Sweden’s Princess Christina, Mrs Magnuson, is to retire from royal duties many years of service to the crown.
She made the announcement in a recent interview with Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) saying she planned to retire on her 75th birthday on 3 August. She said then, ”I have realised life is not infinite.”
She also remarked, ”I don’t want to be tied down by a lot of things in the future but enjoy what I have and those I have around me.”
Christina believes it is time to hand over the reins to the next generation. She spent 45 years in service of King and country after the deaths of her mother and grandfather. She stated, ”We were not so many in the early 1970s when both my mother and my grandfather died. Then it was just the piece of my brother and me. So there was not much else to do than to jump in and take care of what needed to be done.
Christina is the youngest of King Carl XVI Gustaf’s four older sisters. She announced she was battling chronic leukaemia in 2016 and cut back on her duties during her treatment. The Princess underwent a successful stem cell transplant in early 2017 after other cancer treatments proved unsuccessful.
In 2010, Christina announced that she had undergone treatment for breast cancer – including three surgeries – and had beaten the disease. After defeating breast cancer, Christina devoted much of her time to bringing attention to cancer issues.
Christina is the only one of the King’s sisters to have continued her work for the Royal Family.
The Princess was born on 3 August 1943 at Haga Palace in Solna, Sweden. She married Tord Magnuson in 1974 at the Royal Chapel in Stockholm Palace. She lost her style of Royal Highness upon her marriage as under the Swedish constitution at the time required Swedish princesses to lose their style, title and place in the line of succession if they entered into a marriage with someone of unequal social rank.
Christina and Tord have three sons: Gustaf, Oscar, and Victor.
Princess Christina is not the first royal to recently announce their retirement; Britain’s Duke of Edinburgh announced his retirement in May 2017.
