Margaret Christina of the United Kingdoms of Scandinavia
| Margaret Christina | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Queen of the Scandinavians | |||||
 | |||||
| Queen of Denmark | |||||
| Reign | April 5, 2020 - present | ||||
| Predecessor | Charles IV | ||||
| Queen of Norway | |||||
| Reign | April 5, 2020 - present | ||||
| Predecessor | Charles VI (Charles IV) | ||||
| Queen of Sweden | |||||
| Reign | April 5, 2020 - present | ||||
| Predecessor | Charles XVII (Charles IV) | ||||
| Born | Margaret Christina Elizabeth Ingrid 2 January 1997 Stockholm Palace, Sweden | ||||
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| House | Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg | ||||
| Father | Charles IV | ||||
| Mother | Joan Mouritsen | ||||
| Religion | Church of Denmark Church of Norway Church of Sweden | ||||
Margaret Christina (Margaret Christina Elizabeth Ingrid; born 2 January 1997) is the Queen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Alternatively, she is also titled Queen of the Scandinavians. She acceded to the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish thrones upon the abdication of her father, Charles IV (Charles VI - Norway, Charles XVII - Sweden), on April 5th 2020. Upon her ascension to the throne, she became both Denmark and Norway's second queen regnant, while also becoming Sweden's fourth queen regnant in its history. As per the royal rotation system established by the 1839 Constitution, Margaret Christina's "enthronement" took place in a scaled-down ceremony in Norway, since her father's "enthronement" had previously took place in Sweden. Therefore, the "enthronement" of her successor is expected to take place in Denmark afterwards.
A self-described "futuristic and technophilic Queen", Margaret Christina is an avid supporter of the wider use of technology in daily human lives, and is also an outspoken monarch in favour of automation. Additionally, she has also publicly spoken out in favour of extensive digitalisation across the United Kingdoms, along with both the construction and revamping of cities into smart cities, with both initiatives having received much financial support from the Queen herself. A notable dyslexic from birth, Margaret Christina is also a passionate advocate for effective treatments against the condition, with the usage of far more sophisticated technology being a major talking point for the Queen in regards to the issue.
Since the establishment of the United Kingdoms in 1839, Margaret Christina, due to her decision to adopt a form of double regnal names as opposed to a singular one, thus became the first monarch in the union's history to be referred to with a single regnal number in each of her respective constituent kingdoms, unlike her predecessors whom, in accordance to the 1839 Constitution, are often referred to in each constituent kingdoms with differing regnal numbers due to the varying lists of monarchs that reigned in each of the three countries.
Early Life
Margaret Christina was born on January 2nd 1997 at the Swedish royal residence of Stockholm Palace, as the eldest child of Charles IV, King of the Scandinavians and Joan Mouritsen, a former Swedish lawyer. As the eldest child of the reigning sovereign, Margaret Christina was immediately designated as heir apparent, along with the accompanying title of Crown Princess of the Scandinavians. Her full name, Margaret Christina Elizabeth Ingrid, consisted of names respectively honouring the famed Queen Margaret of Denmark, founder of the Kalmar Union, Queen Christina of Sweden, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, and lastly, notable 20th-century Swedish actress, Ingrid Bergman.
As it was required of her being a future sovereign of the United Kingdoms, Margaret Christina was simultaneously baptised into all of the three Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish national churches. At the same time, the princess's birth, upon being announced to the public across the United Kingdoms, proved to be an immediate source of joy as Margaret Christina was expected to become the second queen regnant of a united Scandinavia after her 15th-century predecessor, Queen Margaret, whom had been the sole female ruler of the former Kalmar Union, which lasted from 1397 to 1537.
Childhood
For the first five years of her life, Margaret Christina and her family initially lived at the royal residence of Stockholm Palace, which had been the princess's birthplace. At the same time, the royal family would also occasionally alternate between the various, and other royal residences in the United Kingdoms, namely Amalienborg in Denmark, and the Oslo Palace in Norway. As a direct consequence, a young Margaret Christina was quickly exposed as a whole to the differing cultures present within the union, which would become the general basis for her multilingual education focus. Nevertheless, at the age of five, she was enrolled instead at a Swedish kindergarten in Stockholm, where she generally went to until the age of seven.
