As comfortable in a duffel coat as in ceremonial dress, Norway’s new monarch, King Haakon VII, is the new face of a monarchy long praised for its modernity and modesty, but now beset by woe and scandal.
Haakon automatically succeeded to the throne Friday after his father, King Harald, passed away peacefully earlier in the day.
The 53-year-old informed the government in a meeting that he would keep the same motto as his father and grandfather: “All for Norway.”
He has increasingly seen his family’s affairs plastered across front pages: his wife’s lung transplant, revelations about her ties to convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a rape conviction against his stepson, and the escapades of his eccentric sister and her American self-proclaimed shaman husband.’
“Everything will be fine with him when the time comes. It is reassuring to know that,” the late King Harald said of him in a book.
