried in the Royal Cemetery, within the Hagaparken, Solna, with Ingrid looking on. Ingrid would later recall, ‘My mother was a lovely person. Very gifted, also artistic. Also a very practical person and full of energy. She achieved much in her very short life.’

The appearance of Lady Louise Mountbatten (born a Princess of Battenberg, although her father, Prince Louis renounced his German title during World War I and Anglicised the family name to Mountbatten) must have been something of a shock to Ingrid, who had become something of a surrogate mother figure to her young brothers, as Prince Sigvard recalled. Louise and Gustav Adolf met in London in 1923 when the Crown Prince came over for London ‘season’ with his two eldest children. They had previously met, in August 1914, when Louise and her mother Alice passed through Stockholm on their return journey to England from St Petersburg (where the duo had been on a visit to Alice’s sisters, Tsarina Alexandra and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia [Ella]) at the outbreak of World War I. The British press commented on the fact that Gustav seemed to be paying special attention to Louise as she and Gustav paid visits to the races and spent time at the home of Louise’s brother George, the Marquess of Milford Haven. Louise was apparently nervous and uncertain as to what she should do if the Crown Prince proposed, although her mother urged her to accept, observing that Gustav could offer her a good home and a ready-made family life in a pleasant country. Even after she accepted the proposal, her doubts lingered. At one stage, Louise told a Greek relation that she was too old (she was thirty-four) and too thin to be a bride. Although Prince Gustav Adolf and Prince Sigvard, being in England, were told in person that their father had decided to remarry, their younger siblings, including Ingrid, who had remained at home in Sweden, were given the news by their paternal grandmother, Queen Victoria of Sweden, to whom they were not particularly close. To say that they were surprised would be a gross underestimation. They were not alone, as so were the majority of the Swedish public who had never heard of Louise, despite the fact that she was a great-granddaughter of Britain’s Queen Victoria, as Louise’s maternal grandmother was the late Princess Alice of Great Britain and Ireland, Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine, the second daughter of the old Queen Empress. The bride-to-be was a thus a first cousin once removed of the late Crown Princess Margareta. Although somewhat set in her ways, Louise had been a nurse during World War I and was deemed a respectable bride for the royal widower due to her royal links and maturity. She also had a democratic outlook which would doubtless appeal to the Swedes. Ingrid is pictured with her father and brother Prince Bertil around this time in England’s “Sphere” magazine of November 1923 and titled “Royal Marriage at St James’s.” This is a reference to the wedding ceremony which took place on 3 November at the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace in central London. After a honeymoon in Italy, Louise arrived with her husband by train into Stockholm on a wintry day, 11 December, the guns of Skeppsholmen providing a welcoming salute to Sweden’s new Crown Princess.

The Crown Prince and his new bride spent the first Christmas at Drottningholm Palace, on the outskirts of Stockholm, with Gustav’s children. King Gustav and Queen Victoria did their best to act as good hosts to their son, his new wife and their grandchildren. As in past times, a giant Christmas tree dominated the room where the children’s presents were arranged on small tables. Games of badminton were played in the ballroom. Otherwise, the newlyweds occupied the same apartments in the Royal Palace as those used by Ingrid’s mother and father during their marriage; there was a similar arrangement at Sofiero (which they still used in the summer). However, Louise and Gustav also refurbished and modernised many rooms at Ulriksdal Palace, during which they were able to put their own stamp on the place. The family made use of this residence in the spring and autumn. It was in many ways neutral ground, for it was not so identified with Margareta. Louise was described as ‘gifted and determined and wanted things her own way.’ She was not perceived as ‘motherly’ and certainly did not have the captivating beauty of Margareta. Ingrid’s youngest brother, Prince Carl Johan, described Louise in his memoirs as shy and a little edgy in manner. But the one who was ‘hesitant’ and had the hardest time receiving this new addition to her family was thirteen-year-old Ingrid who, despite being only ten years old when Margareta died, had become accustomed to taking on the role as her father’s dutiful and diligent mainstay. It may have helped that, although born in Germany, Louise had been raised in England and so was accustomed to English traditions. Her introduction into this close-knit family cannot have been easy and was not helped by the trauma of delivering a still-born child in 1925. Yet, by 1930, she was first lady of Sweden following the death of her mother-in-law, the decidedly pro-German Queen Consort, Victoria. Pictures of this period often show Ingrid accompanying her father and step mother at engagements. Tactfully, Ingrid remains somewhat in the background but has invariably been given a bouquet of flowers similar in size to that of her stepmother. Yet Ingrid was also independent, living life in Stockholm as a modern, active woman. She rode, skied and skated, and was an accomplished tennis player. She learned to drive in 1928. Ingrid was also something of a royal style icon, draped in ostrich plumes, rubies and silk lames when for gala dinners.

