Trond Norén Isaksen

New books: To dress a queen

2012-03-01T20:32:00.000+01:00

What Queen Margrethe II of Denmark wears is a something of a paradox. On the one hand she is known to repeat the same outfit with short intervals (a blue hat and coat made for her 70th birthday were for instance used for a royal christening and a royal wedding only two weeks apart, while a green dress was worn for two of her jubilee parties last month), which may give the impression that she does not give much thought to what she wears. On the other hand she is also known to turn up at major events in dresses which could almost be described as costumes, which gives the impression that she is very conscious of what she wears and how it is all part of the magnificent performance that is the monarchy of Margrethe II.
The answers to such riddles are to be found in the new book Dronningens kjoler, published by Gyldendal in January, which has been put together for Queen Margrethe’s fortieth jubilee as monarch by Katia Johansen, since 1980 curator of textiles at the Royal Collections, in close cooperation with the Queen herself. Johansen explains that she, in her work, has often longed for contemporary sources to how the Danish monarchs dressed and this book is her way of making sure that her successors in a distant future will not have to guess why Margrethe II dressed as she did. The main audience of the book is thus not present readers, but the future.
In an introductory interview the Queen talks about such topics as her “philosophy of dressing”, what clothes mean to her and her own involvement in the design of her dresses. The crucial question is perhaps if the way she dresses is part of some sort of personal and professional scenography. To this Queen Margrethe answers, somewhat ungrammatically: “It is well possible that I see myself at some particularly great events, that it would look good with such a dress. I probably do that more as I have eventually become older and more shameless!”
Most of the book is chronologically divided into three parts – Princess, Heiress to the Throne and Queen – followed by gala dresses and dressing up and a short epilogue on the clothes’ preservation. Each of the chronological chapters begin with a summary of major fashion trends of the various decades, and one cannot help notice that this becomes less and less relevant as the years progress.
While the Margrethe of the sixties and seventies wore clothes which fit well in with the fashion of the day, Queen Margrethe of today is far from trendy. However, this does far from mean that Queen Margrethe now does not dress the part. Rather one becomes aware of how the Queen’s style has become ever more individualistic with the passing of time.
The book is lavishly illustrated and throughout the Queen herself comments on the clothes – and sometimes of other things, such as the poor entertainment and food offered by the President of Greece during his recent state visit to Denmark – and Johansen fills in what the curator has to add. All sorts of clothes are included, from simple summer dresses to grand dresses for major state events.
I suspect that I am not alone in finding the latter more interesting than the former, as it is when dressed up to the nines that the Queen and the amateur scenographer merge into a higher unit. The prime example of this is perhaps the dress first worn by Queen Margrethe for the 400th anniversary of Rosenborg Palace in 2006, which was in itself almost a renaissance costume (the fabric was originally a sari found among Queen Ingrid’s belongings after her death, the Queen explains).
The book is also an introduction to the designers who have made the Queen’s dresses, among whom the late Jørgen Bender stands out (Queen Margrethe herself is sometimes involved in the design). It is only rarely that the Queen does not remember an outfit; mostly she will explain how and why it came about and relate some memories attached to it. Sometimes the fate of the dress is also recorded – some end up in the Royal Collections, some are still in use, some are dramatically altered, some are in storage, some have been given away and some have been thrown away when worn out. Others may be expected to reappear, such as the rather dramatic dress and coat worn for Prince Joachim’s first wedding and for Thomas Kluge’s imposing portrait, which the Queen hints will become her “uniform” for the New Year receptions from next year on.
What I would perhaps have wanted something more about is accessories and the Queen’s thoughts about this. It is for instance quite obvious that Queen Margrethe, like her mother, is very conscious about her choice of jewellery. Of course it was no coincidence that she on 15 January this year wore a small horseshoe-shaped ruby brooch; indeed she wore that brooch when she was proclaimed Queen on 15 January 1972 and had chosen it then as it was given to her by her father on 5 June 1953, the day she became Heiress to the Throne.
The author occasionally says something about the jewels (those interested in the history of royal jewels will also be able to find some interesting pieces of information, such as a very interesting provenance which family tradition ascribes to her turquoise tiara), but there is little about the “philosophy” of their wearing.
One must also regret that the book tends to make a mess of names and dates. The name of the Crown Prince of Norway is spelt in three different ways, mostly incorrect; the name of the current King of Sweden is sometimes spelt Carl Gustaf, sometimes Carl Gustav, while his mother is erroneously called “Sibylle” and so on, while the dates and years for several events mentioned are unfortunately wrong, which is regrettable considering the author’s express wish that this book should be a historical record for posterity.
It seems a safe guess to say that, when long gone, Margrethe II will stand out as one of the most interesting characters in the long line of Danish monarchs. The Royal Collections curators of the 25th century will surely be immensely grateful to their predecessor Katia Johansen for having sat down with Queen Margrethe to record her words on how she dressed and why. Furthermore, Dronningens kjoler will, together with Thyge Christian Fønss’s recent book on the portraits of the Queen, serve as indispensible contemporary guides to the image of Margrethe II and its perception.

