Oslo bids farewell to King Harald V as royals gather for Norway funeral

Norway held a state funeral for King Harald V in Oslo as royals and leaders gathered. The farewell underscored his popular legacy and the continuity of the Norwegian monarchy.

In Short

• A 21-gun salute began the cortege from palace to Oslo Cathedral
• More than 46,000 mourners visited the palace chapel during lying-in-state
• King Haakon VIII walked behind the coffin, marking the succession publicly

Norway on Wednesday bid a final farewell to King Harald V, as crowds lined the streets of Oslo and foreign royals and leaders gathered for the funeral of the long-serving monarch, who was remembered as a popular king with a down-to-earth manner. A 21-gun salute marked the start of a funeral procession from the royal palace to Oslo Cathedral.

Harald, who died on August 28 at the age of 89, was Europe’s oldest monarch and had reigned for 35 years. He modernised Norway’s royal house but did not follow other ageing monarchs in abdicating. His son immediately became King Haakon VIII and last week took an oath of allegiance to Norway’s constitution in parliament.

Harald’s coffin, draped with the red Norwegian royal standard, was followed on foot by King Haakon VIII and other senior royals. Queen Sonja, Harald’s widow, and Queen Mette-Marit, Haakon’s wife, followed in a car. Norwegian officials and foreign dignitaries joined the solemn procession, including the monarchs of Sweden, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco and Jordan. Also present were Prince William, heir to the British throne, Japan’s Crown Prince Akishino, and political leaders from more than 20 countries, including Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

As the funeral service began, Norway observed a minute of silence. At the service, parliament speaker Masud Gharahkhani said, “King Harald was close to the people” and recalled that “he wasn’t afraid to meet people in his rubber boots.” He also remembered Harald saying in his 2008 New Year’s address: “I wish we would stop using the term the weakest in society. In reality, some of these people are among the strongest of us all.” Gharahkhani said: “He lived up to his motto: He gave his all for Norway.”

Large crowds gathered in Oslo for the funeral, with thousands standing behind barriers on streets lined with national flags. The downtown area was closed to vehicles and electric scooters, and police told people not to bring bicycles, umbrellas or sharp objects. Across the country, people followed the funeral on big screens set up in churches, libraries, cultural centres and city halls, public broadcaster NRK reported.

Before the funeral, Norwegians waited to file past Harald’s coffin in the chapel of the royal palace, where the queue stretched to seven hours at one point over the weekend. More than 46,000 people visited the chapel during the week the king lay in state. The government said it was not an official holiday, but schools and workplaces could choose to let students and employees follow Wednesday’s events. It also advised that “noisy events should be suspended while the funeral is ongoing.”

After the funeral, Harald’s coffin was to be taken in a procession to the palace chapel at Akershus Castle, where his ancestors are buried. Following a private ceremony for the Norwegian royals, joined by some foreign guests and senior Norwegian officials, the coffin was to be lowered into the crypt. Norway’s monarchy traces its origins to King Harald Fairhair in the ninth century, and when the country regained independence from Sweden in 1905, three-quarters of voters backed restoring the monarchy in a national plebiscite. Today, the throne’s role is largely symbolic, with power resting with the elected government and parliament, though the royal family continues to represent the wealthy Scandinavian nation abroad. Wednesday’s funeral brought together those ceremonial duties, public mourning and tributes to a king many Norwegians saw as close to the people.

With PTI Inputs

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