{"id":61483,"date":"2026-04-15T12:06:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/61483\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T12:06:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:06:40","slug":"tributes-for-east-lothian-dad-of-denmarks-queen-mary-after-declining-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/61483\/","title":{"rendered":"Tributes for East Lothian dad of Denmark’s Queen Mary after ‘declining health’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The father of Denmark’s Australian-born Queen Mary, John Donaldson, has died in Tasmania, the royal house in Copenhagen <\/a>said Sunday. He was 84.<\/p>\n

Donaldson died in the state’s capital, Hobart, a royal <\/a>statement said, without giving further details. It said that his health had been declining over the past few years, and that the queen last visited him at the end of March.<\/p>\n

John Dalgleish Donaldson was born in East Lothian<\/a> on September 5, 1941. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in mathematics and physics, he emigrated to Australia in the 1960s with his first wife, Henrietta Clark Horne.<\/p>\n

The couple went on to share four children, including Mary Elizabeth Donaldson. Donaldson finished his PhD in mathematics at the University of Tasmania and worked as a professor of applied mathematics.<\/p>\n

After the death of Henrietta in 1997, he later married Susan Moody in 2001. His youngest daughter, March, became Denmark’s queen in January 2024 after two decades as crown princess when her husband became the Scandinavian country’s monarch.<\/p>\n

He was proclaimed King Frederik X following the abdication of his mother, Queen Margrethe II. Frederik and Mary met during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and tied the knot in 2004.<\/p>\n

The royal statement today quoted Mary as saying: “My heart is heavy.”<\/p>\n

Join Edinburgh Live’s Whatsapp Community here<\/a> and get the latest news sent straight to your messages.<\/p>\n

“But I know that when the grief settles, the memories will brighten my day, and what will remain strongest is love and gratitude for everything he gave me and taught me,” she added.<\/p>\n

The statement said the family will hold a private memorial service for Donaldson “at a later date.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The father of Denmark’s Australian-born Queen Mary, John Donaldson, has died in Tasmania, the royal house in Copenhagen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27,26,33805,32833,32816,31,29200,33806,32985],"class_list":{"0":"post-61483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denmark","8":"tag-danmark","9":"tag-denmark","10":"tag-henrietta-clark-horne","11":"tag-john-dalgleish-donaldson","12":"tag-john-donaldson","13":"tag-queen-mary","14":"tag-royal-house","15":"tag-university-of-edinburgh","16":"tag-university-of-tasmania"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116408640286305446","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}