The late 1920’s and early 1930’s were a further time of royal Swedish marriages. Ingrid’s father’s cousin Astrid married Belgium’s Crown Prince Leopold in November 1926, while Astrid’s sister Märtha married Crown Prince Olav of Norway in March 1929. Ingrid was a bridesmaid at both of these weddings, travelling to Brussels and Oslo for the festivities. She had often been in the company of these sisters prior to their marriage and still often met up with them during their visits home to Sweden, usually at Fridhem, the country home of Astrid and Märtha’s parents, Danish-born Princess Ingeborg and her husband Prince Carl of Sweden, Duke of Västergötland. In 1932, Ingrid’s eldest brother, Prince Gustav Adolf (‘Edmund’), married Princess Sybilla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Sybilla’s father, Charles Edward, was the British-born son of Queen Victoria’s eighth child and youngest son, Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany. Although raised in England until the age of fifteen, Charles eventually moved to Germany, where he subsequently inherited the Dukedom of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1900. As the 1930’s progressed the Duke became increasingly admiring of and involved with Hitler’s Third Reich, rising to the rank of SS Obergruppenführer in 1936. He continued to maintain close links with the British Royal Family. His sister was Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, a sister-in-law of Britain’s Queen Mary. Interestingly, Ingrid was to serve as a bridesmaid at the wedding of Princess Alice’s daughter, Lady May Cambridge to Henry Abel-Smith in October 1931. Her future sister-in-law, Sybilla, was also a bridesmaid. Meanwhile, in 1934, Ingrid’s elder brother Sigvard was stripped of his royal rank when he married Erica Maria Patzek, the daughter of a German businessman. The same would apply when Ingrid’s younger brother Carl Johan married journalist Elin Wijkmark in 1946.

But what of Ingrid’s future? She was certainly ideally placed to make an excellent dynastic marriage. When the heir to the British throne, the Prince of Wales (David) and his brother Prince George visited Stockholm in 1932. Ingrid’s name was briefly linked romantically with David. In 1933, Ingrid, who was on a visit to her English family, was pictured at Wimbledon alongside David’s mother, Queen Mary. The latter would certainly have approved of such a marriage, given the close dynastic links between the British and Swedish royal families. Yet it was not to be: The future King Edward VIII, would fall into disgrace when he abdicated his throne, in December 1936, to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Talk of a royal romance was temporarily put on the back burner, when in late 1934, Ingrid undertook a five-month journey to the Middle East by sea and plane, in the company of her father, Crown Princess Louise and her younger brother Bertil, visiting archaeological sites (the Crown Prince was a keen archaeologist throughout his life) and examining priceless artefacts in Greece, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jerusalem (Palestine) and Jordan.

Shortly after Ingrid’s 25th birthday, it was announced, by the Swedish and Danish Royal Courts that she was to marry Denmark’s Crown Prince Frederik. Ingrid and Frederik seem to have been involved romantically for around two years, although the press had not picked up on this. Frederik had travelled over to Stockholm for the announcement but eluded the waiting press by leaving his train beforehand at Södertälje, where Ingrid was waiting in her car to drive the Crown Prince to the Royal Palace. Frederik was very much a man of the sea. Unlike most incumbents to the Danish throne, he had joined the Danish navy, as opposed to taking a commission in the armed forces. He underwent an exacting four-year spell at the Naval Cadet School in Copenhagen’s Gernersgade, together with periods spent on board the cadet ships Heimdal and Valkyrien. At his parents’ insistence, he was treated the same as any other naval cadet. Frederik was outgoing and cheerful and at ease with himself and the man in the street. He smoked a pipe and had a deep love of music and tattoos! By the time of his marriage, he had risen to the rank of Captain. It has been said that after her marriage to Frederik, Ingrid-who could be strict with herself and others-softened somewhat under his influence. The wedding in Stockholm saw a gathering of the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian royal families with some Prussian ex-royals, such as Crown Princess Cecilie also present. In addition, many of Ingrid’s British relations attended including her mother’s sister, Lady Patricia Ramsay (‘Patsy’), her mother’s cousin, Princess Helena Victoria (‘Thora’) and her mother’s sister-in-law, Princess Arthur of Connaught. The latter was also Margareta’s first cousin once removed (and thus Ingrid’s second cousin), as she was the eldest daughter of the late Louise, Princess Royal and Duchess of Fife, the eldest daughter of King Edward VII (and niece of the Duke of Connaught). Stockholm was filled with joy and cheering crowds as Ingrid entered the Storkyrkan, on 24 May, on the arm of her father wearing a wedding veil of Irish lace which had belonged to her mother. Instead of a tiara, she wore a crown of English myrtle grown in Margareta’s garden at Sofiero. The ceremony was broadcast on Swedish radio.

