Norway’s King Harald V has died at the age of 89, the royal court announced on August 28, ending a reign of 35 years and passing the throne to his son, now King Haakon VIII.
The court said Harald had “passed away peacefully at Oslo University Hospital Rikshospitalet” at 6.35am. The flag above the royal palace in Oslo was lowered to half-mast as hundreds gathered in the palace courtyard to lay flowers.
Harald had been admitted on August 17 with fluid retention during treatment for haemolytic anaemia, a condition in which red blood cells are destroyed faster than the body can replace them. He later developed a bacterial blood infection and the palace described his condition as extremely serious on August 27.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said “King Harald loved Norway. And Norway loved its king”, adding that the nation was in mourning and grateful for a life devoted to it. He credited the late king with finding the words that united Norwegians after the July 22, 2011 attacks by right-wing extremist Anders Breivik, which killed 77 people in Oslo and on the island of Utøya.
Støre said the government would meet shortly and then see the new King at the palace.
Succession in Norway is automatic and Haakon, 53, became monarch at the moment of his father’s death. His elder child, 22-year-old Ingrid Alexandra, becomes Crown Princess and heir to the throne.
Harald reigned over a country that has twice refused to join the European Union, in referendums in 1972 and in 1994, three years into his reign. Norway remains outside the bloc while sharing its single market through the European Economic Area and taking part in the Schengen zone.
Born in Asker near Oslo in 1937, Harald was the first Norwegian prince born in the country in 567 years and spent most of the Second World War in exile in Sweden and the United States.
He married Sonja Haraldsen, who was not of royal birth, in 1968 after a courtship of almost a decade that his father, Olav V, at first refused to sanction. Despite repeated hospital stays he ruled out abdication, arguing that his oath before parliament was for life.
Haakon inherits a monarchy under strain. Mette-Marit, who underwent a lung transplant in July, faces scrutiny over her correspondence with the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and her son Marius Borg Høiby was sentenced in June to four years in prison for two rapes and 32 other charges.
