Danish Princess Enters Cambridge University

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29333, 12 October 1960, Page 2

Danish Princess Enters Cambridge University

The heir to the Danish throne, Princess Margrethe, put on her first-year undergraduate’s gown at Cambridge this week and met her fellow, students at Girton College, say London correspondents. She lunched with the vice-mis-tress, Miss Helen McMorran, her tutor and the director of studies in archaeology and anthropology. Princess Margrethe will spend a year at Cambridge reading international law, which will be, a useful aid when she becomes Queen, and archaeology, which is one of her special interests—she has already taken oart in many “digs” in the Middle East. This all-round princess can also handle a sten gun, has studied iudo, is a brilliant athlete. ’ and has a good knowledge of farming. She is . blonde, blue-eyed and sophisticated and smokes filter tips. Ndt for nothing .is she known as the “Darling Of Denmark.” She will live with a Cambridge family, Dr. Edward Bevan and Mrs Bevan, with Mrs Bevan’s two nieces and three other women students. “The Princess is very clever,” according to Mrs Bevan. “But she should feel at home. This is a pretty academic household.”

Like other members of northern European royal households at home, the Princess will probably get around Cambridge on a bicycle. The Bevan household has two she can borrow. Margrethe Alexandine Storhildur Ingrid was born 20 years ago. the eldest daughter of King Frederick and Queen Ingrid (she now has two sisters). English School

She first went to a kindergarten at the Royal Palace, then, at seven, to a day school in Copenhagen and, at 14, to an English school near Basingstoke. She went to her first grown-up dance at 15, and, in keeping with the Danish dogmatic devotion to democracy, often goes on informal “meet-the-people” shopping trips, accompanied pnly by her lady-in-waiting.

In 1953, the Danish constitution was changed to make Margrethe heir presumptive, and since she was 18 she has frecuently sat next to her father during his weekly meetings with the Danish Cabinet.

She has a £3700 a year allowance from the Government, from which she finances frequent trips to interesting parts of the world. Earlier this year with her friends, Princess Astrid of Norway and Princesss Margaretha of Sweden, she went on a trip to the United States. - She will be only the second reigning queen that Denmark has

had since 1412, and already there are many rumours passing through the Royal grapevine about suitable husbands. The Duke of Kent has been mentioned.

Certainly her husband will have to be of Royal blood—the constitution insists on it.'