On this date: Prince Bertil’s centenary

2012-02-28T07:49:00.002+01:00

One hundred years ago today, one of Sweden’s best-loved royals, Prince Bertil, was born. The third son and fourth child of the future King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden and his first wife, British-born Crown Princess Margareta, Prince Bertil first saw the light of day at the Royal Palace in Stockholm.
Like Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel a century later, the crown princely couple chose a name without royal traditions, but at least a Swedish one: Bertil, to which one added the names of Oscar II’s four sons: Gustaf Oscar Carl Eugen.
His elder siblings were Prince Gustaf Adolf, Prince Sigvard and Princess Ingrid. A brother, Prince Carl Johan, was born in 1916 and a sixth child was expected in 1920, but tragically Crown Princess Margareta died in the eighth month of her pregnancy. Among his siblings, Bertil was always closest to Ingrid, who would later become Queen of Denmark.
Like his siblings, Prince Bertil received his first schooling at the Royal Palace, but his parents were quite progressive and wanted their children to attend school with other children. At the age of 12, Bertil, like his elder brothers before him, therefore enrolled at the Beskow School in Stockholm.
Prince Bertil suffered from dyslexia and was no great intellectual, but his main interests were sports and cars, areas in which he excelled. Having left school he joined the navy and also began to undertake royal duties.
In 1934 he asked his grandfather’s permission to marry a young lady by name of Margareta Brambeck. Marrying a commoner, with or without the King’s consent, would, according to the Act of Succession of 1810, mean that he automatically forfeited his place in the line of succession, like his brother Sigvard did the same year and their cousin Lennart had done two years earlier. The royal house could hardly afford to lose yet another prince and Bertil was consequently despatched to Paris as assistant naval attaché in order to forget Miss Brambeck.
He did, but while posted as neutral Sweden’s assistant naval attaché in London during World War II, Bertil met the love of his life in the shape of Lilian Craig, a married nightclub hostess from Wales. And this time there was no question of forgetting her, a resolve which would make theirs one of the great love stories of the twentieth century.
By the time Bertil’s youngest brother, Carl Johan, married a commoner in February 1946, Prince Gustaf Adolf and Prince Bertil were the only royal princes with succession right left, except for some elderly uncles who either had no sons with succession rights or no sons at all. But the birth of a son, Carl Gustaf, to Prince Gustaf Adolf in April 1946 seemed to set Bertil free to marry Lilian as soon as she had obtained her divorce.
But then, in January 1947, Prince Gustaf Adolf was killed in a plane crash in Copenhagen. His nine-month son was thus next in succession after his 64-year-old grandfather and his ancient great-grandfather. Thus it seemed more than likely that Carl Gustaf would succeed to the throne before reaching his majority, in which case an adult prince would have to stand in as regent.
Bertil was the last prince left to fulfil this role, but would also become ineligible if he married Lilian. Loyally he chose to put duty ahead of love and asked Lilian to wait for him, which she did for three decades. The Prince used his excellent relationship with the media to form a gentlemen’s agreement: if the press did not write about his relationship with Lilian, they would get the whole story the day it became possible.
Prince Bertil moved out of the Royal Palace and bought a villa at Djurgården in Stockholm, where Lilian lived with him in great secrecy. They were thus able to be together, but could not go out together and missed the chance to have children together. Eventually, as the years passed, Lilian was accepted by the royal family, but there could be no talk of marriage until Carl Gustaf’s coming of age, which was eventually postponed to his 25th birthday in 1971.
Meanwhile Prince Bertil continued to carry out his royal duties, which were many, given that he was the only adult prince. He attended all Olympic Games until 1988, represented his country from Denmark to Iran and often described himself as a travelling tradesman for Sweden, Inc. The genial, down-to-earth prince readily made friends and admirers, enjoyed great popularity and was rightly considered a huge asset for the royal family.
Eventually King Gustaf VI Adolf was to live until the age of almost 91, dying in September 1973, two years after Crown Prince Carl Gustaf had attained his majority at 25. Thus a regency would not be necessary, but Bertil was still needed at his nephew’s side and the old King asked his son not to marry Lilian until Carl Gustaf had himself married.
This happened in June 1976, when King Carl XVI Gustaf married Silvia Sommerlath, whom he had met during the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Prince Bertil had been introduced to her the very same day as his nephew met her, and when asked by Carl Gustaf what he thought he should do, Bertil answered: “Marry her!” “And that”, he said later, “was the best advice I have ever given anyone”.
With King Carl Gustaf safely married, the way was at last free for Bertil and Lilian to tie the knot. They were married in the chapel at Drottningholm Palace on 7 December 1976. He was 64, she was 61, and they had waited for 33 years.
King Carl Gustaf honoured his uncle’s loyalty and sacrifice by allowing him to keep all his royal titles and privileges. Mrs Lilian Craig, the former nightclub hostess who had grown up in great poverty in Wales, thus became Princess Lilian of Sweden and was to prove herself a born natural in the royal role. Many royal duties fell to Prince Bertil, who was now at last able to fulfill them with Lilian at his side. When the King travelled abroad Prince Bertil acted as guardian of the realm.
But as he entered his eighties his health began to fail. He had problems with his heart and lungs, which forced him to cut down on his engagements. A hip fracture in 1994 reduced him further. One of his last public appearances was the coming of age of Crown Princess Victoria in July 1995. This meant that for the first time for decades someone other than Prince Bertil could act as guardian of the realm.
He did so for the last time in December 1996. A month later, in the early evening of 5 January 1997, Prince Bertil died in his home Villa Solbacken in Stockholm, holding the hand of his beloved Lilian and sincerely mourned by the Swedish people.
A letter to the editor of the newspaper Expressen four days later told an anecdote which said much about why Prince Bertil was so popular. The writer recalled a summer evening in 1952 when he was an eighteen-year-old sailor and stood outside a Stockholm cinema with four friends from the navy, counting their money and concluding that they did not have enough to pay for the tickets.
A sports-car stopped and out came a man they instantly recognised. They saluted and he said, “Hi guys, are you going to see the film too?” They explained that they did not have enough money. “Take what you have and come with me to the counter”, he said.
“I cannot remember how much it was, but he paid the difference”, the letter concluded. “For that gesture I flew my flag at half mast on 6 January. In honour of Prince Bertil”.

