King Harald’s funeral

[JustAnotherWhinger]

Details about the funeral didn’t really seem to fit in any of the other threads so started this one

It’s looking like there’s going to be a very large turn out of royals at Harald’s funeral on Wednesday.

Prince William will be representing Charles III
Princess Anne will also attend - she is a godmother to Haakon.

The King & Queen of Sweden (he is one of haakon’s godparents)
Crown Princess Victoria & Prince Daniel (Harald was Victorias godparent)
Prince Carl-Philip & Princess Sofia
Princess Madeleine & Chris O’Neilk
Princess Cristina & Tord Magnusson

King Willem-Alexander & Queen Maxima
Princess Beatrix
Princess Amalia, The Princess of Orange

King Philippe & Queen Mathilde

King Frederik and Queen Mary
Queen Margarethe (also one of Haakon’s godparents)
Crown Prince Christian
Princess Benedikte

Crown Prince Fumihito & Crown Princess Kiko

Grand Duke Guillaume & Grand Duchess Stephanie
Grand Duke Henri

King Felipe & Queen Letizia
Queen Sofia

Prince Albert of Monaco

A big turn out from some of the royal houses, not unexpected, from the ones closest to the Norwegian families

A lot of people are raving about "Abide with me". I'd have liked it a LOT more if they hadn't had microphones. They didn't need them - looking at the size of the choir and the size of the church, they would have been fine without.

When Prince Phillip died the official condolences message from the Spanish Royal family was addressed to “Dear Aunt Lilibet” expressing their sorrow at the loss of “Uncle Philip”.

Queen Margarethe of Denmark’s condolences message on the death of Queen Elizabeth was not released by the Danish court, as they said it was a private message. She did release a statement to Charles, saying “Your mother was very important to me and my family, we shall miss her terribly." On paper, Queen Margarethe just made two state visits and one official visit to the UK in her 40+ year reign.

It seems quite clear that there are personal relationships behind the scenes that are kept private.

I am not saying there are no personal relationships. Far from it queen Margrethe was visibly moved when she went to see Queen Elizabeths coffin when you see her with King Charles it is clear there is a relationship thats friendly and personal. I was commenting on the fact that another poster stated the other royal houses greatly admored the British royal house and due to this they felt Catherine would have been spoken to with the same familiarity that was shown to the Scandinavian.

We have many examples of the Scandinavian houses being close. The show of the 3 Scandinavian kings walking behind the coffin shows this clearly.

The Swedish king Carl Gustav and queen Margrethe are 1st cousins. As a child I recall many photos showing the Scandinavian houses spending holidays together. This created a familiarity that won't be there with other houses they do not do this with.

I am not saying they do not have any personal relationships or any admiration for one another. More that I think it is natural those closer in your life has a closer connection.

Historically the Scandinavian countries have close ties and historically the British and the Spanish have close ties.

Philip in particular was more closely related to quite a few of the continental royals, particularly the Spaniards, Greeks and Danes. My impression is that this lessened with Charles' generation, although he was still quite close with the Greek royals and they went on holiday with the Spanish RF in the 80s. It seems to have fallen completely away with William. I think Prince George is the only heir not to have European royals featured amongst his godparents. The relationships just aren't there.

I think Prince George is the only heir not to have European royals featured amongst his godparents.

This is an interesting point. All of Prince George's godparents are British commoners (except for one peer, the Duke of Westminster). Contrast that with Princess Estelle of Sweden, who is about the same age as George and in the same dynastic position as heir apparent to the heir apparent. Three of her godparents are King of the Netherlands, King of Norway, and Queen of Denmark, and one of her names is Mary, after the Queen of Denmark.

By the way and on the subject of funerals, I wonder who the British RF will send to Princess Astrid's funeral. My guess is that Anne will make a return trip or perhaps it will be Edward.

I think who attends may depend on how the funeral is going to be. On the one hand Astrid was the younger sister of the recently late King, but she was also essentially the First Lady of court for many years after her mother died. She hosted events with her father for many years, in fact until Harald and Sonja married. She was specifically given a pension by the Norwegian government that took her position during that time into consideration.

I do wonder if one of the Kent’s may go (maybe the Earl of St Andrews or Gabriella Windsor) as Prince George, Duke of Kent (current dukes father) was her godfather.

I had the same thought, so I did a little bit of checking. Evidently, the microphones were deemed necessary for the TV broadcast/streaming audio. I assume that they could possibly have used smaller microphones clipped to their robes. Their performance was the highlight of the service for me and probably for a lot of Anglophones since it was in English. It was beautifully done.

I think you are right for many anglophones. This would have been the highlight. I liked it a lot and thought it beautiful. To me understanding the service and knowing the other hymns, the highlights were Crown Princess Victorias reading and the hymn "dejlig er jorden" while not part of the service as such I liked the procession walking in and the 3 Scandinavian kings walking behind thr coffin after.

Overall I thought it was beautifully done.

From Kongehuset.no :
Princess Astrid's funeral will take place on Wednesday, 23 September at 1:00 p.m. at Ris Church in Oslo.

The ceremony at Ris Church will be broadcast live and made available to Norwegian media.

Would think mainly family and friends would attend?