Norway’s Royal Family has released the first official portrait of its new King, as the nation grieves the death of its long-serving and much-loved monarch, King Harald.
In the newly issued image, the former Crown Prince, 53, is shown wearing royal regalia and is formally presented as His Majesty King Haakon VIII.
Posting the portrait on social media, the Royal Family accompanied it with the traditional motto: ‘All for Norway.’
Haakon assumes the throne following the death of his father, who was a cousin of King Charles III and died aged 89 after a short period in hospital.
King Harald had been Europe’s oldest-reigning monarch since the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, having ruled Norway from January 17, 1991.
He had been receiving treatment at Oslo University Hospital for haemolytic anaemia, a condition in which red blood cells are destroyed faster than the body can replace them.
According to the palace, his condition later ‘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, August 28 at 6.35am.’
Haakon becomes King during a turbulent time for the Norwegian royals, with scandal involving his wife Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
The Norwegian royal family has officially released the portrait of its new King – as the country mourns the passing of their beloved monarch Harald
One email released suggested she was still in contact with the late paedophile financier 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’.
However, King Harald defended her 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.’
And in March, Haakon – then Crown Prince – told NRK: ‘I think it’s meaningful to reflect on the foundation the Crown Princess and I have built.
‘We stand on something strong. We’ve been together for over 25 years, and we’ve built it in a way that keeps us united. When you marry, it’s for better and for worse.
‘On the good days, everything feels easy. But it’s during the difficult times, when you have to weather the storm, that a strong foundation matters most.
‘This is our project; we’re in it together. And Mette is caring, wise, and very strong. That’s why I always want her on my team when challenges arise.’
As translated by HOLA! Mette-Marit added: ‘I have enormous respect for them and their work, which is why it was important for me to apologize,” she said. “They are the most wonderful in-laws and have supported me greatly throughout this process. I’m very grateful.’
Fresh scandal also came in June when Mette-Marit’s son, Marius Borg Høiby, was convicted on two couts of rape and jailed for four years following a six-week trial that laid bare allegations of violence, drug abuse and sexual misconduct.
An Oslo court also found him guilty of assaulting his former girlfriend, Nora Haukland, issuing threats and committing traffic offences, although he was acquitted of two other rape charges.
The 29-year-old had been charged with sexually assaulting four women who were asleep or otherwise unable to resist between 2018 and 2024.
The conviction marked a fall for Høiby, who grew up in the public eye after his mother married Crown Prince Haakon in 2001 when he was just four years old.
Although he does not hold a royal title or carry out official duties, he has long been closely associated with the Norwegian royal family.
On Friday, King Charles said he has extended his ‘deepest and most heartfelt condolences’ to the Norwegian royal family following the death of his ‘dear cousin’.
King Harald of Norway, cousin of King Charles III, has died at the age of 89 after a brief stay in hospital
Mourners gather outside the Royal Palace following the death of Norway’s King Harald V on Friday
The pair were second cousins once removed, sharing great-great-grandparents Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark.
‘As Norway mourns the loss of so towering a figure, my whole family join in remembering a much-loved kinsman and friend whose kindness, compassion and deep sense of duty echoed from across the sea and across the decades,’ King Charles III said.
‘The Queen and I extend our deepest and most heartfelt condolences to Queen Sonja and all her family, as Britain shares in Norway’s grief at this time of such heartbreaking loss.’
Born on February 21, 1937, Harald was 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.
A woman cries as she and other mourners gather to pay tribute to King Harald V of Norway on Friday
A group of women comfort one another outside the Royal Palace, following the death of Norway’s King Harald in Oslo
King Haakon VIII of Norway is pictured at the Royal Palace in Oslo on Friday following the death of his father
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.
Then 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.
‘Though we love having them,’ she told her grandmother ‘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.
King Harald and Queen Sonja posing at the Royal Palace after their wedding ceremony in August 1968
A crowd gathers to lay flowers and pay their respects to the late Norwegian monarch on Friday morning
King Harald V died after a short stay in hospital, it was announced on Friday morning
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 VII 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.