First photos of Princess Estelle

2012-02-27T19:39:00.001+01:00

The Swedish royal court has released three photos of Princess Estelle (courtesy of kungahuset.se). The court says they were taken at Haga Palace when she was four days old, which must mean they were taken earlier today.
It was earlier said that King Carl Gustaf would take the first official photos, but no information has been given about who has actually made these photos. However, the newspaper Expressen claims to know that Prince Daniel and Prince Carl Philip are the photographers.
Countess Alice Trolle-Wachtmeister, the Mistress of the Robes, who was an official birth witness in 1977 as well as in 2012, has commented that Princess Estelle looks exactly like her mother.

People from the past: Countess Estelle Bernadotte af Wisborg (1904-1984)

2012-02-26T01:11:00.003+01:00

The unexpected choice of the name Estelle for the newborn daughter of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden has naturally sparked a lot of interest in the Princess’s only relative of that name (except for a young granddaughter of Princess Désirée): the daughter of an American millionaire, who married into a non-royal junior branch of the House of Bernadotte.
Born on 26 September 1904 in Pleasantville, New York, Estelle Romaine Manville was the daughter of American industrialist Edward Manville, a self-made man who had made a fortune of an estimated 20 million dollars through asbestos, and his wife Estelle Romaine.
At the time of her marriage there were reports that the Manvilles belonged to so-called Four Hundred, i.e. the most prestigious upper-class families of New York and that they descended from Goeffrey de Magnaville, who was ennobled as Earl of Essex after accompanying Duke William of Normandy on his conquest of England in 1066. However, this was all based on a misunderstanding. In fact Estelle’s family had nothing to do with these people and were entirely self-made.
While in her early twenties Estelle Manville was frequently seen in American and European society. During a holiday on the French Riviera in the summer of 1928 she attended a dinner in honour of King Gustaf V of Sweden, where she was seated next to his nephew, Count Folke Bernadotte af Wisborg, a 33-year-old cavalry officer.
Folke Bernadotte was the youngest son of Prince Oscar Bernadotte and thus a grandson of King Oscar II of Sweden and of Norway. Prince Oscar had lost his royal statues when marrying a commoner in 1888 and Folke was therefore not himself a member of the royal family, yet he was to become one of the most famous of all the Bernadottes.
“At the first meeting with my future husband I was not really at all gripped by his personality”, Estelle recalled. “I wondered to myself whether he wasn’t actually quite an ordinary and somewhat self-preoccupied gentleman. One day, however, I found him laughing, in the special and completely irresistible way that was his own, and in that instant I understood for the first time something of his inner essence. Similarly his face exploded in a bright and lusty laugh and I suddenly realized that he had extraordinary blue eyes. [...] I thought for a moment I could see the spirit in his soul and in the same instant I realized that he was a good man”.
After an acquaintance of only two weeks, Folke Bernadotte proposed to Estelle Manville and was accepted. “You’ve got to be a fast worker to get the best girl in the United States”, said Folke Bernadotte to someone who remarked on the speed with which it had all happened.
Estelle’s parents hosted a grand wedding for 1,450 guests at their estate Hi-Esmaro in Pleasantville on 1 December 1928. The actual ceremony took place in the local Episcopal Church of St John in Pleasantville and the bride wore Queen Sophia’s bridal veil and the small so-called Bernadotte wedding crown.
The Princes Gustaf Adolf and Sigvard had come over from Sweden, the former to act as best man, and the princes and the bridal couple were entertained to lunch in the White House by President Calvin Coolidge. The American press spun the wedding as the first time a member of a European royal family married in the USA, but this was obviously nonsense as Folke Bernadotte was not a member of a royal family. Other epitaphs included “the greatest occurrence in American Society since the wedding of Miss Consuelo Vanderbilt with the Duke of Marlborough” and the whole affair was estimated to have cost some $ 1,750,000. According to Estelle herself, the price was “only” $ 250,000.
Estelle’s introduction to wider royal circles took place when she accompanied her husband to his cousin Princess Märtha’s wedding to Crown Prince Olav of Norway in Oslo in March 1929. The couple spent most of the first years of their marriage in the USA and France, but in 1931 they settled in Stockholm. At first they lived in his parents’ apartment at 89 Östermalm Street, but in 1931 Folke was given a fifteen-year lease of a 20-room villa at Djurgården, known as Dragongården (now part of the Chinese embassy complex).
In 1933 Folke Bernadotte retired from the army with the rank of major and became head of the household of Prince Gustaf Adolf, a close friend of his and father to the present King of Sweden. Estelle also became a close friend of Gustaf Adolf’s wife, Princess Sibylla, and helped introduce her to life in Sweden after her wedding in 1932. In 1946 Folke Bernadotte was among the sponsors at the christening of the future King Carl XVI Gustaf, whose third name is Folke.
Count Folke and Countess Estelle Bernadotte had four sons: Gustaf in 1930, Folke (“Ockie”) in 1931, Frederick in 1934 and Bertil in 1935. Frederick died at the age of seven months, while Gustaf died three days after his sixth birthday. The deaths of two of her sons were obviously harsh blows for Estelle Bernadotte, who spent some time in a rest home.
During World War II Folke Bernadotte served as Vice President of the Swedish Red Cross, whose President was his uncle Prince Carl. As Prince Carl was by then in his eighties and had been President for four decades, most of the daily work fell on Folke Bernadotte, who thus got the chance to play a role on the world stage as the war neared its end.
In the spring of 1945 he conducted secret negotiations with Heinrich Himmler about a possible German capitulation, which came to nothing. However, Folke Bernadotte managed to get permission to transport Norwegian and Danish prisoners from the concentration camps.
The operation, commonly known as “the White Busses” after the colouring of the Red Cross vehicles, rescued 21,700 prisoners from the concentration camps and made Folke Bernadotte a hero. His stature in Sweden was probably increased by the fact that many were not so proud of much of what neutral Sweden had done during the war and the few Swedish heroes were therefore celebrated even more.
In 1948 the UN sent Folke Bernadotte to Palestine to act as a mediator in the conflict caused by the establishment of the state of Israel. On 15 September 1948 he was assassinated in Jerusalem by the terrorist groups Irgun and Lehy, among whose leaders were the future Israeli prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir.
Estelle was thus left a widow at the age of only 44, but remained dedicated to her husband’s causes for the rest of her life. She continued his Red Cross work, served as President of the Swedish Girl Guides and Scout Association from 1949 to 1957 and was also involved with UNICEF and the international conservation movement.
She also continued to appear on the royal scene. For instance she was usually present for the annual State Opening of Parliament in the Royal Palace’s Hall of State in January, wearing court dress and a magnificent parure of pink tourmalines (some say topazes, others white sapphires) which had apparently been worn by Queen Sophia for her Norwegian coronation in 1873. (The parure consisted of tiara, necklace and brooch and Estelle Bernadotte bought a ring, a bracelet and a pair of earrings to go with it. It was inherited by her eldest son, but has now been sold).
On 3 March 1973, 68-year-old Estelle Bernadotte married Carl-Eric Ekstrand, who had been Master of the Household to the late Princess Sibylla and also in charge of administering Estelle’s own fortune. The couple settled in Saint-Paul-de Vence near Nice.
At the age of 79, Estelle Ekstrand died in Uppsala on 28 May 1984 from a staphylococcal infection following hip surgery which developed into blood poisoning. Her ashes were interred at the Northern Cemetery in Solna outside Stockholm, where her name is again given as “Estelle Bernadotte af Wisborg” on her plaque at Prince Oscar Bernadotte’s Family Grave.
Her widower died in 1988, while her sons Folke and Bertil are still alive. While the former is rarely seen in royal circles, the latter remains a good friend of King Carl Gustaf, who even spent his wedding night at Bertil Bernadotte’s summer house at Ingarö in the Stockholm archipelago.
Count Bertil Bernadotte was also present in the Palace Church on Friday for the service of thanksgiving following the birth of the princess given the same name as his mother. No official explanation has been given for why the Crown Princess and her husband chose the name Estelle, which is not Swedish and which does not have any previous royal history. Indeed the choice of name ignores the history, tradition and continuity which the names of (future) monarchs are normally supposed to reflect.
The royal court has not confirmed that the Princess is actually named for Estelle Bernadotte; the information department has replied to press inquiries that they have no information about the reasons for the choice of the name Estelle. There are media reports that Crown Princess Victoria has always liked the name, while Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg, who was earlier the Crown Princess’s Court Marshal, has suggested that the Crown Princess’s interest in peace work may have influenced her choice of the name Estelle for the future Queen of Sweden. The Mistress of the Robes, Countess Alice Trolle-Wachtmeister, said to Aftonbladet yesterday that “the King was very close to Estelle’s husband Folke”, but this is obviously impossible, given that Folke Bernadotte died when King Carl Gustaf was two years old.
As Estelle Ekstrand lived in France for the last years of her life and Crown Princess Victoria was not yet seven years old when she died, the Crown Princess can hardly have known her distant relative very well. However, according to what Estelle Bernadotte’s son Folke told Aftonbladet yesterday, Crown Princess Victoria has met his mother.

