Queen Margrethe takes final carriage ride as Danish monarch after unexpected abdication

As Denmark’s reigning monarch, Queen Margrethe II took her final ride through Copenhagen in a gold-coated horse-drawn carriage on Thursday, 10 days before she is set to pass the throne on to her eldest son, Crown Prince Frederik.

Crowned in 1972, serving for more than five decades, the beloved Queen Margrethe announced her intent to abdicate in her annual New Year’s Eve speech on a live television broadcast — shocking much of the nation.

“She has been a stable figure,” Danish church employee Bente Lindbak Pihl said on Thursday after attending the Queen’s final carriage ride in the country’s capital. “She has been a kind of big mother for all of us. She has been clever and inspiring.”

Queen Margrethe was not initially intended to become Denmark’s monarch, however, she became heir to her father, King Frederik IX, in 1953 at the age of 13, after a constitutional amendment allowed women to inherit the throne.

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