The new king has to navigate a situation in which his wife is at the center. As noted by the British publication “The Guardian,” documents released in the US in January revealed that Mette-Marit had connections with convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from 2011 to 2014. As the wife of the heir to the throne, she is mentioned nearly a thousand times in these case files, including more intimate correspondence. This caused huge outrage in Norway – even the country’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre openly accused the princess of “poor judgment” with unprecedented comments at the time. Mette-Marit later issued an official apology through the palace for this friendship, expressing regret for the situation that pushed the royal family into turmoil.
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The situation is further complicated by another dark cloud – the legal problems of Mette-Marit’s son from a previous relationship, 29-year-old Marius Borg Høiby. In June, he was sentenced to four years in prison for two rapes and 32 other charges, including violence against a former partner (he appealed this verdict). All these blows came at a time when 53-year-old Mette-Marit herself is battling a serious lung disease – she underwent a transplant in July. It is no surprise that due to these scandals, support for the monarchy in the country dropped from 72% to 54%, and polls show that nearly half of Norwegians doubt whether this woman is fit to be queen at all.
Despite the current storms, it was the late King Harald V and his wife Queen Sonja who once firmly supported their son Haakon’s decision to marry a single mother with a turbulent past, thus breaking the traditions of European royal families. According to “The Guardian,” Harald V, who led the country since 1991, will be remembered in history as a great modernizer of the monarchy and a unifier of the nation. Although recently he suffered serious health problems (from surgery for bladder cancer to a pacemaker and finally hemolytic anemia, which led to his death at Oslo University Hospital), he always rejected the possibility of abdicating the throne. The king constantly repeated that he had sworn an oath to the parliament for life.
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As the country bid farewell to the longest-reigning and exceptionally humble monarch in Europe, flags were lowered, and church bells rang across Norway at noon. Prime Minister J.G. Støre emphasized that Harald V helped Norwegians “see the best in ourselves and in each other.”
Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf, expressing respect for the late friend, wished success to his godson Haakon, who takes the helm of the state at this extraordinarily difficult time. After all, Harald V always knew how to calm the nation: after the 2011 Anders Behring Breivik terrorist attacks, he emotionally stated that “freedom is stronger than fear,” and in 2016 he firmly stood for diversity, tolerance, and LGBT rights. Now the new king will have to endure this test as a unifier of the nation – still torn by personal family scandals.
