This genuine humility and sense of duty has led some royal watchers to declare the Duchess of Gloucester as the ‘unsung hero’ of the royal family. This week was a case in point: Birgitte has spent several days on an official visit to Bermuda, although very few outlets have covered her low-key – but vital – work.
‘She has been so busy! She must be exhausted,’ one royal watcher noted on Twitter. ‘The Duchess of Gloucester, another unsung hero!!’ Another wrote, ‘Dependable, lovely, faithful, steadfast, working tirelessly without drama or controversy is the beautiful Duchess of Gloucester. It’s wonderful to see her get recognition.’
The Duchess of Gloucester was carrying out a number of visits in her role as Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Bermuda Regiment. The regiment is celebrating its 60th anniversary, so the Duchess of Gloucester has made the visit to the British Overseas Territory for the occasion. Now aged 79, the Duchess of Gloucester maintains ties to more than 60 organisations across the arts, sport, health, welfare, education and the military.
Pillars of royal service: Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester and Birgitte, Duchess of Gloucester attend the Order of the Garter service at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle on June 16, 2025
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Despite entering her twilight years, the Duchess shows no signs of slowing. For like many of her contemporaries among the senior generation of royals, the Duchess of Gloucester prefers to stay out of the spotlight and let her work speak for itself. It is a similar approach to the one taken by her husband, brother-in-law Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, and his late wife, Katharine, Duchess of Kent.
Although it might seem as though she was born with a sense of regal duty, the Duchess of Gloucester had a very different start in life.
Born in 1946 to lawyer Asger Preben Wissing Henriksen and his wife, Vivian van Deurs, Birgitte Eva van Deurs Henriksen was no stranger to the ways of high society, studying at a Swiss finishing school and the Scandinavian Academy of International Fashion and Design in Copenhagen. After her parents divorced on 15 January 1966, she would go on to take her mother’s ancestral name, van Deurs.