Dutch prince suffers extensive brain damage

2012-02-25T20:02:00.001+01:00

In the shadow of the announcement of the unexpected choice of names for the new-born Swedish heiress yesterday, the doctors treating Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau, the second son of the Queen of the Netherlands, were finally able to say something more certain about his condition following his skiing accident in Lech, Austria a week ago. Unfortunately it seems the outlook is very bleak.
According to the doctors, the Prince had been buried in the avalanche for some 25 minutes before being taken by rescue helicopter to the Innsbruck University Hospital, where he received reanimation treatment before being taken to the intensive care trauma unit.
As a result of having been deprived of oxygen for a long time, the Prince suffered a 50 minutes long cardiac arrest and had to be constantly reanimated. “Fifty minutes is a very long time", the doctors say. “One could say, too long. We hoped that the patient's mild hypothermic state had sufficiently protected the brain against excessive damage. Unfortunately, our hope was in vain”.
The first MRI-scan, which was undertaken on Thursday when this was finally deemed safe enough, and neurological tests later in the day revealed that Prince Friso has suffered extensive brain damage.
“At present it is not certain whether he will ever regain consciousness. In any event, rehabilitation will take months, if not years. Prince Friso's family will now look for an appropriate rehabilitation facility", the statement ends.

Service of thanksgiving for Swedish heiress

2012-02-24T19:45:00.000+01:00

After the State Council in which the names and titles of the new-born Swedish princess were announced, a service of thanksgivings was held in the Palace Church at noon today.
Among the guests were the King and Queen, Prince Daniel, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Christina’s husband Tord Magnuson, Countess Marianne Bernadotte af Wisborg (the widow of the late former Prince Sigvard), the almost 96-year-old Dagmar von Arbin (a granddaughter of Prince Oscar Bernadotte), Prince Daniel’s parents, Olle and Ewa Westling, his sister Anna Westling Söderström and her new husband Mikael Söderström, Count Bertil Bernadotte af Wisborg (I think), who is a grandson of Prince Oscar Bernadotte and whose mother was named Estelle, numerous official representatives and courtiers.
Afterwards a family photo, shot in the Princess Sibylla Apartment, was released by the royal court through their website kungahuset.se.

