Prince William joins mourners at King Harald’s funeral
Prince William joins mourners at King Harald’s funeral
Our Foreign StaffWed, September 9, 2026 at 11:50 AM UTC
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Prince William and Princess Anne attend King Harald’s funeral in Oslo - Getty Images/Peter Summers
The Prince of Wales and Princess Royal have joined world leaders at the funeral of Norway’s King Harald V in Oslo.
Thousands lined the streets and a 21-gun salute rang out over the capital at the start of the procession from the royal palace to Oslo Cathedral.
King Haakon VIII, the late King’s son, and other senior royals walked behind the coffin, draped in the red Norwegian royal standard.
Queen Mette-Marit, King Haakon’s wife, also attended the funeral despite being in recovery from a lung transplant.
Last week, she was unable to attend her husband’s oath ceremony in parliament because of complications following her operation.
King Harald’s coffin was draped with the red Norwegian royal standard - AP Photo/Markus Schreiber
Marius Borg Hoiby, the son of the Queen whom King Haakon has adopted as his own, left his house arrest after being convicted of rape and assault to attend the funeral.
Hoiby was one of the pallbearers during the transfer of King Harald’s coffin to the royal chapel.
The late King, who died aged 89 last month, was Europe’s oldest monarch and had reigned for 35 years.
King Haakon and his late father are related to Prince William as descendants of Queen Victoria. Princess Anne is the godmother of the new King.
Large crowds flocked to the capital for the funeral, and thousands of people stood behind barriers on streets lined with national flags.
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Flags lined the streets during the procession from the royal palace chapel to Oslo cathedral - Getty Images/NICOLAS TUCAT
Across the country, churches, libraries, cultural centres and city halls aired the ceremony on big screens.
Before the funeral, Norwegians waited patiently to file past King Harald’s coffin in the chapel of the royal palace.
The queue was seven hours long at one point over the weekend. More than 46,000 people visited the chapel during the week it lay in state.
Among the other guests expected on Wednesday were the monarchs of Sweden, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Jordan, and Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president.
A minute’s silence was held across Norway at the start of the funeral ceremony.
The government said it was not an official holiday, but schools and workplaces could opt to let students and employees tune in for Wednesday’s events. It advised that “noisy events should be suspended while the funeral is ongoing”.
Large crowds flocked to the capital for the funeral - REUTERS/Claudia Greco
After the funeral, King Harald’s coffin will be taken in a procession to the palace chapel at Akershus Castle, where his ancestors are buried.
After a private ceremony for the Norwegian royals, who will be joined by some foreign guests and senior Norwegian officials, the coffin will be lowered into the crypt.
Norway’s monarchy traces its origins to King Harald Fairhair in the ninth century.
When Norway regained its independence from Sweden in 1905, three-quarters of voters in a national plebiscite approved restoring the monarchy.
The throne’s role is largely symbolic, and power lies with the elected government and parliament, but the Norwegian royal family retains a role in promoting the wealthy Scandinavian nation around the world.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
