In 2011, Queen Mary and King Frederik of Denmark rounded out their family with a pair of twins: Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine.
The world was thrilled back when Mary announced she was pregnant for the third time, and even more excited when she revealed she was expecting twins.
Over a decade has passed since she and Frederik welcomed their youngest son and daughter, and the twins have grown up into poised little royals.
Now 13-years-old, the twins are growing into their royal roles, which look quite different to those of their two elder siblings.
Meanwhile, royal watchers can’t get over how much Vincent and Josephine look like their parents.
Vincent is an almost identical copy his of father, Frederik, while Josephine has inherited plenty of her Aussie mum’s features.
In fact, the similarities between the twins and their parents only seem to be growing more obvious as the pair age.
In July 2024, the official Royal Instagram page shared a gallery of the family’s recent visit to Greenland.
The twins joined their parents on the four-day trip and commentators went wild over how grown up they looked. Josephine even opted for a coat famously worn by her Mother in 2014, and her older sister Princess Isabella in 2019.
Before their Greenland trip, the palace also released a picture Mary took of Vincent and Josephine with Frederik.
All three are sporting matching red jerseys, to support Denmark’s debut match during the Euro 2024 tournament, and the similarities both twins have to their dad are striking.
Futhermore, portraits released for their shared 13th birthday in January 2024 showed just how much Vincent and Josephine really have grown up.
Royal fans went wild for the portraits; one fan commented on the post, “Wow, how they grow!!!! Time flies,” while another said, “Gosh, Josephine is so much like Princess Mary.”
Though they aren’t in the public eye as often as their older siblings, Prince Christian and Princess Isabella, we’ve dug up everything there is to know about them.
Read on to get to know Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, the darling Danish royal twins...
When were Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine born?
Queen Mary gave birth to her third and fourth children, twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, on January 8, 2011.
Vincent arrived first at 10:30am, and his sister Josephine was born around 26 minutes later, just before 11am.
Mary gave birth at the Rigshospitalet (Copenhagen University) Hospital; the same hospital where she delivered her first two children in 2005 and 2007.
King Frederik later confirmed that the royal family knew the twins’ sexes before they were born.
In a funny twist of fate, the twins were born on the same day as Elvis Presley, and just a day before Princess Catherine‘s birthday (January 9).
Why are Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine’s names special?
The twins were baptised on April 14, 2011, as Vincent Frederik Minik Alexander and Josephine Sophia Ivalo Mathilda.
While their first names were both unique choices, their middle names were steeped in history, tradition and sentimentality.
Frederik is a nod to Vincent’s father and a longstanding Danish royal tradition that sees all future kings named either Frederik or Christian.
Though Vincent likely won’t be king, his parents honoured him with the regal name he shares with his father and many royal ancestors.
Meanwhile, Josephine’s middle name Mathilda was widely accepted as a tribute to Mary’s Australian heritage.
It’s the Danish version of the classic name Matilda, which features in the iconic Australian tune Waltzing Matilda.
It’s understood the twins’ middle names Minik and Ivalo, both of Greenlandic origin, were chosen to honour Denmark’s autonomous territory Greenland.
What was Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine’s childhood like?
A few months after their birth, the twins were christened at the chapel of the Church of Holmen in a dual ceremony.
Mary and Frederik were forced to break royal tradition by dressing Josephine in a different christening gown to the Danish family’s traditional gown.
Vincent, who is a few minutes older than his sister, was dressed in the traditional gown that has been in use since 1870.
Meanwhile, his sister was dressed in a gown that originally belonged to her great-grandmother Queen Ingrid of Denmark.
She was the first royal child not to wear the traditional gown in centuries.
Josephine and Vincent made their first visit to Australia in 2011, where locals were smitten with the royal couple’s newest additions.
Where do Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine attend school?
The twins eventually followed in their elder siblings’ footsteps by attending Tranegårdskolen in Hellerup, a public state school.
Mary and Frederik have chosen to educate all their children in the public school system in Denmark, at least for the first few years of their studies.
It was a break from royal tradition when they first enrolled Prince Christian at the school in 2011, but has become widely accepted now.
In 2020, the twins joined their elder siblings at the Lemania-Verbier International School in Switzerland, where they were set to undertake a 12-week study program.
Those plans were cut short by the coronavirus pandemic however, and Mary and Frederik chose to withdraw their four children and return to Denmark.
It’s understood Vincent and Josephine participated in remote learning during the COVID-19 lockdowns in Denmark.
As of 2024, Vincent has returned to Tranegårdskolen, while Isabella attends Kildegård Privatskole.
What have Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine’s parents said about them?
The then-Crown Prince Frederik gushed to reporters about his twins after their birth, saying: “It’s a happy occasion to announce that Crown Princess Mary has given birth to perfectly healthy babies.
“A boy and then a girl right after. She [Mary] handled it beautifully. Both mother and children are doing well and we are very happy.”
When asked about his new son and daughter’s names, the King even cracked a joke.
“The names we are still talking about, and I’ve just been told that he was born on Elvis’s birthday – then one of them we’ll call Elvis so far,” he told reporters.
In more recent years, Mary has opened up about her relationship with Josephine, who is her youngest child.
Taking to the Danish royal family’s Instagram in early 2022, Mary shared an exchange they had over International Women’s Day.
“She asked, ‘What kind of day is this?’” Mary wrote alongside a photo with her daughter.
“I thought briefly about my answer, and said that for her it is a day where she must believe and trust that she can come into being and do everything she dreams of without anyone or anything stopping her…because she’s a girl.”
What roles will Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine play in the Danish royal family?
The twins are third and fourth in line to the Danish throne and will be bumped down the line of succession when their elder siblings have children.
As such, it’s highly unlikely either of them will ever become King or Queen of Denmark.
This means they’ll experience a greater level of personal freedom than their siblings, though they’ll still be expected to toe the royal line.
“They will have freedom to a much higher degree than their father,” Copenhagen University’s Associate Professor of Danish History, Jes Fabricius Moller, told Adelaide Now in 2011.
“They can have many different and unusual careers, but they cannot do anything considered immoral… because what they do in the public eye, will reflect back on the entire royal family.”
It’s expected that the twins will go on to support their older brother when he becomes King and they’re all grown up.