Princess Estelle Silvia Ewa Mary, Duchess of Ostrogothia

2012-02-24T11:47:00.000+01:00

In a State Council half an hour ago the King of Sweden announced that the name of the newborn princess will be Estelle Silvia Ewa Mary and that she will be Duchess of Ostrogothia.
While speculations had centred on the names of earlier Swedish queens, no-one had foreseen that the choice would be a non-royal French or American name. The only royal connection of the name Estelle is the American Estelle Manville (1904-1984), who in 1928 married Count Folke Bernadotte af Wisborg, the youngest son of Prince Oscar Bernadotte and thus grandson of King Oscar II of Sweden and of Norway.
Silvia is obviously after her maternal grandmother the Queen of Sweden and Ewa for her paternal grandmother Ewa Westling, while Mary may perhaps indicate that the Crown Princess of Denmark will be among her godparents.
The dukedom of Ostrogothia (Östergötland in Sweden) has been used three times since dukedoms were (re)introduced by Gustaf III in 1772. That year he gave it to his youngest brother, Prince Fredrik Adolf, and it was subsequently given to the future King Oscar II when he was born in 1829. The last holder was Prince Carl Jr, the only son of Prince Carl (and thus grandson of Oscar II), who received the dukedom of Ostrogothia when he was born in 1911, but lost it when he married a commoner in 1937. It is worth noting that the new Duchess of Ostrogothia is the daughter of the Duchess of Westrogothia (Crown Princess Victoria) just like Prince Carl Jr was the son of the previous Duke of Westrogothia.

Name of royal baby to be announced before noon tomorrow

2012-02-23T20:35:00.003+01:00

At noon today the birth of an heiress to Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden was marked with a 42 gun salute across the country. About the same time the royal couple and their newborn daughter left the Caroline University Hospital for the short drive home to Haga Palace. But the official ceremonial is far from over with that.
Tomorrow at 11.15 a.m. the King will hold a council at the Royal Palace, where he will officially inform the cabinet of the birth of an heiress as well as reveal her name and what dukedom he has chosen to bestow on his granddaughter.
Around 11.35 a.m. the Marshal of the Realm (Lord Chamberlain), Svante Lindqvist, will inform journalists about the name and titles in the Carl XV Hall. Here the Speaker of Parliament, Per Westerberg, the Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, and the Mistress of the Robes, Countess Alice Trolle-Wachtmeister, who, along with the Marshal of the Realm are the official birth witnesses will also be present (the practice whereby the birth witnesses were actually present in the next room to where the birth took place ceased in the early twentieth century and today the witnesses are only required to see the baby after its birth).
At noon a service of thanksgivings will be held in the Palace Church, attended by members of the royal family (obviously not the Crown Princess and her daughter), official representatives and courtiers.

A future Queen of Sweden born

2012-02-23T07:03:00.002+01:00

Right now Prince Daniel of Sweden is holding a press conference at Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset (the Caroline University Hospital) in Solna, announcing that Crown Princess Victoria gave birth to a princess at 4.26 a.m.
The Princess is 51 centimetres long and weighs 3 280 grams.
Around 6 p.m. yesterday an ambulance and two black cars were seen leaving Haga Palace, but the royal court says the Crown Princess was only admitted at 12.50 a.m.
The names and the dukedom given to the infant princess will be announced by King Carl Gustaf in a state council at the Royal Palace tomorrow.
As the succession to the Swedish throne is gender-neutral since 1980, the newborn princess will one day become Queen Regnant (given that the monarchy survives, of course). This means that in her generation, there will be female monarchs in Norway, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and probably Spain and a male monarch only in Denmark unless Prince William of Britain's firstborn is a boy.

On this date: The King’s 75th birthday

2012-02-21T07:50:00.002+01:00

Today is the 75th birthday of the King, who was born at the crown princely residence Skaugum in Asker at 12.45 p.m. on Sunday 21 February 1937.
As always on the King’s birthday there will be flags flown and a gun salute at noon, but unlike his 70th birthday there will be no grand celebrations; the King will rather celebrate the birthday privately abroad.
The Palace has, rather oddly, insisted to journalists that there is no tradition for celebrating 75th birthdays in grand style, but this is clearly wrong as there were major celebrations for the 75th birthdays of Olav V in 1978, Haakon VII in 1947 and Oscar II in 1904. It seems the real reason is quite simply that King prefers to celebrate his birthday more privately.
The royal anniversaries are also marked by the six exhibitions based on the Royal Collection which is the government’s birthday present, the first of which was presented to the King and Queen last Wednesday.

Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall to tour Scandinavian countries

2012-02-20T15:58:00.001+01:00

It was announced today that the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will tour the Scandinavian countries next month to mark the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. On the invitation of the King and Queen, the British heir and his wife will be in Norway from 20 to 22 March, visiting Oslo and Bergen.
In Oslo they will lay a wreath at the National Monument at Akershus Fortress, attend a dinner at the Royal Palace and meet with the Prime Minister and representantives of youth organisations, including youngsters who survived the terrorist attack at Utøya last summer. In Bergen the British royals will attend a concert in the Håkon Hall and visit the British naval ship HMS “Liverpool”.
From Norway Prince Charles and Camilla will continue to Sweden, which they will visit from 22 to 24 March. King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia will host a lunch at the Palace and the guests will, as in Norway, meet young people. The Prince and the Duchess will visit the Vasa Museum and, according to Clarence House, “focus on military and commercial cooperation, the international work of a world renowned environmental research centre and education”.
On 24 March the British royals will move on to Denmark, where there will again be an official dinner hosted by Queen Margrethe and Prince Consort Henrik. Here the royal couple will attend a service at the Anglican church, meet Afghanistan veterans, visit a power station, attend a theatre workshop at Kronborg Castle in Elsinore and then move on to Jutland in order to visit a university and an organic farms.
As well as taking in some of the couple’s special interests it seems the visits will involve a ceremonial almost on par with state visits.
Prince Charles was last in Norway in May 2010. He has also attended numerous family events in Norway through the years, including the 75th birthday of King Olav in 1978, his funeral in 1991, the sixtieth birthdays of the King and Queen in 1997 and the wedding of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess in 2001. However, the Duchess of Cornwall has not visited Norway after marrying the British heir in 2005. The visit to Sweden will be the first by Prince Charles since 1969, while he was last in Denmark in December 2009.