Following the wedding, the plan had been that the newlyweds would travel south through Sweden by rail and then cross over to Copenhagen by sea in a Danish navy vessel. The Danish Royal Yacht, Dannebrog, had brought the Danish King and Queen and Crown Frederik to Stockholm for the wedding (the Danish suite being received with great fanfare and brought ashore in the ornate Vasaorden, the Swedish Royal Barge.) The Dannebrog was normally only used to transport the Danish Sovereign. It had certainly not, up until now, been put at the disposal of the Crown Prince. However, Ingrid thought it would be wonderful if she and her husband could travel to Denmark together aboard the Royal Yacht. Crown Prince Frederik was sceptical, feeling it unlikely that King Christian would grant such a request. However, such was Ingrid’s determination and charm that she won over her father-in-law, who graciously consented to permit this. A gun salute greeted the new bride as the Dannebrog arrived in Copenhagen. Even better, both King Christian and his wife, Queen Alexandrine, were waiting on the quayside to greet the new Crown Princess of Denmark as she landed in her adopted homeland and passed under a bridal arch festooned with flowers. After receiving a large bouquet, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess were taken in an open carriage to the Amalienborg where they appeared on the balcony to the acclaim of the large crowd below. A banquet was held that evening at Christiansborg Palace. Meanwhile, the country’s bakers sold Ingrid cakes and Ingrid confectionery, and many citizens had put pictures of Ingrid on display in the windows as a salutation to their new Crown Princess.

During their summer honeymoon, the couple stayed in Rome for a period of time, and invariably returned to the city almost every autumn when they could move around the streets or eat in backstreet trattoria unrecognised and undisturbed. However, they were returning to a country that was suffering, like others in Europe, from the economic downturn. Ingrid (who quickly mastered Danish and took lessons in Danish history) was soon, as Crown Princess of Denmark, at the forefront of many royal engagements, such as the Silver Jubilee celebrations for King Christian X in 1937. It is fair to say that Ingrid helped improve relations between her husband and his ageing father, who could be irascible. Queen Margrethe remembers that, ‘My mother wasn’t afraid [of the King as many members of the family were], she was used to dealing with older, slightly stiff gentlemen – there were so many old gentlemen in the Swedish family. It didn’t occur to her that she should be afraid of him, and in turn, he actually adored her,’ Ingrid’s charitable patronages at this time focused on those concerned with children and youths. Ingrid was involved too with the Girl Scouts and attended a summer camp. A Lady-in-Waiting Sybille Bruun was appointed to assist her. Sybille’s father had been the Danish envoy to Sweden at the time of her marriage. Meanwhile, for relaxation, Ingrid and Frederik built a small hunting lodge by Bjørnsholm Bay, at Trend in Vesthimmerland municipality using funds donated in 1937 from a ‘folk gift’ as the Crown Prince loved to hunt.

Ingrid and Frederik often travelled outside of Denmark on official business. In 1937, they made an official visit to Paris. Thereafter, in 1939, they undertook a two-month tour of the United States, visiting San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and New York, where they attended the World Fair. Ingrid charmed President and Mrs Roosevelt, with whom she and her husband dined, which was fortuitous as one of the main objects of the tour was to foster closer relations with the United States government, as the possibility of war in Europe grew ever nearer. The rise of Hitler and his Third Reich had long cast a long shadow over the continent, particularly after his annexation of the Sudetenland in October 1938. En route home from the United States, Ingrid and Frederik stopped off briefly in London to see her eighty-nine year old grandfather, the Duke of Connaught. It was fortuitous that she did as soon international travel would soon become impossible.

