{"id":156497,"date":"2026-08-31T18:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T18:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/156497\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T18:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T18:51:13","slug":"king-harald-v-of-norway-popular-monarch-who-married-an-oslo-shop-girl-for-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/156497\/","title":{"rendered":"King Harald V of Norway, popular monarch who married an Oslo shop girl for love"},"content":{"rendered":"

His Majesty King Harald V of Norway, who has died aged 89<\/a>, reigned as King from 1991, when he succeeded his father, King Olav.<\/p>\n

King Harald’s was a stable reign, and he was a popular monarch, though he was not faced with the same challenges that gave his father the chance to show the panache and style that made him such a lasting favourite with the Norwegian people.<\/p>\n

King Harald was the first Norwegian prince to be born in Norway for 567 years. His ancestry was diverse: he was descended from kings of England, Denmark and Sweden. Edward VII was his great-grandfather, and when he was born on February 21 1937, his English-born grandmother, Queen Maud, was still living.<\/p>\n

\"Queen<\/p>\n

Queen Elizabeth II, King Olav V, Crown Prince Harald and Prince Philip in Oslo, 1981<\/p>\n

King Olav had been born Prince Alexander of Denmark, the only son of Prince Carl of Denmark, who in 1905 was elected King of Norway. Once the election had been confirmed by a plebiscite, he arrived in that country with his wife and his little boy. King Olav, in turn, married Princess Martha, daughter of Prince Carl of Sweden, a grandson of King Oscar II. Thus Harald was closely related to his Scandinavian counterparts, and was a second cousin to Queen Elizabeth II<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although born at Skaugum, in Asker, the youngest of three, on February 21 1937, Prince Harald soon left Norway with his mother and two elder sisters for the United States to spend the war years in Washington. His grandfather, King Haakon, and his father, Crown Prince Olav, were forced to leave Norway after the German invasion of April 1940, establishing a government-in-exile in Great Britain.<\/p>\n

\"Crown<\/p>\n

Crown Princess Martha of Norway with her three children, Astrid, aged 7, Harald, aged 3, and Ragnhild, aged 9, in America, 1940 – Evening Standard<\/p>\n

When Norway was liberated in May 1945, the Royal family returned and Prince Harald was educated at Smestad School in Oslo, then Oslo University. He underwent 16 months of military service at the Cadet College for Cavalry Officers, and then, as his father had done, he attended the Norwegian Military Academy and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Modern Greats and rowed in the Balliol first VIII.<\/p>\n

He endured his fair share of early sadness. His mother died in 1954, shortly after his parents had celebrated their silver wedding, and he became Crown Prince on the death of King Haakon in 1957. As Crown Prince, he represented Norway abroad, visiting the US in 1960, and served as Regent in the occasional absences overseas of King Olav.<\/p>\n

His task was always to promote Norwegian interests, and this he did with zeal. But his great passion was yachting, at which he excelled, representing Norway in the 1968 Olympic Games. A creature of the outdoors, he also enjoyed fishing, hunting, shooting and skiing.<\/p>\n

\"Harald<\/p>\n

Harald in 1940 – ullstein bild<\/p>\n

The Crown Prince lived in an era when it was still uncertain whether royalty should pursue dynastic marriages, or whether they might be allowed to marry for love. His was decisively a love match, with an assistant in an Oslo department store, Sonja Haraldsen. His wish to marry her was not achieved until nine years after they first met, and was the cause of some controversy, but it was eventually found acceptable in the Norwegian constitution that the couple should be permitted to wed.<\/p>\n

They did so in August 1968, though no member of the British Royal family was present, due to mourning for Princess Marina, who had died two days previously.<\/p>\n

When King Harald succeeded his father, he adopted the motto “All for Norway”. He was consecrated and blessed at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim; he then made tours of the country. As a constitutional king he held a weekly Council of State at the palace, and was commander-in-chief of the armed forces and head of the State Church.<\/p>\n

\"Crown<\/p>\n

Crown Prince Harald with his new wife, Crown Princess Sonja, in 1969 – AFP<\/p>\n

In 2001 the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh<\/a> paid a state visit to Oslo, during which she appointed him a Knight of the Garter. He was installed at Windsor in the presence of many other foreign sovereigns at the special Golden Jubilee Garter ceremony in June 2002. The King was also a GCVO, and held the Royal Victorian Chain, given to him by the Queen in Scotland on his state visit in 1994.<\/p>\n

