Danish prince to tie knot with Australian computer consultant

THE heir to the Danish throne is to marry an Australian, the royal palace in Copenhagen announced yesterday.

It said Queen Margrethe has approved the engagement of Crown Prince Frederik to Mary Donaldson, 31, from Tasmania.

The queen will formally tell the government next month.

The government has to approve the engagement in line with the constitution, a matter of formality.

The pair met at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Margrethe, 63, has repeatedly said that she has no plans of abdicating to allow her 35-year-old son to succeed to the throne of Europe’s oldest ruling monarchy.

Ms Donaldson has two sisters and a brother. Her mother, Henrietta Donaldson, died when she was a baby.

Her father is a mathematics professor at Oxford University and is married to British crime novelist Susan Moody.

The royal romance was kept secret until a Danish celebrity magazine in 2001 reported that Prince Frederik was dating a brunette who worked in a Sydney estate agency.

Danish newspapers have since called her “the perfect princess” and described her as “sweet and good looking”.

They have repeatedly underlined her elegant and fashionable clothes, and the fact that she has a law degree.

“She simply has what it takes to be a queen in the Danish monarchy,” the BT newspaper said.

In recent months, Prince Frederik and Ms Donaldson have appeared in public together on many occasions but only at private events because she cannot accompany the prince to official events.

The future queen has been in Denmark since early 2002 and works as project consultant with the Danish subsidiary of Microsoft.