When wore broke out in Europe, in the autumn of 1939, Denmark declared itself to be neutral. However, German forces (around 40,000 men) invaded in the early hours of 9 April 1940. Crown Princess Ingrid, heavily pregnant with her first child, was ‘furious’ and apparently let out a rare expletive to give vent to her feelings, as she lay in her bedroom at the Frederick VIII Palace of the Amalienborg, the Crown Princely couple’s residence in Copenhagen. Some of the fiercest fighting took place nearby in the Amaliegade and Bredgade. Many of the royal guards were injured as they bravely sought to hold off the intruders. In the end the King negotiated a cease fire, for he must have realised that otherwise many more of his guards would have been killed, for they were outnumbered. Officially, Germany claimed to be protecting Denmark from a British and French invasion. Danish-language leaflets were dropped from Luftwaffe planes to spread this propaganda to the masses. With the German military now firmly on the ascendant, a coalition government now chose to ‘cooperate’ with the occupying power to protect the country from the consequences of the war. Some would argue that what followed was more a process of ‘negotiation’ than cooperation for, whereas in other occupied countries an independent German administration was established, in Denmark it was still the Danish authorities who had the formal responsibility for governing. Nonetheless, German troops continued to maintain a highly visible presence and Danish citizens’ rights were restricted.

During these dark times of World War 2, Copenhageners became accustomed to Ingrid and Frederik taking walks through the capital with their newly-born daughter, Margrethe, who was born just a week after the German incursion, an event which was seen as a positive symbol of light in the darkness. Danish spirits were also lifted by the sight of Frederik’s father, King Christian X, taking morning rides, in military uniform, through the streets of Copenhagen, cheered on by crowds of well wishers. It is something that Ingrid encouraged him to keep doing. The Crown Prince and his wife also took to using bicycles whenever possible, again as an emblem of solidarity with the man-in-the-street. These were symbols of a determined defiance to the government policy of ‘cooperation’, which officially the King supported. Ingrid, meanwhile, joined the Danish Women’s Preparedness organisation. Of this war period, Ingrid would later tell her daughter, Margrethe, that she and Crown Prince Frederik felt ‘so ashamed.’ The Crown Princess was no fan of the Nazis and would recall that, a few years earlier, she had been required to dine with Hermann Göring, and thought him dreadful. Apparently, King Christian X and Queen Alexandrine (who was born and raised in northern Germany in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin) also felt aggrieved by the situation. Yet, no matter what their personal feelings were, the royal family all had to put on a polite public face for the sake of their countrymen and countrywomen. One telling image shows Ingrid and her husband at a animal show in the company of Prime Minister Vilhelm Buhl. The normally kind and outgoing Crown Prince looks decidedly ill-at ease, although Ingrid, who is seated next to Buhl, manages to look politely interested in the proceedings, as she holds on to a bouquet of flowers. Ingrid and her husband also visited areas where there had been bomb damage. In the autumn of 1942, the Danish Prime Minister gave his famous ‘anti-sabotage’ speech, urging the Danes to desist from acts of sabotage (which were on the increase). It is fair to say that his words would not have found favour with the Crown Prince and his wife. After a fall from his horse on 19 October 1942, King Christian X was more or less an invalid throughout the rest of his reign, so an increasing amount of the burden fell on Crown Prince Frederik (who acted as Regent for periods thereafter) and Ingrid. Interestingly, the Danes had now taken princess to their hearts. She was no longer referred to as ‘the Swedish Princess’ but as ‘our Crown Princess.’

It was not until 29 August 1943, when the Germans declared a ‘Military State of Emergency’, that the policy of cooperation between the Danish government and the Germans broke down. This development came about as a result of a change in public sentiment in Denmark which manifested itself in further sabotage activity (for instance the Danish navy sunk many of its own ships at Holmen rather than see them seized by the Germans; while civilian acts of sabotage were directed against companies that supplied or worked with the Germans). Civil unrest (including strikes and riots) was also on the increase in several major cities. Then, on the night of October 2, the occupying forces tried to round up Danish Jews. However, more than 7,000 Danish Jews were helped to escape by the Danish resistance to Sweden, although around 470 were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. It has recently emerged that, in all probability, King Christian gave money to assist with costs involved in the transportation of the Jews to safety, after an appeal was made to him by two nurses sent from a local hospital from where this evacuation effort was coordinated. Meanwhile, under what was effectively martial law, the King and his family were placed under house arrest at Sorgenfri Castle by the German authorities. The Danish parliament ceased to function and the government resigned rather than agree to a German ‘request’ to introduce the death penalty for saboteurs. Queen Margrethe feels that, ‘from that point on, I don’t think father and mother were ashamed of Denmark.’ Jon Bloch Skipper, royal historian and author, who wrote a biography of King Frederik IX, states that Ingrid and her husband were certainly aware of the activities of the Danish resistance at this time and, in all probability, met with some of them at the Amalienborg.

