King Harald V of Norway Has Died After 35 Years On the Throne. Meet His Successor, Haakon
Time · LC · trust 46/100
King Harald V of Norway, a reformer and Europe ’s oldest monarch, died Friday at the age of 89. His son, the newly-proclaimed King Haakon VIII, has inherited the Norwegian throne.
Harald passed away peacefully in his sleep at Oslo University Hospital Rikshospitalet at 6:35 a.m., local time, the Royal Palace of Norway said .
“A whole nation is in mourning and the people of Norway are left with a deep sense of gratitude for a long life in the service of Norway,” said Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. “For more than three decades as monarch, Harald V demonstrated an unwavering faith in the Norwegian people. He helped us to see the best in ourselves—and in one another.”
Harald had been admitted to the hospital on Aug. 17 and placed on sick leave after corticosteroid treatment for haemolytic anemia caused fluid retention that required hospital care, the palace revealed. His son, then-Crown Prince Haakon, 53, served as regent while his father was on leave.
In an update on Aug. 23, the palace announced the King’s condition had worsened and that he would remain in the hospital to receive antibiotics for a bacterial infection in his bloodstream. In recent days, Norwegians had begun to lay flowers in front of the palace in Oslo after the royal household said his condition had become “very serious.”
Harald has been described as a monarch who modernized the institution. His marriage broke with royal convention when he wed the non-royal Sonja Haraldsen in 1968 after a lengthy struggle for permission from his family.
In a widely noted 2016 Palace garden speech , Harald defined Norwegianness as encompassing immigrants, people of different religions, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
While Norway is a constitutional monarchy, with the king serving as head of state similar to other royal houses in Europe, Norwegian monarchs have largely held symbolic roles , as legislative power rests with an elected parliament.
Stortinget, Norway’s parliament, said Friday that the King’s reign “was marked by closeness to the people” thanks to “the unifying way in which he has exercised his royal duties.”
Norway will observe a period of mourning, with flags at royal residences, government buildings, and military installations set to remain at half-mast.
Church bells rang out on Friday and thousands of people lined the streets as Harald V's coffin, accompanied by a motorcade of black cars, was transported to the Royal Palace in Oslo.
As Norway mourns its long-reigning monarch, thoughts are also turning to his successor, who has been tasked with carrying on his father's legacy.
Here’s what to know about what comes next and how King Harald is being remembered by his peers and European leaders.
When a monarch in Norway passes away , the next person in the order of succession automatically becomes King or Queen, as the country cannot be without a head of state.
While succession was previously restricted to male heirs, since 1990 the Constitution was amended so female and male children would be included on an equal footing in the order of succession. However, for those born before the change, a male child retains precedence over an older female sibling. As such, although Princess Märtha Louise was Harald’s eldest child , the crown automatically passed down to his son, Haakon.
King Haakon VIII’s wife, Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby, is the new Queen of Norway. The late King Harald's wife, Queen Sonja, will also retain her title. Haakon and Mette-Marit's daughter Ingrid Alexandra is now Crown Princess and heir apparent—the next person in line to the throne.
The Norwegian government convened for an extraordinary cabinet meeting at the palace on Friday at 11:30 a.m., local time, where ministers met the new King.
Haakon announced his royal motto, opting to keep the words used by his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather: "All for Norway."
There will be no formal coronation for Haakon as Norway’s parliament removed the constitutional requirement for coronations in 1908, deeming the ceremony to be undemocratic and outdated.
As the only son of Harald and Sonja, Haakon somewhat broke with tradition in his younger years when he moved out of the country to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained a BA in political science in 1999.
Haakon wed Mette-Marit in 2001, a non-royal and single mother of Marius Borg Høiby.
The couple welcomed their first child together, Ingrid Alexandra, in 2004 and had their son, Sverre Magnus, a year later.
Marius Borg Høiby, Mette-Marit’s eldest child, was found guilty of two counts of rape and was sentenced to four years in prison in June.
In recent years, Mette-Marit has suffered with poor health, after being diagnosed with a chronic lung disease—what the palace referred to as an “unusual variant of fibrosis”—in 2018.
In July, Mette-Marit shared a statement upon being discharged from hospital after undergoing a lung transplant . “It has given me the gift of life, and words fall short when I try to describe how grateful and humble I am for this,” she said of the surgery.
Mette-Marit has come under scrutiny over her contact with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein .
Files released by the Justice Department in January showed she had maintained correspondence with Epstein in the years after he pled guilty on two counts of soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008.
“Jeffrey Epstein is personally responsible for his actions. I must take responsibility for not checking Epstein’s background more thoroughly and for not understanding quickly enough what kind of person he was,” Mette-Marit said in a statement on Jan. 30 2026. “I deeply regret that, and this is a responsibility I must take. I showed poor judgment and regret ever having had any contact with Epstein. It is simply embarrassing. I want to express my deep sympathy and solidarity with the victims of the abuses committed by Jeffrey Epstein.”
During a TV interview in March,…
Read the original at Time →
Open in TruthVane →