Norway's King Honored: Unafraid 'to Meet People in His Rubber Boots'

Norway bade farewell to Harald V on Wednesday as crowds lined the streets and foreign royals and leaders converged on Oslo for the funeral of the long-serving king, who was remembered as a popular monarch with a down-to-earth touch. A 21-gun salute rang out over the capital at the start of a funeral procession from the royal palace to Oslo Cathedral, reports the AP. Harald's son, new King Haakon VIII, and other senior royals walked behind the coffin, draped with the Norwegian royal standard. Harald's widow, Queen Sonja, and Haakon's wife, Queen Mette-Marit, followed in a car. Norwegian officials and foreign dignitaries included the monarchs of Sweden, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco, and Jordan. Also present were the heir to the British throne, Prince William, and Japan's Crown Prince Akishino, as well as political leaders from more than 20 countries, including Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.

As the funeral began, Norway came to a halt for a minute of silence. Harald, who died on Aug. 28 aged 89, was Europe's oldest monarch and had reigned for 35 years. He modernized the royal house but refused to follow in the footsteps of other aging monarchs who recently abdicated. His son immediately became king and last week took an oath of allegiance to Norway's constitution in parliament. The speaker of Norway's parliament, Masud Gharahkhani, said at the service that "King Harald was close to the people" and recalled that "he wasn't afraid to meet people in his rubber boots." He recalled 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." "He lived up to his motto: He gave his all for Norway," Gharahkhani said.

Large crowds flocked to Oslo for the funeral, and thousands stood behind barriers on streets lined with national flags. The downtown area was closed to vehicles and electric scooters, and police had instructed people not to bring bicycles, umbrellas, or sharp objects. People tuned in from across the country. Scores of churches, libraries, cultural centers, and city halls made big screens available for the public to watch the funeral, public broadcaster NRK reported. Ahead of the funeral, Norwegians waited patiently to file past Harald's coffin in the chapel of the royal palace. The queue was seven hours long at one point over the weekend. Over 46,000 people visited the chapel during the week the coffin lay in state.

The funeral was not an official holiday, but schools and workplaces could individually opt to let students and employees tune in for Wednesday's events. The government advised that "noisy events should be suspended while the funeral is ongoing." After the funeral, Harald's coffin will be taken in a procession to the palace chapel at Akershus Castle, where the late king's ancestors are buried. After a private ceremony for the Norwegian royals, who will be joined by some of the 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.