The Crown Princess and her husband had a second child, Benedikte in April 1944. Meanwhile, opposition to the German occupiers continued apace with further strikes in Copenhagen and other towns in Zealand, Lolland-Falster and South Jutland. Then, in September 1944, several thousand Danish police were sent to concentration camps by the increasingly embattled occupiers. In addition, Ingrid faced the same problem as other Danish women in relation to finding suitable clothes for her children to wear. She decided to make use of her wedding dress from which she made baby jackets with hoods for her daughters (a third daughter, Anne-Marie was born in August 1946).

On 5 May 1945, Denmark was officially free of German control. Citizens all over the country took down the black blinds that had been used to cover their windows during bombing raids and made bonfires of them in the streets. Two months later, Ingrid’s father and stepmother came over from Sweden for a stay at Fredensborg. The Swedish Crown Prince was delighted to see his daughter, son-in-law and his granddaughters Margaretha and Benedikte. However, both he and Ingrid were devastated by the death, in an air crash, of Prince Gustav Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten in January 1947. He was only forty years of age and left behind a widow (Sybilla) and five children, the youngest of whom, an only son Prince Carl Gustav, would one day ascend the throne of Sweden. The accident occurred on Danish soil, near Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport, following a stopover there. The prince was flying home to Sweden from a hunting holiday in the Netherlands with Prince Bernhard. The plane stalled almost immediately after take off and ploughed nose first to the ground. The six crew and sixteen passengers were all killed. A heavily-veiled Ingrid attended the funeral in Stockholm on 4 February. 100,000 were said to have lined the streets.

Just as Ingrid was recovering from the trauma of the her brother’s funeral, King Christian X died on 20 April. Ingrid was now Queen Consort of Denmark. Her husband, the new King, Frederik IX, was so proclaimed from the balcony at Christiansborg Palace and gave a brief speech: ‘The two of us will now take over and continue in the same spirit as the former royal couple.’ Then he gave Queen Ingrid a hearty kiss on the cheek. One cannot imagine King Christian and Queen Alexandrine behaving in such a spontaneous manner. It was perhaps apt that one of their first official guests, in 1948, was Danish-born King Haakon VII of Norway (‘Uncle Charles’). Like his nephew Frederik, Haakon had previously served as a naval officer in the Danish navy. Then, in 1952, the royal couple would host Ingrid’s father and his wife Louise on a State Visit to Denmark. Overseas State Visits also abounded, including one by Frederik and Ingrid to London in May 1951 and then to Vienna in 1952.

Although the heir to the throne was now Frederik’s younger brother, Hereditary Prince Knud, discussions were taking place to change the rules of succession. In Denmark, these changes were enacted via The Succession to the Throne Act of 27 March 1953 which introduced conditional female succession in Denmark as of 5 June. This meant that a female descendant of the current reigning sovereign could now inherit the throne, providing that there was no male heir, which, of course, in King Frederik IX’s case, there was not as all his children were daughters. Ingrid and Frederik’s eldest child, Margrethe, was now referred to as Crown Princess Margrethe. This changed occurred just as the role of Danish women were becoming more prevalent in the workplace. Some press sources noted that the (now) Prince Knud referred to his sister-in-law as ‘King Ingrid’ as it was she who really pulled the strings at the Amalienborg. Other commentators say Ingrid was a (or the) motivating force behind the change. However, it is highly unlikely that this change in the succession would have incurred without support from the average Dane in the street.

