The promotion of Australian-born Mary from princess to queen proves what a pure lottery the aristocracy has always been | Van Badham

With Denmark's Queen Magrethe abdicating, Mary may come to fulfil an imaginative role as a local queen for Australians when her husband Prince Frederik accedes to the throne

The new year 2024 has begun with Queen Margrethe II of Denmark handing in a shock abdication. After 52 years of monarching, the sovereign of the wealthy little kingdom in the north has called it quits.

World citizens who have never known another Danish queen - or, indeed, maybe have never known that a prosperous parliamentary social democracy in Europe had a queen at all - are now confronted with a sudden upset in the formal dinner seating. A succession is taking place - fortunately, without the formal public oiling of the new monarch, as is the British way.

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