The Norwegian Royal House has released a devastating photo of Princess Astrid, 94. King Haakon VIII’s aunt, dressed in black and seated in her wheelchair, visited her brother King Harald‘s coffin in complete solitude, where it now lies in the chapel of the Royal Palace in Oslo. Other images show her at the chapel window, looking out over the dozens of Norwegians gathered in the palace square below to pay their respects to the king many had come to think of as the nation’s grandfather.
History repeating itself, decades later
This marks the first time photographs of Princess Astrid have been made public since her brother’s death, and the image lands with extra weight because it echoes something that happened once before.
Astrid herself once stepped into the role of first lady when fate demanded it, a role now being carried by her grandniece, Princess Ingrid, who was standing in amid Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s ongoing health struggles.
Astrid was born on February 12, 1932, the second daughter of then-Crown Prince Olav and Princess Märtha of Sweden. The couple already had one daughter, Princess Ragnhild, Harald’s older sister. Astrid’s childhood was cut short early: on April 9, 1940, when she was just nine, Nazi Germany invaded Norway. The royal family and government fled north by train to avoid capture. That same night, Princess Märtha and her three children, Harald among them, crossed the border into Sweden, and by mid-August the family had traveled on to the United States at the invitation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
© Def Kongelige HoffExile in the United States
For the next five years, Princess Astrid lived with her mother and siblings at Pook’s Hill, just outside Washington, D.C. The family returned to Norway on June 7, 1945, greeted in Oslo by thousands of people.
“The reunion with my father is the most vivid memory I have from June 7, 1945. The weather was bad, so we couldn’t see land, but I remember well the small boats that welcomed us at the end of the Oslo fjord. It was our first encounter with Norway. All the boats were decorated with Norwegian flags. As we sailed on, more and more boats appeared. In the end, there were so many we could almost have gone ashore without getting wet,” Princess Astrid said.
© Getty ImagesStepping into the role of first lady
When Crown Princess Märtha died in 1954, Astrid became Norway’s first lady at 22, the same age Princess Ingrid is today.
She stood at her widowed father’s side in that role until then-Crown Princess Sonja succeeded her in 1968. Astrid of Norway remains one of the most important and longest-serving figures in the Norwegian monarchy, a pillar of continuity for the royal house across decades. Despite her lineage, the throne itself was never hers to inherit.
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