Norway Mourns King Harald V, Europe’s Oldest Monarch, Dead at 89

King Harald of Norway, a cousin of King Charles III, has died aged 89 following a short period in hospital.

The Scandinavian sovereign had been Europe’s oldest reigning monarch since the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, having ruled Norway from January 17, 1991.

Harald had been receiving treatment at Oslo University Hospital for haemolytic anaemia, a condition in which red blood cells are destroyed more rapidly than normal.

The palace later said his condition had “deteriorated” after he developed an infection, prompting members of the Norwegian Royal Family to gather at his bedside on Thursday.

“It is with deep grief that we announce that His Majesty King Harald has passed away,” Norway’s Royal Court said in a statement.

“King Harald died peacefully at Oslo University Hospital Rikshospitalet Friday 28 August at 6:35am.”

Crown Prince Haakon is now set to succeed him on the throne and is expected to reign as King Haakon VIII.

Harald was born on February 21, 1937, the third child and only son of King Olav V of Norway and Princess Martha of Sweden.

He is a great-grandson of Edward VII and his godparents included Queen Mary and her son George VI (grandmother and father respectively of the late Queen Elizabeth).

His early life was marked by the vicissitudes of the Second World War. In April 1940, when Harald was just three, Nazi Germany invaded Norway.

Harald and his two older sisters, Ragnhild and Astrid, were swept up by their mother and taken first to Sweden.

Whilst Harald’s father and grandfather – the reigning King Haakon VII – held out in Norway as their heroic countrymen battled the German invasion, they too finally fled in June and headed to London with the Norwegian government-in-exile.

In August that year, Harald and his mother and sisters then went to the United States, where they spent the rest of the war, living in Washington.

Crown Prince Olav and King Haakon – whose wife Queen Maud (sister of George V) had died in 1938 – were initially guests at Buckingham Palace.

A young Princess Elizabeth at one point found them ‘both snoring away’ on the floor of the royal air raid shelter.

‘Tho’ we love having them,’ she told her grandmother, Queen Mary, ‘it is rather a bore never to be alone.’

In June 1945, Prince Harald – now aged seven – returned with his family to Norway, after Nazi Germany’s defeat in the war.

During five years of occupation, the royal palace had been turned into a prison, whilst ordinary Norwegians had been starved.

In 1954, nine years after the family’s return, they were hit by tragedy when Harald’s mother died of cancer.

The Prince, then just 17, would go on to name his firstborn Märtha in honour of her memory.

Three years later, King Haakon died at the age of 85, after nearly 52 years on the throne.

Harald, now the heir, went on to study at the University of Oslo and also enrolled in the Norwegian Military Academy, graduating in 1959.

It was at his graduation ball that he brought along the woman who would become his wife.

Harald had met Sonja Haraldsen, the daughter of an Oslo draper, earlier that year. It was her status as a commoner that ruffled royal feathers.

The pair initially kept their relationship a secret, but when it did become public knowledge, the Palace repeatedly insisted that the pair would not marry.

But when Harald threatened to remain a bachelor forever if he did not get his way, his father relented and let him wed the woman he loved.

Their 1968 wedding at Oslo Cathedral came after both had studied in England.

Whilst Sonja read English at Cambridge, Harald went to Oxford to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Balliol College.

Harald became Norway’s Crown Prince in 1957 after the death of his grandfather. 

After attending high school in Oslo, Harald went to Balliol College, Oxford from 1960 to 1962, where he studied history, economics and politics. 

The Anglophile became a keen rower, having been taught by renowned coach Nick Bevan, who was studying at the same college.

But sailing was his sport: he went on to represent Norway at the Olympics in Tokyo in 1964, Mexico City in 1968 and Munich in 1972.

His and Sonja’s first child, Princess Märtha Louise, was born in 1971, with her brother, Crown Prince Haakon, arriving the following year.

But Prince Haakon would have a long wait before he became first in line to the throne.

His father did not become king until January 1991, when he was 53.

Harald’s closeness to King Charles was demonstrated five years later, when he went to Sandringham for a shooting weekend.

The monarch was also at Charles’s 50th birthday party in 1998, when 250 guests descended on Highgrove.

In 2011, Harald was among the dozens of European royals who attended the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales and was a guest at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Lunch the following year.

In another demonstration of the closeness between the Norwegian and English royal families, Her Late Majesty was the only head of state to make three state visits to Norway, in 1955, 1981 and 2001.

In 1955, they arrived on the Royal Yacht Britannia, having sailed up the Oslo Fjord between what was described at the time as a ‘lane of fire’.

‘Every few miles along this island-dotted coastline, flames and sparks from midsummer bonfires shot skyward with red, white and blue rockets,’ Our News Outlet reported.

Like some of his British cousins, King Harald’s family have had their own controversies. 

He has presided over a difficult few months for the Norwegian Royal Family amid a scandal involving his daughter-in-law, Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Mette-Marit faced intense scrutiny when a tranche from the Epstein Files revealed she stayed at the paedophile financier’s Palm Beach mansion in 2013 – after his conviction for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14.

One email suggested she was still in contact with Epstein just months before his death.

Mette-Marit, 53, who was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2018, later issued a grovelling apology in which she claimed the emails ‘do not represent the person who I want to be’.

Harald defended his daughter-in-law during a public appearance that month in which he insisted: ‘We must remember that the Crown Princess has not done anything illegal.

‘Unlike some others in Norway, she broke the connection very early. So I think we should give her credit for that.’

Harald’s later life had been marked by a series of health problems that have left him unable to fulfil his royal duties during certain periods. 

King Harald was rushed to hospital on Monday, August 17 with haemolytic anaemia – a disorder which sees red blood cells destroyed at an abnormally fast rate and leads to fatigue, paleness and breathing difficulties.

It came just two years after the Norwegian suffered a similar problem while on holiday in Malaysia. That ordeal resulted in him having a pacemaker fitted.

The monarch had, however, insisted that he would never abdicate from his position due to poor health, arguing that he took a lifelong oath before ascending to the throne in 1991.

‘I stick by what I’ve always said, that I swore an oath to the Storting (Norwegian Parliament) and it is for life,’ he said previously.

In a statement on Sunday, August 23, the palace said: ‘His Majesty the King’s health deteriorated over the weekend. 

‘The King is receiving antibiotics for a bacterial infection in his blood, and has responded to this treatment.’ 

The head of state was admitted to hospital in Oslo and will be on sick leave for the next two weeks, it was reported on Monday. 

The palace said in a statement: ‘The King has been treated with cortisone for the blood disease haemolytic anaemia in recent weeks. 

‘This has led to fluid accumulation in the body that requires treatment in hospital.’

In February, the 89-year-old was rushed to hospital while spending time with his wife, Norwegian Queen Sonja, 89, in Tenerife. 

The monarch’s condition at the time was said to have been ‘satisfactory’ after he received treatment for an infection and dehydration at Hospital Universitario Hospiten Sur. 

It came just two years after he suffered a similar problem while on holiday in Malaysia. That ordeal resulted in him having a pacemaker fitted.