Ingrid Alexandra signed her own oath. Queen Mette-Marit was taken to hospital after the ceremony. Queues are still forming outside the Palace.
King Haakon VIII has formally assumed his constitutional role as head of state. On Tuesday 1 September 2026 the new monarch swore his oath before the Storting, asking for God's help. It was the first institutional step of his reign and the central symbolic act of the succession. The same day his daughter, 22-year-old Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra, signed her own written oath — the first woman in the direct line of succession in Norwegian history.
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The ceremony came four days after the death of Harald V, who died at Rikshospitalet at 6:35 on the morning of Friday 28 August, aged 89. He had reigned for 35 years and was Europe's longest-serving monarch. Haakon became king automatically the moment his father died — the Norwegian succession requires no act of confirmation — but only the oath opens the way to exercising the duties of the office. The rhythm was identical in 1991, when Harald V swore his oath four days after the death of Olav V.
The oath of Article 9
The King travelled down Karl Johans gate from the Royal Palace to the Storting in the family's 1966 Lincoln Continental convertible — the same route, in the opposite direction, in the same car that carried him back from his wedding at Oslo Cathedral twenty-five years ago. The couple marked their silver anniversary on 25 August, three days before Harald V died; the drive fell exactly a week after it. Crowds lined the route: Norwegians had travelled in from across the country, alongside tourists who had walked into a period of national mourning by chance. Flags across the city still fly at half-mast.
Before the Storting's 169 members, the King recited the oath set out in Article 9 of the Constitution, promising to govern the Kingdom of Norway in accordance with its constitution and laws. The Norwegian parliament has been fully unicameral only since 2009; before that it divided into the Odelsting and the Lagting.
In a short address, the monarch expressed the hope that the good relations between the Storting and his father Harald, his grandfather Olav and his great-grandfather Haakon would be maintained and developed in the face of the challenges ahead, and confirmed that he takes the family motto "Alt for Norge" — All for Norway.
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The oath was received by the President of the Storting, Masud Gharahkhani, who had earlier read out the announcement of the King's death and the change on the throne, then delivered a memorial address for Harald V and an address to the new monarch. The ceremony closed with the royal anthem. Gharahkhani, who came to Norway as a child with a family seeking asylum, said beforehand that the Storting is the heart of Norwegian democracy and that the oath shows the monarchy operating within its frame.
Unlike London
Haakon VIII will not be crowned and will formally remain a king without a crown. On this point Norway parted ways with the United Kingdom more than a century ago: when Charles III received St Edward's Crown at Westminster Abbey, no equivalent rite had been possible in Oslo since 1908. That year the Storting struck from the Constitution the clause requiring coronation and anointing at Trondheim Cathedral, judging it undemocratic and obsolete. Denmark and Sweden had already gone the same way. Haakon VII and Queen Maud, crowned in 1906, remain the last crowned couple in Norway.
The new king may, however, follow his father and grandfather in receiving a church blessing on his reign at Trondheim Cathedral. Olav V knelt before the high altar of Nidaros Cathedral in June 1958; Harald V and Sonja repeated the rite in June 1991. No crown is placed on anyone's head. No date has been announced; both predecessors did it some months after acceding.
Oslo's mayor, Anne Lindboe, put the point neatly when she became the first to write in the book of condolence: Harald, she wrote, did not need a crown to be king.
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The Crown Princess signs
Ingrid Alexandra stood beside her father throughout. Back at the Palace she signed her own oath to the Constitution, delivered to the President of the Storting by the Lord Chamberlain, Olav Heian-Engdal. It clears her path to presiding over the Council of State and serving as regent in her father's absence.
Equal succession rights were introduced in Norway only in 1990 and apply to those born after that date. When Ingrid Alexandra eventually takes the throne, she will be the country's first female sovereign since Margaret I — a gap of more than six centuries.
Queen Sonja and 20-year-old Prince Sverre Magnus watched from the chamber floor.
The Queen in hospital
Queen Mette-Marit was absent, though her attendance had been confirmed the previous day. At midday the Palace announced that complications following her lung transplant meant she had to remain under medical observation throughout the day. Her pulmonologist, Are Holm, noted that complications after such an operation are not unusual and that the Queen has experienced them on several occasions since surgery.
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In the afternoon the royal couple were seen arriving at Rikshospitalet, with the King himself at the wheel. He left in the evening without his wife, then returned a second time later that night. The Palace did not disclose the reason for the visit, referring back to its earlier statement. Mette-Marit has pulmonary fibrosis, diagnosed in 2018; her transplant, described as successful, took place on 17 June. The day before the oath she had taken part in the transfer of her father-in-law's coffin — her first official duty as queen.
Queues at the Palace
The Palace Chapel opened to the public at 2pm on Tuesday. Norwegians began queuing from early morning; one of the first in line had taken the night train from Bergen to spend her only day off there. People are still arriving outside the Palace in whole families, children included, and the sea of flowers and candles on Slottsplassen has been growing since Friday.
The coffin is closed and draped in the royal standard, with the crown and the sword of state resting on it, guarded around the clock by cadets from the armed forces academies. Silence is observed and photography is prohibited; mourners file slowly past. The chapel stays open daily from 10am to 6pm until 8 September.
The funeral will be held on Wednesday 9 September, beginning at 1pm at Oslo Cathedral, and will bring the period of national mourning to a close. Flags will then return to full mast — the flag above the Palace will be raised at the moment the new king and his family step onto the balcony to greet the crowd.
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Haakon VIII, like his predecessor, will hold a largely ceremonial role. He inherits the throne at an awkward moment for the monarchy: in June a court of first instance sentenced his stepson Marius Borg Høiby to four years in prison, a verdict appealed by both sides and therefore not final.
Three footnotes
The royal anthem "Kongesangen", sung at the close of the ceremony, is set to the melody of "God Save the King". Its present words were written by Gustav Jensen for the coronation of Haakon VII in 1906 — the last coronation ever held in Norway.
Trondheim is the heart of this tradition because of the cult of St Olaf. In the Middle Ages a new king was acclaimed at the Øreting in Nidaros and swore his oath with his hand on the saint-king's reliquary; the law of succession of 1260 confirmed the site as the central one. The regalia — crown, sword of state, sceptre and orb — are still kept in Trondheim and only exceptionally travel to Oslo, as they have now.
With the change of reign, the Palace announced a newly narrow definition of the Royal House. It comprises four people: King Haakon, Queen Mette-Marit, Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Queen Sonja. Prince Sverre Magnus and Princess Märtha Louise belong to the royal family but not to the inner group that represents the state. Given the Queen's uncertain health, that may in practice place much of the representational burden on the 22-year-old Crown Princess.
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