Centuries-long dynasty, monarchical traditions – the Norwegian royal family is not so strict about that. When King Harald ascended the throne in 1991, the Scandinavian country had only had a king again since 1370. Already in his youth he disregarded royal status thinking and married the middle-class Sonja Haraldsen at the end of the 1960s. She became Crown Princess and later the Norwegian Queen for the first time in 53 years.
Norway’s Crown Prince
Although Sonja Haraldsen was a “woman of the people” and matured into a sovereign and studied monarch, the hoped-for wave of sympathy failed to materialize. She felt unwanted, which she revealed in a TV interview at the time. Precisely for this reason Harald wanted to spare his son and heir to the throne Haakon this fate and wanted a blue-blooded daughter-in-law. The love for the commoners was probably in the genes, and so the Crown Prince fell in love with a commoner, the single mother Mette-Marit Hoiby. She didn’t have a good past, her son’s father had a criminal record for possession of drugs, and she herself came into frequent contact with drugs in the 1990s. Even she was not spared from the criticism of the public, nevertheless Haakon and Mette-Marit believed in the great love, so that shortly before their wedding they dispelled all prejudices in a press conference. The criticism fell silent, the people began to like the blonde and grant her the title of Princess of Norway.
Five in patchwork luck
The Norwegians always find reasons to shake their heads at the unusual constellation of the royal family, but there are no monarchs who are closer to the people than the Prince of Norway and his princess.