Why the brand new Queen of Denmark will always remember her Scottish roots
She is quickly to be topped the Queen of Denmark. Yet Princess Mary’s lavish life as a number one member of the Danish royal household is a far cry from her humble Scottish roots.
The glamourous 51-year-old, identified for her lengthy brown hair and sartorial class, bears a placing resemblance to her pal Kate Middleton. And, identical to the Princess of Wales, Mary Donaldson was born right into a ‘regular’ household.
The queen-in-waiting’s household hails from a fishing village in East Lothian, the place lots of her shut family nonetheless dwell. And we are able to reveal that the final time she visited Port Seton, on the Firth of Forth, the ‘down to earth’ royal popped into the native bowling membership for a Tia Maria along with her great-aunt.
One of her cousins admitted: ‘It all feels a million miles away from our life here. We are just normal, working-class folk.’
Once a thriving fishing, salt-making and mining group, Port Seton and neighbouring Cockenzie and Prestonpans had been lately named a few of the most disadvantaged components of Scotland by way of well being, revenue and employability.
Although born and raised on the Australian island of Tasmania, Crown Princess Mary’s mother and father – each Scots – emigrated from East Lothian within the early Sixties. Her father, John Donaldson, got here from a widely known Port Seton fishing household – a portray of his grandfather’s boat is believed to hold within the royal palace.
Crown Princess Mary of Denmark at a New Year’s dinner final week
Crown Princess Mary along with her husband Crown Prince Frederick
John Donaldson strolling his daughter down the aisle
FRIEND KATE HAS SAME LOOK – AND OUTLOOK
The Princess of Wales share a placing likeness
Standing facet by facet, they may simply be mistaken for sisters. With the identical modern darkish brown hair, brown eyes and ideal poise, Crown Princess Mary and the Princess of Wales share a placing likeness.
Yet the pair’s similarities prolong far past their seems to be, and the ‘commoners-turned-royals’ are stated to have change into agency associates the second they met 13 years in the past throughout William and Kate’s first official go to to Denmark.
The two {couples} have attended Royal Ascot collectively and, ten years Kate’s senior, mother-of-four Princess Mary is claimed to have provided her ethical assist when Prince George was born.
Both princesses are well-known for his or her sense of favor, with high designers determined to decorate them. If both is photographed sporting a excessive road merchandise, it’s sure to promote out the identical day.
However, they’re additionally eager to make use of their standing to champion girls’s and youngsters’s points.
Both boast spectacular approval scores, too. In a ballot final month, 85 per cent of Danes expressed their approval for Crown Princess Mary. She is taken into account a nationwide asset who – like Kate – takes the enterprise of changing into royalty severely.
The princess, dubbed Mary Queen of Scots, made her affinity with the land of her forbears clear when she included heraldic symbols of Scotland in her coat of arms following her marriage to Denmark’s Crown Prince Frederick in 2004.
And in his father of the bride speech, sporting the MacDonald tartan, Mr Donaldson joked that his personal clan had helped eliminate the Vikings from the Hebrides within the twelfth Century.
However, little was identified about Mary’s surviving Scottish family till The Mail on Sunday managed to trace them down this week.
In an unique interview, two of the soon-to-be monarch’s Scottish cousins spoke of their delight and advised how the Crown Princess is ‘remarkably down to earth’.
At her modest terraced house in Port Seton yesterday, Sandra Flockhart – Mary’s first cousin as soon as eliminated – stated: ‘We got a real shock when we saw on the news that Queen Margrethe was abdicating.
‘It still hasn’t fairly sunk in that we’re so intently associated to the soon-to-be Queen of Denmark.
‘It’s pretty information and we’re so blissful for her dad, my cousin John. He can be so proud.
‘Mary is a lovely girl, always smiling and happy to talk to anyone. She doesn’t have any airs or graces.’
Mrs Flockart, 70, added: ‘We last saw her a few months before she got married in 2004.
‘She came to Port Seton to look around and visit my mum, her Great Auntie Margaret, who she was quite close to. She popped over to our back garden for a quick chat and went down to the harbour to see where her dad’s household had their fishing boat.
‘She then went to the local bowling club with her “Tantie Margaret”– as she called her – for a Tia Maria.’
She added: ‘My mum was invited to Denmark for the wedding and it was one of the highlights of her life – she spoke about it for the rest of her days.
‘She was sitting at the front, not far from the Queen, and later sat next to Sir Roger Moore at dinner. It was a real spectacle.
‘We all went to the bowling club when she got back to watch the ceremony on a big screen.
Sandra Flockhart heard the news about her cousin at her home in Port Seton, where Mary once lived
Once a thriving fishing, salt-making and mining community, Port Seton was recently named some of the most deprived parts of Scotland in terms of health, income and employability
‘Mary’s household are very well-known in Port Seton and everyone wished her nicely.’
Mrs Flockhart revealed that her mom Margaret commissioned an area artist to color Mary’s great-grandfather Peter Donaldson’s fishing boat, The Mispah, at Port Seton harbour as a singular wedding ceremony reward.
‘My mum was always on the phone to Australia and went over to visit Mary’s household a couple of occasions earlier than she moved to Denmark. She was very keen on Mary and was her hyperlink to Scotland,’ she stated.
‘It all feels a million miles away from our life here in Port Seton. We are just normal, working-class folk.’
Another Port Seton cousin, Winifred Brown, 75, a former care house employee, stated: ‘I was on holiday in Blackpool when I found out Mary was to become Queen. It was quite a shock.
‘I think she will make a wonderful Queen. She is warm and charming and will really be able to connect with normal folk.’
Ms Brown added: ‘It’s particular to suppose we’re associated to royalty.
‘My children, who are a bit younger than Mary, were surprised when I told them she was going to be Queen.
‘Our life here in Port Seton is a world away from royal palaces but I wish her well and hope she visits Scotland again some day.’
Queen Margrethe II will formally abdicate the throne subsequent Sunday, making her son Crown Prince Frederick and his spouse Princess Mary the nation’s new monarchs.
The prince is believed to have met then advertising and marketing government Mary Donaldson at a busy pub in Sydney through the 2000 Olympic Games.
They started a long-distance relationship earlier than he proposed to her three years later with an emerald-cut diamond ring that was based mostly on the colors of the Danish flag. The couple have 4 youngsters, Prince Christian, 18, Princess Isabella, 16, and 13-year-old twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine.