Dyslexia Diagnosis
Upon reaching the age of seven, the royal family subsequently moved to Denmark, where after a brief interregnum following their arrival, Margaret Christina was enrolled next at a local primary school, namely the International School of Hellerup, located in the Hellerup district of the capital city of Copenhagen. While there, as to not have the princess being distinguished from her peers due to her royal status, Margaret Christina was subsequently enrolled at the school under her first two names instead, with the notable absence of her HRH title. Then, during the first few days at her aforementioned primary school, the young princess was initially described as being "considerably lagging behind her classmates", a situation first associated with her natural lack of understanding of the Danish language. Following a temporary withdrawal of the young princess from her primary school, in order to make way for a more private form of education which would allow her to better learn the Danish language herself, her subsequent inability to also learn the language efficiently, even under her private tutor proved to be both a cause of great concern and interest by her parents. Reportedly, following several more unsuccessful attempts by the princess to efficiently learn the Danish language, she was soon referred to a local doctor whom, after some time, officially diagnosed the princess as being dyslexic, a condition that had been mostly non-existent in either of her ancestors.
Following the diagnose, Margaret Christina was further discontinued from studying at her local primary school, as she was instead subjected to a routine schedule of measures meant to help her overcome her apparent dyslexia. According to Margaret Christina herself, methods such as the reading of audiobooks, and several other unmentioned alternatives became a common occurrence for the young princess at the time. At the same time, as per the recommendation by her doctors, Margaret Christina was also disallowed from further learning in either the Danish or Norwegian languages, as a continuation of it could apparently lead to the worsening of her condition. Consequently, for the next three years, the princess was conditioned to live in a mostly Swedish environment, particularly in the Swedish royal residence of Stockholm Palace, where the royal family promptly returned to following Margaret Christina's withdrawal from her primary school.
Eventually, while her condition's severity gradually subsided over time, apparent signs of her condition persisted well into Margaret Christina's adulthood, with her notable usage of an ear prompter for all her speeches being a particular example of it. Additionally, since reaching adulthood, Margaret Christina herself has often spoken at meetings or conferences involving dyslexia itself, while at the same time, has notably advocated for the creation of better technology which, in her own words, "could make dyslexia a completely non-existent obstacle for those who are suffering from it".
Academic Studies
After a three years long interregnum, and at the age of ten, having been deemed suitable to return back to a more public form of education, Margaret Christina enrolled once more at the International School of Hellerup, where her academic performance, despite being mostly considered as "subpar" by her teachers, it was nevertheless acknowledged as being a slight improvement from her previous academic performance prior to her temporary departure from the school. This prevailed for the majority of her years spent there, although she notably achieved a well-performing record in the major examination for her final year there, with the exception of the mathematics subject, which the princess reportedly earned a much lower grade for compared to the other subjects.
Following her completion of primary school, she then enrolled at the Stockholm International School. While studying there, for the first three years of her academic studies at the school, Margaret Christina was able to generally achieve and maintain an average record in regards to her performance. Then, for her fourth and final year at the school, her academic performance was later described as being "slightly above average", with some particular improvement by the princess in the subject of mathematics. At the same time, she was also described as having much fascination with the subject of Science, along with History. For her subsequent Swedish SAT examination, Margaret Christina exhibited another well-performing record, thereby allowing her a secure path to university.
For her university, amidst some regular debate as to which university in the United Kingdoms the princess would be enrolling at, Margaret Christina ultimately opted for a "non-partisan" approach by opting instead for Cambridge University in Cambridge, England, a decision that was met with some scrutiny and concern by her parents, whom feared an underperformance by the princess at the highly esteemed university due to her dyslexic condition. Nevertheless, the princess was able to go ahead with her choice of university, whereupon her arrival in the country, she promptly rented an apartment in the city of Cambridge, England, where the university itself is located. Eventually, after a four years long study, she eventually graduated from the university with a bachelor's degree in Technology. Later on, Margaret Christina herself subsequently made public an initial dilemma she faced following her entry into the university, in which the former at first deliberated over the options of either pursuing a bachelor's degree in Law or in Technology. In the end, Margaret Christina's ultimate decision to finally pursue a bachelor's degree in Technology, according to the princess herself, was inspired by a personal visit she had conducted while living in the United Kingdom, supposedly to a technological facility in England, along with her own pre-existing interest in science, and later on, technology itself as she gradually matured over the years.
