Scare Harald from Norway is back on sick leave
Health King Harald of Norway has undergone heart surgery
Harald of Norway Anniversary: 25 years as the first king to marry a commoner
At the end of last January
the alarms went off
in the Norwegian court:
King Harald, who
turns 85
this February 21 ,
presented symptoms of covid after being in contact with an infected person.
Fortunately, it was a simple cold and everything was left in
a great scare,
since
his health is very deteriorated:
in 2003 he was diagnosed with bladder cancer, in 2005 he underwent open heart surgery to implant a coronary valve that in 2020 had to be replace, and in 2021 he also had knee surgery, being forced to use crutches for several months.
Thirty years on the throne on January 17, 2021 Harald,
the first sovereign born in Norway
for more than 500 years.
His arrival in the world was an event for his parents, Olaf V and Marta of Sweden, since
he was the long-awaited man
after two girls, the princesses Ragnhild and Astrid, and meant the continuity of the
Glücksburg dynasty
.
In World War II
his father went into exile with him in London
while his mother and his sisters settled in the United States;
but after the war, he returned to his homeland, to study high school at the Cathedral College of Oslo and later enter the military academies.
In 1957, his father ascended the throne after the death of Haakon VII, Harald's grandfather, who was proclaimed
crown prince at the age of 20:
tall, blond, with blue eyes, a sailing Olympian and future king, he
was the "golden bachelor" of the European
courts
and object of desire of most marriageable princesses.
Also from their mothers, especially Queen Federica of Greece who
wanted him for her first-born Sofia:
"I know that there were many interests to marry us, meetings were provoked, cabals were made ... But the result of that forced pairing was null ", Queen Sofía came to recognize, to whom it seems that Harald did make him tilín.
The Norwegian king and his wife, Queen Sonia, the seamstress with whom he fell in love.GTRES
The first attempt was a trip by the Greek monarchs to Norway in 1958 with their eldest daughter: there Sofía and Harald
monopolized the covers after starring in a dance together,
but the thing did not bear fruit.
Another attempt was
the dance that was organized the following year
in the Danish castle of Fredensborg, and although Harald did not take the step either, it served to arouse the
chemistry between Ana Maria of Denmark and Constantine,
the future Greek monarch.
Queen Federica did not give up and in the summer of 1960 she invited the Norwegian heir to Corfu, the royal family's summer residence, where Sofia and Harald were
seen walking on the beach
and sailing together.
This time
the commitment was taken for granted,
but again he was frustrated, according to the Point de Vue
magazine ,
for economic reasons: King Paul asked the Hellenic parliament for 50 million francs as a
dowry to marry his daughter Sofia,
but he was only granted half, which made him change his mind to Harald's father.
Perhaps it was the excuse,
because reality had a woman's name:
Sonia
, whom Harald met in a camp when they were both 15 years old.
Her parents owned a men
's clothing store
in Oslo, where Sonia worked as a seamstress, although she later graduated in fashion design.
In 1959, while his wedding with Sofia of Greece
was rumored ,
Harald was already Sonia's boyfriend, so
he dared to confess to his father
that he was in love with another woman.
When Olav V found out who his girlfriend was, he exploded: "I will not allow
a seamstress to be queen of Norway."
He sent him to study at Oxford, where he studied economics, politics and history until 1962, when a dramatic event occurred: it seems that Sonia, who was sent to Switzerland by her parents,
had a suicide attempt there.
Harald rushed to her side and hung up his studies in England by going to
work for a shipping company.
In 1968, after a decade of relationship,
he threatened his father with giving up the throne
if he did not let him marry Sonia, for which Olav V consented.
On August 29, 1968, the marriage took place
in Oslo Cathedral
: for the first time in history, a future Norwegian monarch married a
commoner
.
"You know better than anyone what I feel and better than anyone you understand what this moment means", were the words he addressed to Sonia after saying "yes".
That day the Norwegian monarchs, who
after 53 years of marriage are still very close,
set a precedent for what
is normal for current royal generations:
marrying
for love.
There are even those who think that they have had too wide a sleeve with their children.
Marta Luisa,
born in 1971, married the controversial writer Ari Behn, father of her three daughters Maud, Leah Isadora and Emma, but
they divorced in 2016
and in 2019 he committed suicide. Now he plans to marry
Durek Verrett
, a Californian shaman.
Haakon, the future king, born in 1973, married in 2001 with Mette-Marit Tjessem, a
single mother with a shady past, t
while the father of her son and former boyfriend was in jail for drug trafficking.
Today, however, she is well accepted by the Norwegians and together with her children, Ingrid, the heiress, and Sverre Magnus form a model family.
Conforms to The Trust Project criteria
Know more
Norway
Queen Sofia
ReadingThe revolt of fauvists and surrealists takes the Guggenheim
United KingdomThe frustrated romance of King George VI of England with a married woman
The Reading Up, partisan!
Lights and shadows of resistance
See links of interest
Last News
How to do
Translator
Work calendar 2022
Real Betis - Majorca
Real Madrid - Barça, live
Athletic Club - Real Sociedad