Inside the colourful life of ‘Ashtray Queen’ Margrethe: The 6ft chain-smoking, hotdog-eating Tolkien-loving ‘fashion icon’ monarch who wept at her cousin Elizabeth II’s funeral – and whose shock abdication has rocked Denmark

A statuesque, 6ft chain-smoker, with a penchant for brightly coloured raincoats and a remarkable sideline in the arts, she is one of the most admired — and flamboyant — of European monarchs.

But two days ago, during her New Year’s Eve address, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark shocked her nation and royal watchers worldwide by announcing her decision to abdicate. From January 14, her son Crown Prince Frederik will be King — and her 52-year reign will be over.

Yesterday, rumours swirled among her six million subjects over what could have prompted such a move from the 83-year-old who once claimed: ‘I cannot envisage [abdicating]. Unless I fall hopelessly ill.’

After more than half a century on the throne, Margrethe is the longest-sitting ruler in 1,200 years of the Danish monarchy. As the country’s 54th sovereign (but only its second queen), her heritage stretches back more than 1,000 years to King Gorm the Old. With the passing of our late Queen, she also became the world’s longest-serving monarch.

So why would a ruler, sworn like Elizabeth II to duty above all, abdicate now?

Approval ratings for the Danish royal family are close to 80 per cent and Queen Margrethe, once spotted in an unverified picture apparently eating a hotdog while holding a carton of apple juice and enjoying a cigarette, is credited as the much-loved architect of that success.

Dubbed the ‘Ashtray Queen’ for her love of strong, unfiltered, ‘super-slim’ Karelia cigarettes, she temporarily stepped back from royal duties in early 2023 after ‘extensive’ surgery on her back.

It was this procedure (which reportedly brought an end to that 60-a-day habit) that the Queen referenced in her New Year’s speech. ‘The surgery naturally gave rise to thinking about the future — whether the time had come to leave the responsibility to the next generation,’ she told her subjects.

But commentators yesterday were speculating there may be another motivating factor — to strengthen her son’s marriage by granting him the position that is his birthright earlier than expected.

Frederik met Mary Donaldson, the advertising-executive daughter of Scottish academics, in a Sydney pub during the 2000 Olympic Games. It was the beginning of a fairytale romance that culminated in marriage four years later.

Nineteen years on, the couple have four children and Crown Princess Mary is adored in her adopted country — not least because she quickly became fluent in the language as well as boasting an extremely stylish wardrobe.

Recently, however, the couple’s marriage has come under sharp scrutiny after photographs were published in November in Spanish tabloids showing Frederik walking out of the exclusive Corral de la Moreria restaurant in Madrid with Mexican socialite Genoveva Casanova. The 47-year-old reality TV star was previously married to Spanish aristocrat, Cayetano Martinez, whom she divorced in 2007.

Rumours of an alleged ‘affair’ broke into a frenzy in the Danish Press. (For her part, Genoveva promptly dismissed the speculation.) Meanwhile, the royal couple have since presented a united front — ostentatiously holding hands on their way into a Christmas Eve church service and wowing onlookers at a New Year dinner — just a day after the announcement. Mary wore a luxurious maroon velvet gown and glittering tiara.

Rumours, however, can be unsettling, leading some to question the timing of Queen Margrethe’s decision and draw their own conclusions. So will ascending the throne lay to rest fears that something may be rotten in the state of this Danish royal marriage?

There is no doubt Mary, who will become the first Australian-born queen in history, is popular but she follows in redoubtable footsteps. Over the decades, Queen Margrethe has cannily upheld tradition while forging her own path as a modern monarch.

Born in April 1940, a week after the Nazi occupation of Denmark, she was the eldest of the reigning King Frederik IX’s three daughters. But it wasn’t until the Danish constitution was changed in 1953 that women were allowed to ascend the throne and Margrethe became the next in line.

During her childhood, she spent a year at a British boarding school in Hampshire, another year at Girton College Cambridge, reading archaeology, and also a stint at the London School of Economics.

She was eventually crowned, aged 32, on her father’s death in 1972. Five years earlier, she had married French diplomat Henri de Laborde de Monpezat, who became HRH Prince Henrik. An irascible figure, he was once nicknamed ‘the world’s grumpiest royal’; in 2017 he announced he did not wish to be buried beside his wife because he had never been granted the title King or King Consort (he died six months later).

Crown Prince Frederik was born in 1968, with Prince Joachim arriving a year later.

‘Denmark is more important to me than anything else,’ Margrethe once said. ‘I do not think I have ever flirted with the idea of putting my marriage before the throne.’

Yet the Queen, who speaks five languages, has never held back from pursuing her own passions, too. Indeed, how many monarchs can lay claim to having illustrated the works of a bestseller? In 1977, she helped with the Danish edition of The Lord Of The Rings after sending the author JRR Tolkien her ideas as fan mail.

At first she went by a pen name, Ingahild Grathmer, but eventually stopped doing so. ‘Everybody knows who you are, so you might as well be who you are,’ she said.

Her paintings (mostly watercolours and acrylics) have been shown at museums and she’s also a veteran costume designer, working on several ballet productions. Her most recent credit? Costume and production designer for Netflix feature-film Ehrengard: The Art Of Seduction.

The octogenarian designed no fewer than 51 costumes and made 81 decoupages (a type of cut-and-paste artwork).

And, of course, there’s her passion for fashion — the more vibrant the better. ‘I always dream in colour. At full blast. Technicolor. Everywhere. Every shade,’ she told her biographer in 1989.

Her infamous floral raincoat, worn for a 70th birthday celebration in 2007, is a vivid illustration of her flamboyance — made at her own request from a waxed fabric intended for tablecloths, and picked up at London department store Peter Jones.

Fashion bible Vogue has hailed her as ‘an unsung style heroine’.

Famously forthright, in one New Year’s Eve address she warned her countrymen about growing hostility to asylum-seekers.

She enjoyed a close bond with our own late Queen, shedding a tear as she looked at the coffin draped in the royal standard at Elizabeth II’s state funeral in September 2022.

Not only did the pair address each other by their respective nicknames — ‘Daisy’ and ‘Lilibet’ — as great-great-granddaughters of Queen Victoria, they were also cousins.

The esteem in which Margrethe held Elizabeth was on vivid display during Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022. Margrethe revealed: ‘When I was growing up, my mother and father said to me, “Look at what they do in England,” and I could see that it could be done. And you could live a full life [as Queen], even with a heavy schedule and demanding job.’

Not afraid to make seismic decisions, in September 2022, she announced that the four children of her second son, Joachim, would be stripped of their prince and princess titles from January 2023 to help secure the future of a slimmed-down monarchy.

Both Joachim and his wife, Princess Marie, were dismayed. But Margrethe was resolute it was in her family’s best interest.

Now, with this week’s even more seismic announcement, it would seem she has decided the family’s interests are best served by handing the reins to the next generation. Whether the behaviour of her eldest son, once nicknamed the ‘Party Prince’, has anything to do with it, only the outgoing Queen herself could possibly say.