Having been made crown princess from birth as her father's heir apparent, Margaret Christina, upon reaching the age of eighteen, was given a seat on all three of the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish privy councils. Then, in light of her graduation from university and her subsequent return from the United Kingdom, Margaret Christina began to undertake a more specific role as a privy council member by chairing usual Council meetings in the absence of the King himself. Furthermore, sometime in February, the crown princess personally held a quadripartite meeting involving herself and all three of the respective ministers of education and research, during which the four of them were reported to have "unilaterally agreed" on the provision of a further amount of subsidies, a sizable portion of which the crown princess herself has pledged to contribute to, in the cause of research and technological development. In the following March, a proposed project of building Scandinavia's first reflecting telescope, an initiative that received particular support and later, substantial funding from Margaret Christina herself, was also successfully passed in the Grand Chamber, in which the reflecting telescope itself, named Margaret-Christina Telescope in the crown princess's honour was eventually completed on June 10th 2020, two months into Margaret Christina's reign.
In the following month of April, Margaret Christina conducted her first official overseas trip to a foreign country when she visited neighbouring Germany, where she met German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, with whom she held a series of private meetings aimed towards generally improving the pre-existing Scandinavian-German relations, amidst a brief rumour at the time alleging that the two had privately met to discuss a much anticipated entry of the United Kingdoms into the European Union. Nevertheless, over the span of a couple of weeks afterwards, Margaret Christina then embarked on a series of multi-nation trips, nicknamed the Nord-Euro Trips, due to it being centered around the countries of northern Europe, all of which, with the notable exception of Belarus, was visited by the crown princess. Then, in the month of July, her first intercontinental trip abroad came about when she visited the Middle Eastern Sultanate of Oman, whose then ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, she particularly praised for the domestic modernisation and general impartiality in regards to foreign issues achieved by the latter.
Donald Trump
A somewhat moderately outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump, on January 3rd 2020, Margaret Christina became the sole constitutional monarch to publicly criticise then President Donald Trump's decision to assassinate Iranian major general, Qasem Soleimani. In reference to the incident, Margaret Christina characterised it as a "daunting obstacle to overcome in order to achieve mutual peace with the Iranian republic". She then promptly reaffirmed her country's support for the JCPOA agreement, in which she declared, "Scandinavia will continue, and will always stand for peace". At the same time, she was also a vocal opponent of the then President's confrontational approach towards China, which has since sparked an ongoing trade war, an event that the crown princess once controversially referred to as a "financial and humanitarian Holocaust".
COVID-19
Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in Europe, the crown princess's planned engagements were promptly cancelled, with the crown princess herself choosing to relocate to the royal manor house of Ledaal, located in the city of Stavangen, Norway. Soon after that, the crown princess then addressed the public through a televised broadcast, in which she urged for "reasonable compliance, and utmost vigilance against the unknown enemy". Following this, on January 22nd, and on the subsequent day of January 23rd, the crown princess notably chaired a special online meeting with the respective foreign ministers, and on the next day, the respective prime ministers of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, during which, throughout the course of the two days long meeting, the crown princess was said to had mostly discussed the issue of border control with both the three foreign ministers and three prime ministers themselves.
2020 Abdication Crisis
On March 30th 2020, at exactly 8:30 A.M., following a prior announcement from Amalienborg that the reigning King Charles IV had been tested positive with the virus, an impromptu declaration from all three of the prime ministers of the union, unilaterally declared Margaret Christina to be the Regent of Scandinavia, as her father had been deemed unfit to "properly carry out royal functions as sovereign". Then, a day after the declaration was made, all three of the prime ministers, along with the members of each three separate privy councils, subsequently met at the Norwegian royal residence of Oslo Palace, where all the parties involved wholly agreed to wait for an initially unspecified amount of period before they were to begin deliberating on the possible case of abdication of the reigning sovereign. At the same time, King Charles IV himself, whom had been in quarantine since, and treated to at the royal residence of Amalienborg was reported of being in a "mildly stable" condition.
Ultimately, on the early morning of April 5th 2020, when it was first privately disclosed that the King intends to abdicate as the reigning sovereign, on the grounds of "ill-health and lack of ability to consistently carry out further royal duties as sovereign", the prime ministers and members of the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedieh privy councils subsequently convened together once more for a second time at Oslo Palace, where at approximately 9:30 A.M., she was proclaimed Queen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
As she had been enthroned in the constituent kingdom of Norway, under much normal circumstances, Margaret Christina was to then undergo a benediction ceremony as per the Norwegian tradition, but this was then promptly replaced with a simple oath-taking ceremony in which she took an oath of allegiance in front of all the three prime ministers, along with the privy council members present at the palace. Soon after her ascension to the throne was finally announced to the general public, a royal decree was promptly issued whereby Margaret Christina's father, following his impromptu abdication, would be styled King-emeritus of the Scandinavians, and accordingly, King-emeritus of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. At the same time, the customary tradition in which a succeeding monarch would be "presented" to the public from the palace balcony was also temporarily discontinued, as recommended by all three countries' health experts.