What to see: Treasures from the Royal Collection, Oslo

2012-02-19T14:00:00.001+01:00

As previously mentioned the government’s present to the King and Queen for their 75th birthdays is six exhibitions of treasures from the Royal Collection to be shown in various locations throughout the country. The first of these was presented to the King and Queen at an event at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Oslo last Wednesday and will be on show there until 26 August.
This first exhibition is titled “Royal Journeys 1905-2005” and shows items from the Royal Collection related to various forms of journeys undertaken by the members of the present dynasty since its establishment in 1905, which at the same times reflects the wide range of the Royal Collection.
The exhibition is divided into four rooms, of which the museum’s great hall is dedicated to coronations and consecrations and the journeys across the country undertaken in connection with these ceremonies. The pièce de résistance of this room is the magnificent coronation coach made for the coronation of King Haakon VII and Queen Maud in 1906 and not seen in public since 1940. In this room one will also find Queen Maud’s spectacular coronation gown together with the dresses worn by Princess Astrid and Queen Sonja for the consecrations of 1958 and 1991, as well as the uniforms worn by King Haakon, King Olav and King Harald for the ceremonies in 1906, 1958 and 1991.
One room is dedicated to King Haakon and Queen Maud, and includes a mountain of luggage symbolising the fifty suitcases with which Queen Maud travelled. Here are also the young Princess Maud’s sketchbook and photographs made during her first visit to her future kingdom in 1893, items related to the royal election of 1905 and the new King and Queen’s departure from Denmark and arrival in Norway along with uniforms, dresses, orders and gifts from their state visit, all illustrated throughout with photos and video footage.
The next room focuses on King Olav and Crown Princess Märtha, but also includes World War II. Particularly dominant in this room are the sumptuous gifts King Olav received on state visits to exotic countries such as Iran and Thailand. The final room deals with the current King and Queen and the journeys they have undertaken within and without Norway since their accession 21 years ago.
The photos above show some of the many diverse items included in this exhibition. The first photo shows the coronation coach, followed by Queen Maud’s coronation gown and Ida Lorentzen’s painting of the consecration of King Harald and Queen Sonja.
The fourth picture shows the Grand Cross of the Russian Order of St Catherine, set with diamonds, which was given to the then Princess Maud of Britain on the occasion of her cousin Grand Duchess Xenia of Russia’s wedding in 1894. The fifth photo is of a gold casket given to King Haakon and Queen Maud by the Corporation of the City of London during their state visit to Britain in 1906.
The sixth photo shows an electrical Cadillac which Crown Prince Olav was given by his doting grandmother, Queen Alexandra of Britain. Next is Per Palle Storm’s bust of Crown Princess Märtha, followed by her miniature medals and family orders.
The ninth picture shows the blanket and pillow used by King Haakon during the campaign of 1940. Then comes presents given to King Olav during a Thai state visit, a detail of the royal table set for the return dinner during the official visit to Denmark in 2005 and finally a bust given to the King and Queen by Nelson Mandela on his last visit to Norway that same year.

Dutch prince in critical condition following avalanche

2012-02-17T19:08:00.001+01:00

Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau, the second son of the Queen of the Netherlands, is reported to be in a life-threatening condition in a hospital in Innsbruck, Austria, after having been buried by an avalanche while skiing off piste at the ski resort Lech earlier today. The Prince is reported to have been buried in the snow for fifteen or twenty minutes following the avalanche. Apparently no-one else was taken by the avalanche.
Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau, formerly Prince Johan Friso of the Netherlands, is 43 years old and the King’s godson. He works as a businessman and is the father of two daughters. He lost his title as Prince of the Netherlands and his succession rights when he married Mabel Wisse Smit in 2004 after it emerged that she had given incorrect information to the government about her previous relationship with a gangster.
Queen Beatrix, who was also staying in Lech, is reported to be at her son’s side in hospital tonight, together with his wife, while his elder brother, Prince Willem-Alexander, is apparently flying in from the Netherlands.

Christian Wulff resigns as President of Germany

2012-02-17T18:58:00.001+01:00

It did not really come as a surprise, but this morning Christian Wulff resigned as President of Germany. His resignation came as a consequence of prosecutors wishing to investigate his role in a corruption case asked Parliament to suspend his immunity.
The President acknowledged in his resignation statement that he had lost the confidence of the German people. The case began in December, when it was revealed by the media that Wulff, when Minister President of Lower Saxony, had taken a large loan from the wife of a millionaire friend by the name of Egon Geerkens. As Minister President, Wulff had been asked by the state parliament if he had any business ties with Mr Geerkens, something which he explicitly denied without mentioning the loan from Mrs Geerkens.
The President faced mounting criticism when it emerged he had made an angry and apparently threatening phone call to the editor of the newspaper Bild in an attempt to get the newspaper to postpone its publication of the story.
Christian Wulff, who, like Chancellor Angela Merkel, belongs to the Christian Democratic Party, was elected President on 30 June 2010, following the abrupt resignation of President Horst Köhler. A new head of state will have to be elected by the Federal Assembly within thirty days.

