Norway buries King Harald V after 13 days of mourning

Norway laid King Harald V to rest on Wednesday, 9 September, thirteen days after he died at 89 in Oslo University Hospital Rikshospitalet. He had been admitted on 17 August and died at 06:35 CEST on 28 August after a serious blood infection. His son reigns as Haakon VIII.

A foot procession left the Royal Palace at 12:00 local time for Oslo Cathedral, a little more than a kilometre down Karl Johans gate. The coffin rode on an artillery carriage. Most of the royal family and foreign guests walked. Queen Sonja, 89, and Queen Mette-Marit, who had a lung transplant in June, followed by car. The cathedral service began about 13:00 with a nationwide minute of silence. Preses of the Bishops' Conference Olav Fykse Tveit presided, assisted by Oslo bishop Sunniva Gylver. Cathedral precentor Marcus André Berg led prayers.

The guest list was a map of Europe's remaining courts and of the war in Ukraine. Britain's Prince William and Princess Anne attended. Spain sent King Felipe, Queen Letizia and Queen Sofia. Denmark sent King Frederik and Queen Mary. Sweden's royal family was present. Japan sent Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko. Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky were in the congregation. The French and Thai prime ministers were listed among the political guests. Large screens were set up around Oslo for the public.

After the service the procession continued to Akershus Fortress. Harald was to be placed in a sarcophagus in the Royal Mausoleum beside his parents. When Haakon leaves the crypt, the mourning period ends and flags that have flown at half-mast since 28 August are raised. Church bells were due to ring for an hour.

Norwegian police called the security plan the largest planned operation in the force's history. Schoolchildren were allowed to skip class to stand on the route. Hundreds of thousands of people had already left flowers, candles and flags outside the palace or filed past the coffin in the Palace Chapel, which was open to the public from 1 to 8 September.

Harald became king on 17 January 1991 after the death of his father, Olav V. He was the first Norwegian prince born in Norway in 567 years. He married Sonja Haraldsen, a commoner, in 1968 after a long fight with his father and the court. That marriage, and a 2016 speech on the 25th anniversary of his reign in which he described Norway as a country of immigrants, Sami, and many faiths, are the parts of the record Norwegians have been quoting this week.

The funeral arrives in a rough season for the family. Mette-Marit's health, and other strains that Norwegian papers have discussed through the mourning period, sat in the background as Haakon took the oath. The ceremony itself was built to look steady: a short walk, a Lutheran liturgy, a fortress crypt, flags up again before dark.

Foreign attendance had a second meaning. Zelensky in Oslo on a midweek morning, a day after Russian missiles and drones killed five people in Kyiv, put the war inside a Nordic state funeral. William standing in for Charles put the British crown in the same nave. Those facts will outlast the flowers on the palace square.

Harald's political power was ceremonial. His practical work was showing up: ski jumps, factory floors, the annual crossing of the country. The state funeral is the last of those appearances. The next official image belongs to Haakon VIII, walking out of Akershus with the flags rising behind him.