Queen Ingrid, meanwhile, helped her husband to transform the monarchy from a distant, aloof institution into an outward-looking, accessible institution. In particular, she was aware of the need to promote the monarchy in a fast-changing world, while also adapting it to suit new circumstances. Photographers (such as Britain’s Patrick Lichfield [the mother of whom married Prince Georg of Denmark]) were given access and invariably produced images of a loving family of three daughters watched over by a doting father and loving mother. Nevertheless, in these pictures, the steely side of Queen Ingrid also shines through. A former guard at the Palace once told the writer that while the princesses were relatively relaxed and informal, Ingrid was decidedly more formal. Nevertheless, the King was said to have the ability to make his wife relax; while she contributed greatly to Fredrik appearing more dignified and confident in his role as monarch. In effect, the duo complimented each other perfectly. The Royal Court also allowed the cameras into the palace to film at teatime. In doing this, Ingrid gives a nod to her English mother, Princess Margaret of Connaught, in a wonderful film sequence of her acting as ‘Mother’, in the traditional English way, pouring and distributing afternoon tea to her husband and daughters. Princess Benedikte recalled that the hour between 4pm and 5pm was almost sacrosanct and if, for any reason, the Queen was delayed for reasons of duty, the palace staff ensured that everything was made ready for her to take tea on her return home. Teatime also provided the family with a rare opportunity to indulge in some candid conversation, as no staff were present. Another occupation with English overtones was Ingrid’s love of gardening, particularly at Graasten Palace-her summer home until the end of her long life and of course at Fredensborg.

Queen Ingrid now expanded her official duties. She showed a great interest in matters relating to Greenland, following her visit with the King in the summer of 1952 aboard the Dannebrog. Ingrid was particularly concerned to learn that many of the Greenlanders were affected by tuberculosis. Thereafter, partly thanks to her interest, a new hospital was built and opened in 1954 in Nuuk (then Godthab) bearing her name (originally this dealt with pulmonary diseases but has now expanded into a general hospital). The King and Queen paid several visits together to Greenland (1952, 1960 and 1968) and the Faroe Islands (1959, 1963, 1969). Meanwhile, in Copenhagen there were several high-profile engagements concerned with European and international affairs: In May 1950, Ingrid attended a meeting of the International Olympic Committee in Copenhagen. In February 1953, the King and Queen were present at a meeting of the first Scandinavian Council held at Christiansborg, during which closer political ties in Europe were discussed. Ingrid then assisted her husband in hosting an important lunch at Fredensborg Palace for foreign ministers attending a NATO conference. There continued to be a plethora of incoming State Visits. A particularly poignant one, given the recent history of Denmark, was the visit by the President of West Germany, Gustav Heinemann and his wife Hilda, in 1970. One with a more family feel was an earlier visit by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1957. The Danish royal couple also made many more visits overseas. In 1960 they again visited the United States, followed in 1962 by a visit to Thailand. They travelled to Africa too, visiting Emperor Haile Selassie in Addis Ababa in 1970. There was also a visit to Iran, in 1971, in connection with the celebrations at Persepolis to commemorate 2500 years of the founding of the Persian Empire. Ingrid and her husband also paid a visit to the Vatican, in 1959, during which they were received in audience by Pope John XXIII.

On 21 July 1962, Ingrid attended the confirmation service of her nephew Crown Prince Carl Gustav at Borgholms Church on the island of Öland. She liked to visit her homeland and kept in close touch with her father and her late brother’s children, as well as his widow Sybilla. Forays continued also to England. In 1952, Ingrid took her three daughters on a visit to London, said by the press to be the children’s first overseas visit. She was also photographed, in 1957, with Queen Elizabeth II and her family watching a game of polo at Smith’s Lawn in Windsor. Ingrid’s closeness, not to mention loyalty, to her British relatives was emphasised by the fact that she was the sole foreign royal to attend the 1960 wedding of Princess Margaret to the photographer, Anthony (‘Tony’) Armstrong-Jones. Other European royalties stayed clear of this unequal marital union of a king’s daughter to a commoner.

Queen Louise of Sweden died on March 7, 1965 in Stockholm. Ingrid was present during the Swedish Queen’s final illness and kindly kept Louise’s brother, Lord Louis Mountbatten (who was on a trip to Australasia) appraised of the situation. A further development around this time was that Crown Princess Margaretha had met and fallen in love with a French aristocrat and diplomat Henri de Laborde de Monpezat, who at the time was on the staff of the French Embassy in London. The couple married at the Holmens Kirke in Copenhagen on 10 June 1967. Margrethe wore a diamond daisy brooch which was a nod to her English grandmother, Margareta, who had been known by the family nickname of ‘Daisy’. Interestingly, Margrethe was also already known en famille as ‘Daisy’.

