Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah has become the world’s longest-reigning living monarch following the death of UK Queen Elizabeth II, the Daily Mail newspaper reported on Friday.
Bolkiah ascended to the throne in 1967 and has been ruling for almost 55 years, while Queen Eliza-beth II reigned for more than 70 years, the newspaper said, adding that currently, the second longest reigning monarch alive is Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. UK Queen Elizabeth II passed away on Thursday at Balmoral Castle in Scotland surrounded by her family. Now, after the queen’s death, the British Crown will be inherited by her son, Charles III.
Moreover, Denmark’s popular Queen Margrethe II is now Europe’s longest-serving monarch and also its only reigning queen after the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
The artistic and chain-smoking 82-year-old, al-ways impeccably coiffed with her white hair swept up in a bun and hailed for unifying and modernising the Danish monarchy in her 50 years on the throne, has scaled back golden jubilee festivities this week-end following the death Thursday of Britain’s head of state.
Margrethe came to the throne at the age of 31 in January 1972 on the death of her father, Frederik IX, becoming the first woman to hold the position of reigning queen in Denmark.
She took her reign name Margrethe II in recog-nition of Margrethe I, who ruled Denmark from 1375-1412 but never formally held the title.
At the time of her accession, only 45 percent of Danes were in favour of the monarchy, most believ-ing it had no place in a modern democracy. During her reign, however, Margrethe has man-aged to stay away from scandal and helped to mod-ernise the institution — allowing her two sons to marry commoners, for example. —Agencies
