King Frederik IX’s 70th Birthday, 1969

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The Danish Royal Family celebrate King Frederik IX of Denmark’s 70th Birthday in Copenhagen on this day in 1969, which included a Service and a Balcony Appearance at Amalienborg Palace, for which the King and Queen were joined by Crown Princess Margrethe, Princess Benedikte, and Queen Anne Marie with their husbands, and a couple of grandchildren.

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That evening, the King hosted a Banquet at Christiansborg Palace for the Royal Family and Royal Guests, with Queen Ingrid (wearing the Floral Aigrette Tiara and Queen Josefina’s Diamond Brooches), Crown Princess Margrethe (in the Alexandrine Drop Tiara), and Prince Henrik, King Constantine and Queen Anne Marie (wearing the Emerald Parure), and King Olav of Norway among the few figures pictured.

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6 thoughts on “King Frederik IX’s 70th Birthday, 1969

  1. King Frederik was such an interesting man with his varied interests in music (he was a keen amateur conductor) and the Navy. As the daughter of a man who was also like this, I can well imagine how his family loved him and were shocked by his death. I expect the whole nation of Denmark sincerely mourned his passing.

    1. I agree! I think he must have been a very sincere and approachable man. I don’t think he was much for protocol, as you can see when he greeted his family when returning home from abroad. He hugged and kissed everyone, including giving his wife a proper smooch on the lips. Quite unheard of in the stuffy world of royal protocol!

  2. Wonderful post – as always! In enjoyed reading it. Just one thing which struck me as odd, and that is that in the photo of King Constantine and Queen Anne-Marie one can see Princess Margrethe (II) in a green gown wearing her splendid Russian sapphires. And then later, in a photo next to that of Queen Ingrid, Margrethe is pictured wearing a completely different dress and different jewels. Were there in fact two different banquets held for this grand anniversary?

    1. Getty Images says that the picture is from the King’s 70th Birthday celebrations! I’m sure they had more than one gala event especially since they had 4 galas before Margrethe’s wedding two years previously!

      1. Sometimes I feel like the photo agencies are not being too worried about marking the photos with the correct dates, which can be rather frustrating when trying to match the photos to the different events. I hope you don’t mind me suggesting that the photo of of Margrethe next to Prince Henrik is incorrectly marked by the photo agency. When King Frederick celebrated his 70th birthday he had asked that the celebration be as private as possible. Of course, completely private would be out of the question for the Danes, who know how to throw splendid parties, but there were only one grand official gala event from what I can see in the press and that was on March 11th – the actual birthday of the King. A banquet was then held at Christiansborg. The previous day there had been a more private function at Amalienborg with a private showing of a ballet performance (a gift from his daughter Margrethe). Another clue to the photo in question being incorrectly marked is that Prince Henrik is not wearing any Danish orders. If this had been taken after his wedding to Princess Margrethe he would surely have worn the Sash of the Order of the Elephant. So I suspect that this photo is taken on the occasion of the pre-wedding celebrations that you mention above 🙂

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