On 3 January 1972, King Frederik, who was suffering from a bad attack of flu, had a heart attack. Fortunately his doctor happened to be at the Amalienborg at the time, so he was hospitalised immediately and seemed to improve after a few days, but then his condition deteriorated and he died on the evening of 14 January. Ingrid had visited him faithfully every day at the Kommunehospitalet. Aged only sixty-two, she was a relatively young, fit and healthy widow facing a future without her husband of thirty-six years. Queen Ingrid (as she continued to be known) remained at her home in the Amalienborg complex, but moved out of the main palace at Fredensborg into the Chancellery House, a long, low wing, which is connected to the main palace buildings via the adjoining stable block and royal chapel. She also continued to have the use of Graasten Palace in South Jutland, where she loved nothing better than to do her embroidery or work in the English-style garden she had helped to create ever since she and her husband had first taken over the palace as their summer residence in the 1930’s. Visits from her children and their families were particularly welcome and Ingrid soon started to travel overseas, attending events in Oslo, in August 1972, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late King Haakon VII (who had been born at Denmark’s Charlottenlund Palace in 1872). At home, she attended the opening of the Annual Meeting of the World Bank in Copenhagen in 1973. Queen Ingrid would serve many times as regent during her daughter’s absences abroad. Until then, this function was traditionally reserved for those in line to the throne.

The death of her father, King Gustav VI Adolf, on September 15, 1973, was hardly unexpected given his great age. She had been by his side when he died in Helsingborg Hospital and was pictured leaving afterwards with her nephew, the new King Carl XVI Gustav and her niece Princess Christina. She later walked immediately behind the new King during the funeral procession in Stockholm. This meant that in just over a year Ingrid had lost the two men who had meant the most to her. Yet, she still faced the future with gusto. This included giving the benefit of her experience, if required: When her nephew, the King of Sweden found a future queen in the delightful and talented Silvia Sommerlath (they had met during the summer Olympics in Munich in 1972), Ingrid welcomed Miss Sommerlath to Denmark for three days to discuss her future role as a Queen Consort of Sweden and all that this would entail. Ingrid even drove herself out to the airport at Kastrup in her Jaguar car to greet Silvia off her flight. Some of the press referred to these discussions as ‘Queen Lessons.’ Silvia would later speak of Ingrid’s ‘tremendous wisdom’ noting too that ‘I could always telephone her if I had a question.’ Furthermore, ‘She had a lot of warmth but also a certain distance. She was easy to talk to and awe-inspiring. You weren’t afraid of her, but you had a lot of respect for her.’ Ingrid attended the couple’s wedding in Stockholm in June 1976, seated between King Olav of Norway and her brother Prince Bertil. With his nephew now settled, Bertil now decided to marry his long-time love, a Welsh actress, Lilian Craig. Ingrid attended the wedding in Stockholm on 7 December. Unlike his two surviving brothers, he retained the title of His Royal Highness.

A source of worry during this period was the fate of her youngest daughter, Anne-Marie, who had married King Constantine of the Hellenes in 1964. Greece had always been a politically volatile country and the Greek royal family had been accustomed to spending long periods in exile in the first half of the 20th century. On 21 April 1967, a group of army colonels overthrew the caretaker government a month before scheduled elections in which Georgios Papandreou’s Centre Union was favoured to win. At one stage, tanks surrounded Constantine and Anne-Marie’s home at Tatoi, outside Athens. Following an unsuccessful attempt at a counter-coup, planned over many months by the King and officers loyal to the crown, Anne-Marie and her husband, accompanied by their children, as well as the dowager queen Frederika and Constantine’s sister Irene, had made a sudden dash by air to Rome, in December 1967, with barely any fuel left in the tank of their small plane. The family lived initially at the Greek Embassy, then in a villa on the outskirts of Rome. Ingrid had a chance to have a catch up with Anne-Marie when she arrived in Copenhagen, in January 1968, to attend the wedding, on 3 February, at Fredensborg’s Royal Chapel of her older sister Benedikte to the German Prince Richard Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg. King Constantine did not attend this event (neither had he nor Anne-Marie been able to attend Crown Princess Margrethe’s nuptials the previous year, for it had been made clear [‘advised’] by the Danish government that Constantine should stay away. Queen Ingrid had responded to this ‘advice’ by placing pictures of the Greek King and Queen throughout the rooms of Fredensborg Palace where Margrethe’s wedding reception was held). Greece was declared a republic in 1973. Following the restoration of a democratic government in 1974, a referendum was held to decide the future of the Greek monarchy: 69% of Greek citizens were in favour of a republic; only 31% were in favour of the restoration of the monarchy. When the Greek royal family eventually relocated to England in 1974 and settled in a roomy home in Hampstead, Ingrid was able to make regular visits over to London, where she spent much of her time gardening. Queen Ingrid must have reflected back to a warm September day in 1964, when she and King Frederik had sailed into Piraeus, the port for Athens, on board the Dannebrog with Anne-Marie at their side, to be greeted by a flotilla of local ships hooting their horns accompanied by a twenty-one-gun salute to welcome their future queen consort.