In contrast to her predecessors, whom had often used a single regnal name themselves, Margaret Christina instead opted for a double regnal name, composed entirely of her first two names, which honoured both the celebrated Danish and Swedish queen regnants, Margaret of Denmark and Christina of Sweden
Reign
Having acceded to the throne in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, Margaret Christina remained largely confined within her royal residence of Oslo Palace. Nevertheless, since the beginning of the pandemic, she has also regularly appeared on numbers of televised broadcasts from her royal residence, from where she would routinely advise the general public to comply with the established health and safety guidelines. However, the most notable of her televised broadcasts came about on May 8th when, in commemorating the Victory in Europe Day aswell, Margaret Christina also further reminded the public of the hardships of the ongoing pandemic by stating, "Our precious survival throughout the Second World War was never made out of complacency, but rather out of vigilance and intelligence. This time, we shall do so again".
During the early developmental phase of the British-Swedish Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, Margaret Christina herself was reported to had privately donated a total amount of ten million dollars in favour of the vaccine's research. Later on, she was subsequently chosen as being among the first in Scandinavia to receive a dose of the vaccine, an occasion that was televised live in order to generate widespread trust in the vaccine.
On January 10th 2021, she openly condemned then President Donald Trump for his apparent role in the 2021 United States Capitol attack, which saw the then president's supporters storming the national legislative building, whose occupants had been in the process of certifying the victory of the soon-to-be President and Vice-President of the United States, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Margaret Christina then subsequently welcomed the newly-elected President's Biden's decision to reinstate the United States into the Paris Climate Agreement, which she referred to as a "noble correction of one of the darkest errors of all".
Personal Information
As the reigning monarch of three different kingdoms with their own respective languages, Margaret Christina is generally recognised as being able to generally conversate in a fluent manner in all three languages, a talent she has since attributed to her language tutors.
Along with Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Margaret Christina is one of the only two remaining European monarchs to currently reign over multiple countries at once, although in the particular case between the two reigning queens, the former is perceived of being the monarch of a single kingdom (hence the name United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), while Margaret Christina herself is perceived as being the monarch of three different kingdoms with a generally equal level of representation (hence the name United Kingdoms of Scandinavia [alternatively Denmark, Norway, and Sweden]).
Vehicle Collection
Despite inheriting a much classical collection of cars that had been previously used by her predecessors, and later on generally preserved by their respective succesors, Margaret Christina is nevertheless respectively seen mostly driving a Norwegian-made Buddy electric car when in Norway, a Danish-made CityEl electric car when in Denmark, and lastly, a Swedish-made NEVS 9-3EV electric car when in Sweden.
In the case of official royal functions, Margaret Christina opted instead on driving an electrified BMW 6 Series. Interestingly, due to her position as the simultaneous head of state of three independent and neighbouring countries, the Queen herself summarily possess three of the aforementioned BMW automobiles, with each one being located in the capital of each three kingdoms for her own official use whenever she was residing in either countries.
Titles & Honours
- 2 January 1997 - April 5 2020 Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess of the Scandinavians
- April 5 2020 - Present Her Majesty The Queen
Honours
National
Denmark:
- Sovereign of the Order of the Elephant
- Master of the Order of the Dannebrog
Norway:
- Recipient of the Royal Family Order of Charles VI of Norway
- Grand Master of the Order of St. Olav
Sweden:
- Sovereign of the Royal Order of the Seraphim
- Sovereign of the Order of the Sword
- Sovereign of the Order of the Polar Star
- Sovereign of the Order of Vasa
- Sovereign of the Order of Charles XIII
- Sovereign of the Order of Charles XIV
Foreign
United Kingdom - Stranger Lady of the Most Noble Order of the Garter- United Kingdom - Extra Knight of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle
France - Grand Cross of the National Order of the Legion of Honour
Germany - Grand Cross Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Iceland - Grand Cross of the National Order of the Falcon
Latvia - Grand Officer of the Order of the Three Stars
Estonia - The Collar of the Cross of Terra Mariana
Lithuania - Knight's Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great
Finland - Commander of the White Rose of Finland- Finland - Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland