Dennis Stenild, Kongehuset ©
King Frederik X has bestowed his children with a special gift as he marks the beginning of his reign: Princess Isabella, Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine have all been named Knights of the Order of the Elephant.
This tradition has been long-held within Denmark, where, upon the accession of the monarch, their children are made Knights of the Order of the Elephant. On their 18th birthdays, they will be presented with the insignia.
Queen Margrethe, Princess Benedikte and Queen Anne-Marie were all made Knights—despite the fact that women could not otherwise be named to the Order of the Elephant until 1958—upon their father’s accession on 20 April 1947.
Likewise, the current King Frederik X and Prince Joachim became Knights of the Order of the Elephant upon their mother’s accession on 14 January 1972.
Crown Prince Christian is an anomaly, in that he was named as a Knight on his 18th birthday in October 2023.
Queen Letizia is the last person to be named a Knight of the Order of the Elephant during the reign of Queen Margrethe. She received the honour during the Spanish State Visit to Denmark in November 2023, and hers is the last that will bear Queen Margrethe’s cypher.
Princess Isabella, Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine’s regalia will be the first to feature King Frederik X’s cypher, as he is now Sovereign of all Danish chivalric orders.
The Order of the Elephant is Denmark’s highest chivalric order and is bestowed entirely at the Sovereign’s discretion. Typically, it is awarded to royalty and foreign heads of state. In the cases of members of the Danish and Norwegian Royal Families, it is a gift bestowed on their 18th birthdays.
The Order of the Elephant can be traced back to the late 1400s and 1500s but received its orders and statutes in 1693 by King Christian V. Since his re-establishment, there are no more than 30 Knights at a time, and the insignia and regalia have been established as “tower-bearing elephant made of gold covered with white enamel and ornamented with diamonds, the order collar with links shaped as towers and elephants, a light blue sash and a breast star,” according to the Danish Royal House.
The origins date back to the reign of King Christian I, with a religious confraternity called the Fellowship of the Mother of God and its collar links made of elephants. In the reign of Frederick II in the late 1500s, he awarded a badge from the Fellowship that featured an elephant in profile, though the Fellowship had all but died out with the Renaissance.
In 1693, King Christian V revived the Order of the Elephant into its present form.
The Order of the Elephant has its own festival days, of which New Year’s Day is one. The Danish Royal Family wear special regalia to the levee hosted on New Year’s Day, “worn on a golden chain consisting of alternating links shaped like elephants and towers instead of on a blue sash” on a collar that spans both shoulders, instead of the regular shoulder-to-hip display.
The other festival days are 28 June, the birthday of Valdemar the Victorious, and the monarch’s birthday, which will now be celebrated on 26 May.