Figure 1.--King Harald and Queen Maud are seen here with their son Prince Olaf. The royal family had strong ties to the British royal family. Queen Maud was a daughter of English King Edward VII.
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Figure 1.--King Harald and Queen Maud are seen here with their son Prince Olaf. The royal family had strong ties to the British royal family. Queen Maud was a daughter of English King Edward VII. |
King Haakon was Prince Carl (Charles) of Denmark before he was elected King of Norway. He was the son of King Ferdinand VIII of Denmark. Prince Carl of Denmark, as he was called prior to being elected as the future king of Norway, married in 1896 to Maud Charlotte Mary Victoria, Princess of England. Carl and Maud had a single child, the future King Olav V of Norway. His name was Alexander Edward Christian Frederik. King Haakon VII (1872-1957) became King of Norway after the dissolution of the union with Sweden in 1905. According to the Constitution of 1814, he could only be succeeded by male heirs. (This provision has subsequently been amended). Kaiser Wilhelm II had pushed for one of his sons to be chosen king, but failed in this effort. From the German point of view the selection of a Danish prince was an adverse choice. The Danish royal family was closely ties to Britain and Russia. Prince Carl was unanimously chosen king of Norway by the Storting, the Norwegian parliament, and confirmed in a plebiscite by the Norwegian people on November 18, 1905. I am not entirely sure why he was chosen. A strong factor must have been because he was Scandinavian, but not Swedish. In 1906 he was crowned at Trondheim. As a king he took the motto "Alt for Norg" (Everything for Norway). King Haakon and his family arrived in Norway on November 25 the same year. King Haakon guided Norway into its transition to a costututional democracy. He also valiantly resisted the NAZIs during their World War II invasion. He became an extremely populr figure, firmly establishing the new monarchy in the Norwegian body politic.
King Haakon was Prince Carl (Charles) of Denmark before he was elected King of Norway. He was the son of King Ferdinand VIII of Denmark.
Princess Maud Charlotte Mary Victoria was known as "Toria". She like her sisters were considered undisciplined by the Queen. One observer, Lady Grendaline, while judging all three girkls as undisciplined, thought Princess Maud "very sharp, quick, merry, and amusing". The Queen thought that she was an exceptionally naughty little girl. [Battiscombe, p. 123] Maud was the livliest of the sisters and had a reputation for bravery and was nicknamed Harry, after a friend of her father who was famed for his courage.
Prince Carl of Denmark, as he was called prior to being elected as the future king of Norway, married in 1896 to Maud Charlotte Mary Victoria, Princess of England. As both Princess Maud and Prince Charles had Danish parents who were siblings, they were actually first cousins. Princess Maud became the Queen of Norway. She was very unhappy both because she did not particularly like Denmark and the Prince was often away from home with his naval career. Her mother gave her a small house at Appleton near Sandringham for a summer holliday house on her frequent visits to England. This was where Prince Olav was born.
Carl and Maud had a single child, the future King Olav V of Norway. His name was Alexander Edward Christian Frederik. He was born in England during 1903 before his father had become king of Norway. Queen Alexandra, a very devoted grandmother, wrote with a touch of family pride, "Maud and Charles were received with open arms, the success of Christiana is little Olaf (my little Hamlet) who took them all by storm". [Battiscombe, p. 256.]
Norway dissoved its ties with Sweeden and the Swedish crown (1905). This was one example of the rising tide of nationalism sweeping Europe. Noray and Sweden managed the separation without violence.
Kaiser Wilhelm II had pushed for one of his sons to be chosen king, but failed in this effort. From the German point of view the selection of a Danish prince was an adverse choice. The Danish royal family was closely ties to Britain and Russia. (Danish princesses had married into the royal families and were at the time Queen of England and Tsarina. Queen Alexandra in particular was ardently anti-German.) English King Edward VIII and his wife Alexandra were delighted with the result for both diplomatic and family reasons. With the Kaiser's Germany building a highseas fleet, a German prince on the Norwegian throne could have caused a war. In addition, Prince Carl was married to Edward and Alexandra's their daughter Maud.
Prince Carl was unanimously chosen king of Norway by the Storting, the Norwegian parliament, and confirmed in a plebiscite by the Norwegian people on November 18, 1905. I am not entirely sure why he was chosen. A strong factor must have been because he was Scandinavian, but not Swedish. In 1906 he was crowned at Trondheim. According to the Constitution of 1814, he could only be succeeded by male heirs. (This provision has subsequently been amended).
Haakon as king took the motto "Alt for Norg" (Everything for Norway). King Haakon and his family arrived in Norway on November 25, 1905. The official coronation took place in the Cathedral of Nidaros in Trondheim on June 22, 1906.
The royal couple were enthusiasdtically received by the Norwegian people. Norway became a constitutional kingdom, which King Haakon VII fully demonstrated for the first time in 1928, when he went against the advice from the outgoing prime minister and the president of the Storting and appointed the leader of the largest party, the Labor Party, to found a new government. This was an important step because Labor wa a socialist party not known for their support of monarchy. This was, however, not what he ws best known for and in the end made him widely popular among the Norwegian people. The test for which he is mostadmired came during World War II.
When war came, Norway maintained its neutrality, but its strategic position plyed a role in war. The kings of the three Scandinavian countries met in Malmö to make a joint declaration of absolute neutrality (December 1914). Norway like the other Scandinavian countriesc remained neutral in World War I. The Royal family had ties to the British royal family, but there was some public sympathy for the Germans. Norway being the most westerly Scandinavian countr with a North Sea coast was most exposed to the War. Norway was an important maritime nation and its shipping industry was heavily damaged.
Norwegian officials were intent on maintaining the country's neutrality as they had done in World War I. Norway had no professional army and only a poorly trained militia. Officals had seen the German newsreels of what had happened in Poland and were intent on maintaining the country's neutrality. In fact they persued this course even after the NAZI invasion was underway (April 1940). What really made King Haakon popular was his reply to the ultimatum given him and the government in 1940 by the invading German forces during World War II. King Haakon when Germany invaded Norway in 1940, led the armed resistance to the NAZIs for 2 months and then escaping by land and boat to England to continue resistance operations there. He conducted the affairs of the Norwegian government-in-exile until the defeat of the NAZIs in the spring of 1945, whereupon he returned to Norway to resume his royal duties. King Haakon VII returned to Norway after the war on June 7, 1945 and he was greeted by a whole nation for his his role in leading the resistace to the NAZIs during the war.
King Haakon died at age 85 on September 21, 1957 and was succeeded by his son King Olav V of Norway, whose reign would become even more popular amongst his people than his father's had been.
Battiscombe, Georgina. Queen Alexandra (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1969).
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