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.
