Princess Isabella of Denmark

Princess Isabella of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat, (Isabella Henrietta Ingrid Margrethe; born 21 April 2007) is a member of the Danish royal family. She is the second child and elder daughter of King Frederik X and Queen Mary.

She is the fourth grandchild and oldest granddaughter of Queen Margrethe II and Prince Henrik. She was the first girl born into the Danish royal family since the birth of her great aunt, Queen Anne-Marie of Greece, in 1946. Isabella is second in the line of succession to the Danish throne, after her older brother, Crown Prince Christian.

Biography
Princess Isabella was born on 21 April 2007 at 4:02 pm CET at Rigshospitalet, the Copenhagen University Hospital, in Copenhagen, to Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary. The following day, public buses and official buildings flew the Danish flag, the Dannebrog, and at noon a 21-gun salute was fired from the Sixtus Battery at Holmen Naval Base in the Port of Copenhagen and from Kronborg Castle in North Zealand to mark her birth. Incidentally, Isabella was the first princess whose birth was marked with 21 shots, as the number of shots in the cannon salute had previously been different depending on the sex of the newborn, as 21 shots were fired for a boy and 17 shots for a girl. But before Prince Christian was born in October 2005, the palace decided that 21 shots should be fired, regardless of the child's sex.

Her christening took place on 1 July 2007 at the Royal Chapel of Fredensborg Palace and was performed by the Bishop of Copenhagen Erik Norman Svendsen. She was baptised at the royal baptismal font which has been used for the baptism of royal children in Denmark since 1671, and wore the royal christening gown which was made for her great-great-grandfather, King Christian X, in 1870. At the christening, her name, per Danish royal tradition, was revealed to be Isabella Henrietta Ingrid Margrethe, after the Danish queen consort and ancestress Isabella of Austria, the princess's maternal grandmother, paternal great-grandmother, and paternal grandmother respectively. Her godparents were her father's first cousin, Princess Alexia of Greece and Denmark; Queen Mathilde of Belgium (then Duchess of Brabant), Nadine Johnston, Christian Buchwald, Peter Heering and Marie Louise Skeel. Isabella received the Lutheran rite of confirmation in the same chapel on 30 April 2022, which was presided over by Henrik Wigh-Poulsen, the Danish royal Chaplain-in-Ordinary.

Isabella undertook her first official engagement, the baptism of a ferry – the M/F Prinsesse Isabella operating between Jutland and Samsø – named in her honour, on 6 June 2015. She and her siblings accompanied their parents on official visits to Greenland on 1–8 August 2014 and the Faroe Islands on 23–26 August 2018 where she partook in several official engagements.

Constitutional position and education
On 20 December 2007, as he had done the previous year for Prince Christian, Per Stig Møller, Denmark's Minister for Foreign Affairs, formally wrote and signed a hand-written document confirming Isabella's position as third in the line of succession to the Danish throne. The princess's full name, dates of birth and christening, and the names of her godparents were recorded as dictated by the Royal Law of 1799. With the passing of the 2009 Danish Act of Succession referendum, Isabella became the first princess in Danish history to not get bypassed by a younger brother when Prince Vincent was born in 2011.

On 13 August 2013, Isabella started school at Tranegårdsskolen in Gentofte, the same public school as her older brother. In January 2020, Isabella and her three siblings initiated a 12-week school stay at Lemania-Verbier International School in Verbier, Switzerland. The stay was eventually cut short and the siblings returned home in March due to the intensification of the COVID-19 situation in Denmark. In March 2022, it was announced that Isabella would continue her education at Herlufsholm School starting in August 2022. However, on 26 June 2022, her parents announced in a statement that Isabella would not start Herlufsholm after all due to revelations of recurring problems of bullying, violence and sexual abuse at the school, and in September 2022, she started 9th form at Ingrid Jespersens Gymnasieskole in Copenhagen instead. In August 2023, Isabella started upper secondary school at Øregård Gymnasium – the same school her father, Frederik, and uncle, Joachim, previously attended.

Titles, styles, and honours

 * 21 April 2007 – 29 April 2008: Her Royal Highness Princess Isabella of Denmark
 * 29 April 2008 – present: Her Royal Highness Princess Isabella of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat

Orders and appointments

 * Order of the Elephant Ribbon bar.svg 14 January 2024: Knight of the Order of the Elephant (R.E.)

Medals and decorations

 * DEN Prince Henriks 75th Birthday Medal ribbon.svg 11 June 2009: Prince Henrik's 75th Birthday Medal
 * Order of the Elephant Ribbon bar.svg 16 April 2010: Queen Margrethe II's 70th Birthday Medal
 * DEN Medal for the Ruby Jubilee of Queen Margarethe of Denmark ribbon.svg 14 January 2012: Queen Margrethe II's Ruby Jubilee Medal
 * Order of the Dannebrog R.svg 16 April 2015: Queen Margrethe II's 75th Birthday Medal
 * [[File:DEN Golden Wedding Commemorative Medal of Queen Margrethe II and Prince Henrik.png|60px]] 10 June 2017: Queen Margrethe II and Prince Henrik's Golden Wedding Anniversary Medal
 * Prince Henriks Commemorative Medal.png 11 June 2018: Prince Henrik's Memorial Medal
 * DEN Medal of Merit ribbon.svg 16 April 2020: Queen Margrethe II's 80th Birthday Medal
 * Order of the Elephant Ribbon bar.svg 14 January 2022: Queen Margrethe II's Golden Jubilee Medal