Norway buries King Harald V as Haakon VIII walks the coffin to Oslo Cathedral

Norway buried King Harald V on Wednesday after a state funeral at Oslo Cathedral and a private interment in the Royal Mausoleum at Akershus Fortress. The king died at 06:35 CEST on 28 August at Rikshospitalet, aged 89. He had been admitted on 17 August. His son now reigns as Haakon VIII.

A 21-gun salute opened the procession from the Royal Palace at noon. The coffin, draped in the red royal standard, travelled on a military trailer. Haakon walked behind it with Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus. Queen Sonja, 89, and Queen Mette-Marit followed in a car. Cannons at Akershus marked the route. Tens of thousands stood along the streets. Some wore bunad. The cortege was silent except for the guns and the band.

The cathedral service began at 13:00. Olav Fykse Tveit, preses of the Bishops' Conference, led the Church of Norway liturgy with Sunniva Gylver, Bishop of Oslo. Two pieces written for the day by cathedral cantor Marcus André Berg were performed. A gospel choir sang. The royal anthem closed the public rite. Foreign guests on foot included Britain's Prince William, Japan's crown prince, the kings of Sweden, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands, the presidents of Germany and Finland, France's prime minister, and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The monarchs of Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco and Jordan were also in the city, along with Princess Charlene of Monaco and Queen Rania.

Harald had lain in state at the Slottskapellet from 31 August to 8 September. Palace gardeners spent the week sorting flowers, spent candles, drawings and poems left against the railings. More than 35,000 people had filed past by Tuesday afternoon. By the close of the week the count stood above 46,000. Queues ran to seven hours. Laura Maria Schütze, a Danish researcher who studies royal funerals, told Aftenposten that the length of the line said something about the society that formed it.

After the cathedral, a smaller procession moved to the rhythm of Chopin's Funeral March toward Akershus. About 3,000 military personnel in dress uniform lined the streets from the palace to the fortress. The family, joined by a short list of foreign guests and Norwegian officials, held a private service. The coffin was placed in a sarcophagus beside those of Harald's parents, Olav V and Crown Princess Märtha. A palace reception followed. Official mourning runs to 9 October.

Harald reigned for 35 years after succeeding Olav in 1991. He was the first Norwegian-born king in several centuries, a sailor and a sportsman who married Sonja Haraldsen, a commoner, in 1968 after a long public argument about the match. Support for the monarchy has stayed high through that argument and through later family trouble. Businessman Arve Stallvik, 56, standing in the crowd, put the mood in one sentence: everyone liked him, so it was a moment for the history.

The guest list was a map of Europe's remaining courts and of the war in Ukraine. Zelenskyy's presence in the procession placed a wartime president in a Lutheran nave among hereditary heads of state. William's presence kept the British line in the Nordic family network that runs through Denmark, Sweden and Norway. For a country of 5.6 million, the day was both a domestic rite and a rare gathering of people who do not often stand in the same aisle. Haakon now has to turn a popular father's funeral into an ordinary reign. The balcony appearance and the reception were the first public acts of that work.