Husband Who Refused to Be Buried With Queen Has Died

Denmark is in mourning for Prince Henrik
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 14, 2018 3:09 AM CST
Danish Queen's Husband Dead at 83
The flag on half staff at Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018.   (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

Prince Henrik, the French-born husband of Danish monarch Queen Margrethe who publicly vented his frustration at not being the social equal of his wife or their son, who is in line to become Denmark's king, died late Tuesday. He was 83. He was diagnosed with dementia last year and was hospitalized late last month with a lung infection. Earlier in the day, Henrik was moved from a Copenhagen hospital to the family's residence north of the capital, where the royal palace said he wished "to spend his last moments," the AP reports. A later statement said Henrik died at 11:18pm in his sleep and that the queen and their two sons were at his side. "The royal family has lost an anchor," Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said in a statement, adding that Henrik "kept his good spirits till the end."

Flags were at half-mast on public and private buildings across Copenhagen, and national radio channels changed their morning programs to broadcast more austere music. Crown Prince Frederik, an International Olympic Committee member, left Pyeongchang before the official opening of the Winter Games last week to rush home. Born on June 11, 1934, in France to parents with the noble titles of count and countess, Henri Marie Jean Andre de Laborde de Monpezat married Denmark's future queen in 1967. He caused a scandal last August by announcing that when he died he didn't want to be buried next to Margrethe in the cathedral where the remains of Danish royals have gone for centuries. The queen already had a specially designed sarcophagus waiting for the couple.

(More Denmark stories.)

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