Norway buries King Harald V as Europe's royals gather in Oslo
Tens of thousands lined the cortege route and the country fell silent for a minute, closing 13 days of mourning for a monarch who reigned 35 years.
Norway buried King Harald V on Wednesday, closing 13 days of national mourning with a funeral in Oslo Cathedral attended by dozens of European royals and heads of state. The king died last month at 89, after 35 years on the throne, and the country observed a minute's silence as his coffin was carried through the capital.
Tens of thousands lined the route from the royal palace to the cathedral. The casket travelled on an artillery carriage draped in Norway's red royal banner and topped with white flowers, while a 21-gun salute sounded from the Akershus fortress. King Haakon VIII, who succeeded his father, walked behind it on foot with his sister Princess Märtha Louise and his children, Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus. Queen Sonja, 89, and Queen Mette-Marit, who is recovering from a lung transplant, followed by car.
The day had begun with ceremonial troops assembling at Akershus, the medieval fortress where the king was later laid to rest.
Who came
Prince William attended on behalf of his father, King Charles III, alongside the Princess Royal, who was there privately as godmother to Norway's new monarch. Around 30 royal figures attended, from Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Monaco, Jordan and Japan among others, alongside political leaders and dignitaries from more than 20 countries. Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier were among the non-royal heads of state.
Norway's prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, delivered the eulogy. Harald, he said, "struck a balance between being stately and being down-to-earth", and had "made Norway greater". The speaker of parliament, Masud Gharahkhani, recalled a king who was "not afraid to meet his people with his rubber boots on". Queen Sonja, visibly moved, laid a red rose on the coffin. Three tolls of the cathedral bell marked the end of the silence — briefly interrupted, as it happened, by a mobile phone alarm.
Four F-35 fighter jets passed over the cathedral afterwards in a missing man formation, one peeling away to mark the king's death. The coffin was then taken to the chapel at Akershus and lowered into the royal crypt in a private ceremony attended by family, foreign royals and the prime minister.
He was laid to rest among four generations of his own family: his father, King Olav V; his mother, Crown Princess Märtha; and his grandparents, King Haakon VII and Queen Maud. As the burial ended, Norwegian flags across Oslo were raised from half mast back to the top, and the royal family returned to the palace.
A reign remembered, and a family under strain
Harald was widely seen as a modernising and unassuming figure, a light-touch reformer whom royal watchers have described as a grandfather to the nation. More than 46,000 Norwegians filed past his casket during the preceding week, and schoolchildren were excused lessons for the funeral. Police said securing the day was the largest planned operation in the force's history.
The mourning arrived at a difficult moment for the royal household. Documents published earlier this year revealed Queen Mette-Marit's repeated contact with Jeffrey Epstein; she has since said she wished she had never met the American sex offender, and drew criticism including from the prime minister. Her son from an earlier relationship, Marius Borg Høiby, who is not himself a royal but grew up in the family, is under house arrest, wearing an ankle monitor. He was given a four-year term in June on two counts of rape, and is appealing. He was permitted to attend, sitting in the second row during the cathedral service, and acted as a pallbearer when the coffin was moved to the royal chapel.
A monarchy that remains popular
Harald died on 28 August. In the fortnight since, the response has suggested the recent scandals have not dented the institution much: a poll for the public broadcaster NRK found 72 per cent of Norwegians support the monarchy, against 20 per cent who would prefer a republic or some other arrangement.
That reservoir of goodwill was visible at the end of the day. In what the palace framed as thanks for the support shown since the king's death, Haakon, Mette-Marit, Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra, Prince Sverre Magnus and Queen Sonja came out onto the palace balcony to greet the tens of thousands still gathered outside.
Sources
- BBC News — Guest list, procession detail, Hoiby court term, balcony appearance
- The Guardian — Cortege detail, eulogy and speaker quotes, police operation, 46,000 mourners
- CNN (Associated Press) — Procession detail and 21-gun salute