King and Queen receive exhibition present

2012-02-16T12:28:00.000+01:00

Yesterday the King and Queen were formally presented with the exhibitions based on the Royal Collection which are the government’s gift for the royal couple’s 75th birthdays. The presentation took place at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Oslo in the presence of the King and Queen, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, Princess Märtha Louise, Princess Astrid, several members of the cabinet and Parliament’s presidium, the parliamentary leaders of most of the political parties, the top courtiers, other notabilities and those of us who have been involved with the project.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg paid tribute to the King and Queen in a speech which brought tear to the eyes of the Queen, the Crown Princess and Princess Märtha Louise, and the King and Queen thereafter made a joint acceptance speech before they were shown around in the first exhibition.
Later in the day, this first exhibition, titled “A Royal Journey” and showing treasures from the Royal Collection, was formally opened by the Culture Minister, Anniken Huitfeldt. From today the exhibition is open to the public (until 26 August). I will return with a more detailed presentation of the exhibition later.

New books: The Norwegian Royal Collection

2012-02-15T00:51:00.000+01:00

The Norwegian Royal Collection is among the lesser-known royal collections of Europe, but this year and next year parts of it will be shown in six exhibitions funded by the government as a 75th birthday present to the King and Queen, and it is also presented in the book Arv og tradisjon – De kongelige samlinger (“Heritage and Tradition: The Royal Collections”), edited by Anniken Thue and published by Orfeus Publishing today.
As I am co-author of the book I shall obviously refrain from reviewing it and restrict myself to a presentation of it. The main themes of the six jubilee exhibitions are royal journeys and royal gifts, and this also puts its mark on the related book.
The book starts which a foreword by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, followed by an interview with the King and Queen about the Royal Collection (by journalist Ulf Andenæs of Aftenposten) and a short introduction by King Haakon’s and Queen Maud’s biographer Tor Bomann-Larsen.
The art historian Ingeborg Lønning, who is head of the Royal Collection, then presents the collection in all its diversity over some 75 pages. Thereafter the historian Trond Norén Isaksen (yes, that is me) charts the history of royal journeys: journeys by Dano-Norwegian monarchs and Swedish-Norwegian union kings to Norway before 1905, major royal tours of Norway for the past 200 years and their significance, and the history and development of foreign visits and in particular state visits. The art historian Nina Høye looks at the aesthetics of royal travelling, including suitcases, celebratory pavilions and arches, means of travel and more.
Thereafter I return with a chapter on the symbolically most important journey, “The Road to Nidaros Cathedral”, i.e. the coronation cathedral. In this chapter I look at the nineteenth century coronation processions in Trondheim and why King Haakon VII in 1906 refused to continue this tradition and instead ordered the coronation coach (which has not been used since 1940, but has now been restored and will be the pièce de résistance of two of the jubilee exhibitions).
Bjørn K. Høie follows this up with a chapter on the royal stables (its carriages, its horses and its personnel) in the years 1905-1940, and Sven Gj. Gjeruldsen thereafter presents a century of royal cars. The King’s authorised biographer Per Egil Hegge writes about the most difficult journey, i.e. Crown Princess Märtha’s and her children’s journey into exile in 1940, but also the triumphant homecoming in 1945.
Thereafter the focus shifts to major presents to the royal family. The art historian Knut Ljøgodt presents the collection of contemporary art which was a gift to King Oscar II and Queen Sophie for their silver wedding anniversary in 1882 and which may be said to form the backbone of the royal art collection. The art historian Widar Halén deals with the sumptuous silver objects which were presented to Queen Maud on hers and King Haakon’s arrival in Norway in 1905, her birthday the following day and their coronation in 1906, among them also the coronation presents from the English and Scottish peoples. The art historian Knut Ormhaug follows this with a presentation of the paintings given to King Haakon and Queen Maud on those same occasions.
Finally, the photographer Jan Haug presents a selection from the Palace’s large photo collections, spanning the years 1857-1964. The book is neither a photo book nor purely a coffee table book, but it is lavishly illustrated. There are many new photos of the objects from the Royal Collection, but also a wide range of historical photographs, most of them from the Royal Collection and some of them never published before.
Here is a panorama of the coronation procession of King Oscar II and Queen Sophie, photographed from the roof of Nidaros Cathedral in 1873; King Haakon VII and several other gentlemen inspecting the engine of a new car in 1934; private snapshots of King Haakon and Queen Maud both before and after their arrival in Norway; King Haakon at play with his son; the distance elegance of Queen Maud; King Haakon and King Edward VII of Britain having sat down for a rest during a walk in the woods in 1908; photos taken by Princess Maud of Britain in 1893 when on a visit to the country which unbeknown to her would one day be hers; the 21-year-old seamstress Miss Sonja Haraldsen modelling her own creations a year before she met her prince; and much more.
The book is in Norwegian, but has English summaries.

Family gathering for Princess Astrid’s eightieth birthday

2012-02-13T20:38:00.001+01:00

Last night the King and Queen hosted a dinner at the Royal Palace in honour of Princess Astrid’s eightieth birthday. The royal court has released four handout photos (by Sven Gj. Gjeruldsen), shown above.
According to the royal court the birthday party was also attended by the Crown Prince and Crown Princess as well as Princess Märtha Louise (who was apparently in the Netherlands earlier in the day, promoting her angel book). The photos show that Princess Ragnhild and her husband Erling Lorentzen was also present. The couple, who are 81 and 89 respectively, live in Brazil and have not been much seen in Norway in recent years.
Coincidentially, both the Queen and Princess Astrid wore the same necklaces as they wore for Princess Astrid’s 75th birthday party in 2007. While the Princess’s appears to be of fairly recent origins, the Queen’s originally belonged to the King’s great-grandmother, Queen Alexandra of Britain.
On Wednesday there will be another family gathering, when the royal family en masse will attend the opening of the first of the six exhibitions based on the royal collections which is the government’s present to the King and Queen for their 75th birthdays.

