At the end of last October, Frederick of Denmark He already knew his mother's intentions. Queen Margaret told him of her intentions to abdicate. The Sovereign, 83 years old, doubts her health, her strength and her ability to carry out her work in the medium term and with the impeccable exemplarity that has characterized the half-century of her reign. head of state and head of the Danish Church.
But, in the conversation with her firstborn, which Frederick himself later shared with at least two other people, the Queen of Denmark imposed several conditions on her son and warned him of the colossal difference between being the Heir and acting as king, head of State and head of the Church.
If he did not strictly and neatly comply with these conditions, Federico would endanger the Monarchy, the institution itself. The immense popularity of Margaret II sustains the crown, supported by the affection of the citizens; a popularity that the King proclaimed this historic Sunday does not reach, and that will have to be fed with a good image, rectitude, exemplary character and zero scandals.
Precisely after accepting the conditions imposed by his mother to become the new Monarch, and committing to fulfill them, leaving behind his long career of scandals before and after marrying Mary Donaldson, Federico scheduled a whirlwind and private trip to Madrid. As we already told in its day, long before Margaret II's intention to abdicate her son was made public, the reason that led the Heir to move to the capital of Spain was to break his relationship with Genoveva Casanova and do it face to face. He prepared that trip as secretly as possible, without making his passage through Madrid official, without staying at the embassy and without “bothering” the Spanish security services.
Another thing is that Federico did not count on his brief stay in Spain becoming public, much less that it occurred precisely while Felipe and Letizia They were in Copenhagen on a state trip and sharing a table and tablecloth with the Danish Sovereign, her heir and her daughter-in-law, a Mary Donaldson whose effortful gestures to conceal public humiliation are not easy to forget.
That last trip to Spain by Federico turned out to be little secret. The publication of the images of the prince and the Mexican woman and the step by step of his adventures destroyed any hint of discretion.
Their walks through Retiro Park, walking relaxed and complicit, chatting closely, followed at a distance by the two bodyguards, would have been enough to create a scandal.
But Federico de Denmark and Genoveva Casanova went further and the images of the meeting between the then heir to the throne and the ex of Cayetano Martínez de Irujo together in Madrid flooded the media not only in Spain and Denmark.
The same state visit of our kings Felipe and Letizia was contaminated by the publication of the extensive report on the night together of the Mexican woman and the prince, their dinner alone at El Corral de la Morería, and above all the fact of that it was proven that His Highness spent the night at Genoveva's house, since he was photographed entering and leaving, somewhat disoriented, with a suitcase, the next morning.
They arrived by car after leaving the restaurant at dawn, so we know that their dinner table was long. They entered the portal together, as proven by the photographs published by Readingsand it was not until seven hours later when Queen Margaret's son left the home.
Genoveva Casanova looked for excuses, at first she tried to offer implausible explanations and different versions of what happened, then she understood the benefits of silence, she disappeared, she took refuge far from the house in question.
There was talk of divorce, the attitudes of Mary Donaldson and the father of her four children were monitored, they separated for several days, family moments were staged and…. Queen Margaret finally announced, at the end of her speech on December 31, that she was abdicating to her son this Sunday. Frederick X is now the new king of Denmark and his wife, Mary Donaldson, is queen consort. Maybe they both earned it. Him, because he preferred to tear his heart so as not to break his crown; and the Australian, because she has been able to assume the humiliation (and it is not the only one) with the discipline required to save the three main objectives: the stability and continuity of the Danish monarchy, that her husband and she are kings and that her son Christianthe new Heir, becomes head of State in the future.