The King and Queen had a daughter, M\u00e4rtha Louise, born in 1971, and a son, Haakon Magnus, born in 1973. M\u00e4rtha Louise had three daughters with her first husband, the late writer and artist Ari Behn<\/a>, and subsequently prompted raised eyebrows when she married Durek Verrett, an American celebrity shaman; she also claimed to be in contact with angels.<\/p>\n

The bearded Haakon Magnus was also the subject of matrimonial controversy when he elected to marry Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby, who already had a son, Marius, born out of wedlock, by a man of equivocal reputation. King Harald, perhaps mindful of the opposition to his own marriage, which had proved so successful, was happy to give his consent to this union, and the young couple were married in Oslo in August 2001.<\/p>\n

\"King<\/p>\n

King Harald and Queen Sonja with their children Princess Martha Louise and Crown Prince Haakon – BJOERN SIGURDSOEN<\/p>\n

The Crown Prince acted as Regent when King Harald was treated for cancer in 2003-04 and for heart trouble in 2005. He served again in September 2020.<\/p>\n

King Harald ceased to be formal head of the Church of Norway in 2012. He showed considerable leadership during the New Year’s Day Storm, a windstorm which caused considerable damage in 1992, and after the 2011 attacks in which a lone terrorist killed 77 people in an Oslo bombing and an attack on a summer camp. The King and Queen visited the survivors and he attended a special sitting of Parliament.<\/p>\n

He also expressed sympathy for refugees, with a self-deprecating remark about his own rather tangled background: “It is not easy to say where we come from\u2026 home is where the heart is.”<\/p>\n

He became the first reigning monarch to visit Antarctica, in 2015, and the following year he competed in the sailing world championships on Lake Ontario in Canada, coming second in the classic fleet category. Only in April 2024, aged 87, did he permanently scale back in duties.<\/p>\n

\"Crown<\/p>\n

Crown Princess Mette-Marit, Crown Prince Haakon, Queen Sonja and King Harald in 2015 – JOERGEN GOMNAES\/NORWEGIAN ROYAL COURT<\/p>\n

King Harald remained personally popular, but by the end of his life the monarchy in Norway seemed far more fragile, embattled by scandal. In June 2026 his step-grandson, Marius Borg H\u00f8iby, was sentenced to four years in prison after being found guilty of 34 of 40 charges, including two counts of rape, abuse in close relationships, assault, drug possession and supply, and restraining order violations.<\/p>\n

His daughter-in-law, the Crown Princess, meanwhile, was revealed to have maintained close links to the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein long after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.<\/p>\n

According to one poll by the newspaper Aftenposten, support for the monarchy among the Norwegian people had sunk from 72 per cent in 2024 to 54 per cent by early 2026, with further polls concurring that almost half of Norwegians believed that Crown Princess Mette-Marit was not fit to become Queen.<\/p>\n

The end of the monarchy in Norway is far more vivid and immediate prospect than it would be in Britain, because constitutionally, every four years, the parliament is asked to vote on whether Norway should become a republic, a motion requiring a two-thirds majority to pass.<\/p>\n

It was perhaps a credit to King Harald personally that, when the quadrennial vote came around at the height of the scandal, fewer MPs voted for a republic than had four years previously. In February 2026 only 26 were in favour, with 141 opting to keep the monarchy.<\/p>\n

King Harald is survived by Queen Sonja and their children, Princess M\u00e4rtha Louise, and Crown Prince Haakon, who succeeds him.<\/p>\n

King Harald V of Norway, born February 21 1937, died August 28 2026<\/p>\n

Try full access to The Telegraph free today. Unlock their award-winning website and essential news app, plus useful tools and expert guides for your money, health and holidays.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His Majesty King Harald V of Norway, who has died aged 89, reigned as King from 1991, when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[85],"tags":[73505,22562,417,73498,73493,73494,62656,73501,71550,72688,27097,157,20514,73499,73492,156,42095,73497,73496,73491,73500,43935,73495,27096,73502,73504,73503],"class_list":["post-156497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oslo","tag-aged-89","tag-crown-prince","tag-crown-prince-haakon","tag-crown-prince-haakon-bjoern","tag-crown-prince-harald","tag-crown-prince-olav","tag-haakon","tag-haakon-magnus","tag-harald","tag-harald-v","tag-king-harald","tag-norway","tag-norwegian","tag-norwegian-royal-court","tag-olav","tag-oslo","tag-oslo-university","tag-prince-carl","tag-prince-harald","tag-prince-philip","tag-princess-martha","tag-queen","tag-queen-maud","tag-queen-sonja","tag-sonja","tag-sonja-haraldsen","tag-the-king-and-queen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117191631942820475","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}