King Harald V of Norway obituary

Monarch who opened up the Norwegian royal family and its palaces to the public, and married a commoner despite his father’s opposition King Harald V of Norway, who has died aged 89, Europe’s oldest serving monarch, was the country’s third king since it regained independence in 1905 following the dissolution of its union with Sweden. Although he ceased to be head of the Lutheran state church in 2012 and subsequently lost his constitutional status as “holy” six years later, he did exhibit the S...

By Stephen Bates