Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark

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Henri Marie Jean André de Laborde de Monpezat
Prince Consort of Denmark
Image:Hendrik, Prince Consort of Denmark.PNG
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Titles	HRH The Prince Consort of Denmark (2005-) HRH Prince Henrik of Denmark (1967-2005) Count Henri de Laborde de Monpezat (1934-1967)
Born	June 11, 1934 (age 72)
	Talence, Gironde, France
Consort	January 14, 1972 - present
Consort to	Margrethe II
Issue	Prince Frederik, Prince Joachim
Father	André de Laborde de Monpezat
Mother	Renée Doursenot

Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark (né Count¹ Henri Marie Jean André de Laborde de Monpezat, b. June 11, 1934), is the husband of the queen of Denmark, Margrethe II.

Henrik, His Royal Highness, the Prince Consort of Denmark was born in Talence, Gironde, France, the son of Count André de Laborde de Monpezat¹ (1907-1998) and his wife, the former Renée Doursenot (1908- 2001). He spent his first five years in French Indo-China (now Vietnam) where his father was in charge of family business interests. He returned to Hanoi in 1950, graduating from the French secondary school there in 1952. Between 1952 and 1957 he simultaneously studied law and political science at the Sorbonne, Paris, and Chinese and Vietnamese at the École Nationale des Langues Orientales (now known as INALCO). He also studied in Hong Kong in 1957 and Saigon in 1958.

After military service with the French army in Algeria between 1959 and 1962, in 1962 he joined the French Foreign Affairs ministry, working as a Secretary at the embassy in London from 1963 to 1967.

On 10 June 1967 he married Princess Margrethe, the heiress presumptive to the Danish throne. At the time of the wedding his name was Danicised to Henrik. They have two children, Crown Prince Frederik (born 26 May 1968) and Prince Joachim (born 7 June 1969).

Prince Henrik's native language is French, though he quickly learned Danish after his marriage, but Danes still joke about his grasp of Danish and his thick French accent. He also speaks fluent English, Chinese, and Vietnamese.

He has also received somewhat of a press-grilling recently for admitting that he is fond of the taste of dog.[1], this despite the fact that he is honorary president of the Danish Dachshund Club.

[edit] Publications

Prince Henrik has translated several books into Danish, as well as publishing several other books.

In 1981, under the pseudonym H.M. Vejerbjerg he and the Queen translated Simone de Beauvoir's Tous les hommes sont mortels.
Chemin faisant, 1982, a volume of French poems.
Destin oblige, 1996, his memoirs as Prince Consort.
Ikke Altid Gåselever (not always goose liver), 1999, a selection of favourite recipes.
Cantabile, 2000, poems.
Les escargots de Marie Lanceline, 2003.

[edit] Titles

Danish Royal Family

Count Henri de Laborde de Monpezat (1934-1967)
His Royal Highness Prince Henrik of Denmark (1967-2005)
His Royal Highness The Prince Consort of Denmark (2005-present)

[edit] Notes

¹The Laborde de Monpezat family style themselves as counts, though their right to the use of that title is at best, disputed: Pierre-Marie Dioudonnat's Encyclopédie de la fausse noblesse et de la noblesse d'apparence (p. 208) states that Jean de Laborde received royal letters patent of ennoblement in 1655, conditional on his reception as a noble in the Estates of the province of Béarn where his lands were located. But this condition was never fulfilled, as the Estates refused Laborde's petition in 1703 and again in 1707. Although the comital title has been used by the family as if it were a titre de courtoisie, traditionally the royal court and French society accepted such titles when used by genuinely noble families. On the other hand, since the title was assumed by Henrik's ancestor prior to the twentieth century, it is possible he was unaware of the misuse until his family's history was scrutinized by genealogists after his marriage, although Henrik's 1996 autobiography acknowledges the unsuccessful ennoblement.