Danish Queen Margrethe II to abdicate after 52 years on the throne

Denmark’s popular Queen Margrethe II, Europe’s longest-serving monarch, said on Sunday that she would abdicate on January 14 and pass the baton to her son Crown Prince Frederik.

Margrethe, 83, has reigned for 52 years and has been Europe’s only reigning queen after the death of Britain’s Elizabeth II.

She has been hailed for subtly modernising Danish royalty in her half-century on…