In the meantime, Ingrid’s growing band of grandchildren were a source of pleasure. She was particularly close to Crown Prince Frederik, Margrethe and Henrik’s eldest son, who was born in 1968. She also saw a lot of his younger brother, Prince Joachim, who followed in 1969. Anne-Marie and Constantine had a very large family over an extended time scale. Their first-born (and Ingrid’s first grandchild) was a daughter Alexia, born in Corfu in July 1965. The royal couple then went on to have four more children, Pavlos (born in 1967), Nikolaos (1969), Theodora (1983) and Ingrid’s youngest grandchild, Prince Philippos, who was born in London in 1986. In 1973 Ingrid was pictured on a boating lake, during an excursion to Legoland in Jutland. with her daughter Benedikte’s two eldest children Gustav (born in 1969) and Alexandra (born in 1970). Benedikte would go on to have a third child, Nathalie, in 1975.

As the 1980’s dawned, Ingrid could not help but be concerned by the behaviour of her son-in-law, Prince Henrik. The latter had to establish a role for himself at the Danish Court as he was the first male consort in Denmark’s history. Not an easy matter when there are no established boundaries, no dedicated funds, initially, with which to run an office and you are also constantly criticised in the press for speaking indifferent Danish with a foreign accent! Henrik eventually stated, in public, that he wished to have his own dedicated civil list allowance, instead of relying on handouts from the Queen’s allowance. Danes were outraged with the ‘French prince’. Ingrid was concerned enough to send for a copy of an English newspaper which had carried a report on the situation, according to Nigel Dempster, a well-known gossip columnist of the time, based in London.

Ingrid appeared on the balcony alongside her daughter Margrethe to celebrate her 80th birthday in March 1990. The following year, she paid to a visit to Japan, accompanied by Queen Anne-Marie, where she was pictured admiring a collection of orchids in the company of the Japanese royal family. During the 1990s, Ingrid suffered from scoliosis and there was a gradual deterioration in her general health. In her final years, she sometimes made use of a walking frame to move around, and then often one that matched whatever she happened to wearing at the time – her sense of style was still very much intact. Ingrid never forgot her origins or stopped taking an interest in Sweden. Her daughters recalled, for instance, that she persisted in reading Svenska Dagbladet every morning throughout her life.

It was unusual for Ingrid to give public speeches and when she did it was with a written script which she followed to the letter, a no-nonsense pair of glasses all the better to read it with. But on the occasion of Margrethe II’s 25th anniversary as Queen of Denmark, in January 1997, she surprised everyone by making a rare exception at a banquet to celebrate this milestone. The closing words of the speech were: ‘And Daisy [Margrethe’s nickname], you have two wonderful sons, so I think I can now safely close my eyes, because they will do their best for Denmark.’ A realist, Ingrid knew in her heart that her days were numbered. Yet, she was able to travel over to London to attend the wedding of her eldest grandchild, Alexia, in July 1999, even attending the wedding ball in a cerise pink ensemble. For her 90th birthday, she was photographed in a family group at the Chancellery House with her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and her brother Carl Johan Bernadotte. On November 7, 2000, Ingrid died aged 90 (the same age at which her late father had died) at the Chancellery House, surrounded by her large family (three children and ten grand children), including her beloved Crown Prince Frederik, who arrived in the nick of time from a visit to Australia where he had been attending the Olympic Games.

Ingrid was laid to rest alongside her late husband, King Frederik IX at Roskilde Cathedral on 14 November, having made the final journey by train from Copenhagen. Highly revered, her funeral was attended by the King and Queen of Sweden, the Queen of the Netherlands, the King and Queen of Norway, the King of the Belgians (the younger son of the late Queen Astrid of the Belgians), Britain’s Prince Charles (representing his mother, Queen Elizabeth II), the Grand Duke and Duchess of Luxembourg (the latter was the late Queen Astrid of the Belgian’s daughter) and Queen Sofia of Spain.

Robert Prentice is the author of the biography the Greek-born Princess Olga of Yugoslavia: Her Life and Times. Available as an e-book or hardback from Amazon UK, Amazon.com and Amazon Deutschland. Olga was a Princess of Greece and Denmark and was briefly engaged to the future King Frederik IX in 1922.