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with one exception. Alix.
    He looked at his watch. It was exactly twenty minutes past twelve.
    ‘Where is your sister?’ he asked.
    Willy said she was coming, she really was. Poor Willy, he always made excuses for Alix. But almost immediately Alix was there, breathless and so pretty that her father’s heart lifted with pride at the sight of her.
    He forced himself to look stern. ‘You are one minute late.’
    ‘Yes, Papa.’
    ‘Why should you be one minute late?’
    ‘Well, Papa, I was playing with my doll and I had to put her away and …’
    Christian shook his head sadly. ‘You must learn to be punctual, my child. It’s not the first time this has happened. If it happens again I shall have to punish you.’
    All the children looked suitably horrified, except Alix who could not believe that dear kind Papa could really punish anybody. Mama could be much more stern.
    ‘Well,’ said Christian, ‘we must waste no more time. Take your place.’
    So Alix stood in line and the children lifted their arms, touched the floor, swung this way and that, skipped and jumped; and it was all very exciting. Even Baby Dagmar did her best to follow them.
    Then Christian stood on his hands and turned a somersault. Let them all try and do that. They did. Alix was best at it.
    She stood on her hands, her skirts fallen over her face, her legs in their pantaloons waving in the air.
    ‘Bravo, Alix!’ cried Christian. ‘Now, you boys, you’re not going to let your sister beat you, are you?’
    So the boys turned their somersaults and it was all very exhilarating.
    ‘Stand at ease,’ commanded Christian, and there they stood, little Dagmar imitating the others, a fine little family.
    What did he want with a crown and the anxieties of government which went with it? This was his little world and he loved it.
    No cause for anxiety, he assured himself. It was a crazy notion which would come to nothing. He thought he was right for when the King put his idea of the succession to his ministers it was shrugged aside and the matter rested there.

    There was a new King in Denmark. When King Christian had felt that his end was near he had been right. His son Frederick now ruled Denmark.
    ‘What will become of us now?’ said Louise to her husband. ‘Frederick may well turn us out of the Yellow Palace. Where shall we go? We can of course take refuge in my parents’ home, but I do hope, Christian, that it won’t come to that.’
    The country was in a state of great unrest – nor was it the only one. Revolution was sweeping across Europe. The French monarch was deposed; there was trouble in England where the Chartists were in revolt and there had been an occasion when it was thought they were marching on Buckingham Palace.
    Frederick – not the most attractive of monarchs – arrived in Copenhagen. He was no blond Scandinavian giant, but short, plump, hook-nosed and swarthy. His father had divorced his mother and there were rumours that Frederick was not in fact Christian’s son – and it seemed not unlikely for Frederick was the complete antithesis of King Christian. Christian had cared passionately for Denmark; Frederick was indifferent. Christian had refused to grant the country the constitution which all countries were seeking from their kings. What of Frederick?
    At his first council meeting he was bland and careless. The people wanted a constitution? Then certainly they must have a constitution. He would not stand in their way. If by any chance they, like the rest of Europe, were tired of kings they had only to say so. He would retire to his estates in the country; he was quite ready to take on the life of an ordinary nobleman which he assured them was far more comfortable than that of a king.
    Would he marry? they wanted to know. No, he would not marry. Would he give up his mistress? No, he would not do that either. If they wished for a conventional king who would give them their constitution and an heir they had only to say so and