Concerns have been flying for months that Norway’s royal family is stretched too thin, since the king and queen are elderly, the crown princess has been seriously ill and her children with Crown Prince Haakon are in or entering college. There were fewer royals available for representation duties in earlier generations, though, and both Princess Ingrid Alexandra and her younger brother Prince Sverre Magnus, have been on the job in recent months.
Norway’s royal families have been small since the monarchy was restored in 1905. King Haakon VII (brought in from Denmark) and his British wife Queen Maud only had one child, who later became King Olav V. Olav’s Swedish wife Martha died when she was still crown princess and Olav succeeded his father Haakon as a widower king with three children.
Olav’s eldest daughter had moved to Brazil with her Norwegian husband in the 1950s, though, leaving his other daughter, Princess Astrid, to take on the role as Norway’s “first lady” of sorts since her brother and heir-to-throne, the current King Harald, was five years younger and still in school.
It wasn’t until Harald and his wife Sonja, the first commoner in Europe to marry an heir to the throne, had children that the royal ranks expanded, but for many years it was just King Olav, then-Crown Prince Harald and Crown Princess Sonja and Princess Astrid who had representation duties. It can be argued that today’s royal ranks are actually bigger than before, even though King Harald and Queen Sonja, both age 89, and Princess Astrid, age 94, have had to cut back on their travels and duties. Crown Princess Mette-Marit has also been seriously ill and has to deal with having a criminal son from a relationship before she met Crown Prince Haakon. Haakon’s 54-year-old sister Martha Louise still has a princess title, but has created so much controversy over her commercial ventures that she no longer represents the royal family.
Calls have thus gone out for Princess Ingrid Alexandra, age 22, and Prince Sverre Magnus, age 20, to step up to the plate and fill in when needed. Ingrid, as the family calls her, has done the most, even leaving her first year of studies at the University of Sydney in Australia to travel home when her mother’s illness and other problems (including Mette-Marit’s controversial relationship to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in addition to her wayward son) interfered with royal duties. Ingrid plans to study as an exchange student at the University of Oslo this fall, in order to be closer to home and her ill mother. It remains unclear whether she’ll feel able to travel back to Sydney after the Christmas break.
Before leaving Australia, at least temporarily, Ingrid represented Norway at 17th of May celebrations in Sydney and then came home to help her mother and father, sit in on some Councils of State and now there’s a proposal in Parliament for her to be able to step in for her father and grandfather to formalize laws and government appointments in their absence. She’d finished a stint in the military before heading for Australia and also has an interest in defense issues.
Then both she and her brother Sverre Magnus traveled twice to the US in recent weeks, to substitute for their father at the World Cup when he needed to spend time at the hospital with Crown Princess Mette-Marit. The two royal siblings cheered at Norway’s victorious matches against Senegal and Brazil, and congratulated players in the locker room afterwards. She also visited a summer colony for children at Hudøy off Tjøme (where her grandmother inherited a holiday home). Crown Prince Haakon traveled to oversee Norway play in the quarter-finals for the first time ever, and even though Norway lost to England, Haakon made it clear that Norway was mighty proud regardless.
While Ingrid Alexandra, as second-in-line to the throne, grew up with a sense of duty, lots of attention recently has been directed at Prince Sverre Magnus, third in line and often in the background. He has not gone into the military, like most other royal heirs do, and will reportedly start college studies “somewhere in Europe” this fall. Meanwhile, he’s been showing up with his sister, has expressed interest in sports and video projects and had a girlfriend but she hasn’t been seen for awhile. Historian Trond Norén Isaksen, who has written seven books on monarchies, has been prodding more involvement by the young royals for years.
“Politicians must take a position,” he wrote in newspaper Aftenposten recently, on whether both Ingrid Alexandra and Sverre Magnus should receive their own apanasje, equivalent to a salary to compensate them for royal duties. While some think their royal privileges are enough, Isaksen thinks they should be compensated on the grounds that students who work on the side of their studies don’t work for free. The two royals’ parents have wanted to preserve their offspring’s freedom to pursue their own interests, while others like Isaksen think they should be able to step in as needed.
“The royal palace needs Sverre Magnus,” Isaksen wrote as early as last December, before all this year’s royal drama began. “Has he understood that himself?” Being a private person with a royal title is clearly the worst alternative, wrote Isaksen.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
