SPARE a thought for Prince Henrik, the dog-loving husband of the Queen of Denmark. His 75th birthday celebration earlier this month was overshadowed by a public furore over Evita, his beloved dachshund, after she bit a royal guardsman on the leg.

Calls by MPs for the dog to be put down appear to have stirred Henrik’s unhappiness over a lack of respect for him as the foreign-born husband of the queen.

Opinion polls show his wife, Queen Margrethe, 69, to be one of the most popular heads of the Danish monarchy. Nobody would have the nerve to suggest putting any of her pets to sleep.

For Henrik, a Frenchman, life is more complicated, particularly since the coming of age of Prince Frederik, his son and the heir to the throne. Henrik has lamented his own relegation to “third rank” after years of being “number two”.

Denmark’s recent referendum vote in favour of granting male and female heirs equality was seized on by the prince to press his own case for more equality with Margrethe, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth.

“I hope men will enjoy the same equality as women - there is a man married to the queen,” he said when asked about the referendum, in which an overwhelming majority voted in favour of changing the law.

Concerns about the status of Henrik have prompted extraordinary scenes at the family’s rococo palace of Amalienborg in Copenhagen.

In 2002, when Margrethe cracked a rib and Prince Frederik took her place at a function, Henrik retreated in a huff to Château de Caïx, the vineyard near Cahors in France that is, beside his dogs, his pride and joy.

The 11-year-old Evita had attacked the guard at the royal family’s castle in Fredensborg.

“If my dog had been so aggressive I’d have had it put down,” said Bjarne Laustsen, an opposition MP. Another MP suggested Evita be muzzled. It is not known what Henrik thinks of that idea, but the queen can only hope he will not withdraw to his vineyard.

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