On this date: Princess Astrid’s eightieth birthday

2012-02-12T18:57:00.000+01:00

Today is the eightieth birthday of Princess Astrid, Norway’s former first lady. To mark the occasion the King is giving a dinner at the Palace tonight in honour of his sister and the court has released two new official photos by Svein Brimi.
The second daughter of the future King Olav V and Crown Princess Märtha, Princess Astrid Maud Ingeborg was born on 12 February 1932 at Villa Solbakken in Aker (now in Oslo), which served as the crown princely family’s temporary home after Skaugum had burned down in 1930.
The family moved back to Skaugum in August 1932 and Princess Astrid spent some happy childhood years there before the German invasion forced Crown Princess Märtha to bring her three children to safety in her native Sweden on 9 April 1940. In August that year the Crown Princess and her children went on to the USA, where they found a home in exile until the liberation of Norway in 1945.
Having attended school in the USA and Norway, Princess Astrid went to Oxford in 1950 to study economics, philosophy and political history. The choice was not hers, but her father’s, and was chosen because it was the only programme which lasted only two years, the maximum of time it was considered possible for her to be absent due to the illness of her mother.
The Crown Princess’s illness and the fact that her elder sister, Princess Ragnhild, married and moved to Brazil in 1953, meant that Princess Astrid had to take on an increasing amount of public engagements after her return to Norway. The most spectacular of these was accompanying her parents to London for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, where Princess Astrid was supposed to stand in for her mother if the Crown Princess was not strong enough.
The seriousness of her mother’s illness was only explained to Princess Astrid shortly before Crown Princess Märtha died at the age of 53 in the morning of 5 April 1954. Her death made Princess Astrid the country’s first lady at the age of only 22. Duty has always been important to the Princess and it never occurred to her to say no to the momentous responsibilities that there now placed upon her young shoulders. Two years later King Haakon rewarded his granddaughter with the Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of St Olav, making her only the second Norwegian woman to receive this honour.
Her responsibilities increased further when King Haakon died in 1957 and her father succeeded to the throne as King Olav V. While Crown Prince Harald was preoccupied with his education, Princess Astrid was the only family member available to support King Olav, and she became, in the words of her brother, their father’s right hand.
In 1958 and 1959 she accompanied King Olav on his journeys across the country in connection with his consecration. The stress of the first of these journeys caused Princess Astrid to fall ill with rheumatic fever, an illness which would cause her much pain until it was finally cured some ten years ago.
At that time Princess Astrid had fallen in love with Johan Martin Ferner, a businessman whose brief marriage to her friend Ingeborg Hesselberg-Meyer was dissolved in 1956. King Olav, who was head of the Norwegian state church, feared what would be the public reactions to his second daughter also marrying a commoner, and even a divorced one, and consequently withheld his consent for five years.
When the engagement was announced in November 1960 it did indeed lead to much criticism, described at the time as the worst storm the royal family had yet experienced. As the Bishop of Oslo, Johannes Smemo, was unwilling to marry divorcees, King Olav asked the Bishop of Nidaros, Arne Fjellbu, to officiate at the wedding, which was held in Asker Church on a bitterly cold winter day, 12 January 1961. Last year the couple were able to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary.
At the time of the wedding, the Princess gave up the style Royal Highness and has since been officially styled as Princess Astrid, Mrs Ferner. She also gave up the civil list income she had been granted in 1956. It was, however, made clear that she would continue to carry out her royal duties. This was indeed sheer necessity as the Princess was the only female member of the royal family resident in Norway and would thus remain the country’s first lady until her brother married.
And this turned out to be a long way off, as King Olav was, perhaps understandably, even more reluctant to give his consent to the heir’s marriage to Sonja Haraldsen, the commoner he had fallen in love with in 1959. Meanwhile Princess Astrid carried on with her royal duties, while simultaneously establishing her own home, battling illness and giving birth to the first three of her five children: Cathrine in 1962, Benedikte in 1963 and Alexander in 1965.
It was only in 1968 that King Olav finally felt on sure enough ground to give his consent to the marriage of Crown Prince Harald and Sonja Haraldsen. When they married on 29 August 1968, Princess Astrid, after fourteen years, ceded the position as first lady to her sister-in-law.
While other princesses, such as Mathilde of France or Antoinette of Monaco, have resented giving up the position as first lady to a newcomer, Princess Astrid was in a way relieved to do so and became a great help and support in introducing Crown Princess Sonja into her new role.
However, Princess Astrid did not disappear from the royal scene, but continued to take on a fair share of public engagements, in particular related to the numerous organisations of which she are patron. Meanwhile the Ferner family was completed by the birth of Elisabeth in 1969 and Carl-Christian in 1972. Today Princess Astrid and Johan Martin Ferner are also the grandparents of five.
When King Olav died in January 1991, Princess Astrid came to serve her third king, her brother, Harald V. The King and Queen both have nothing but praise for the selfless way in which Princess Astrid has always been there for them, knowing only one answer when asked to help in one way or another. On the occasion of her seventieth birthday in 2002 the government recognised her loyalty to the crown and the nation by granting her a pension of honour for the rest of her life.
At the age of eighty Princess Astrid remains active, although her public engagements are now rather few. This she herself explains by the fact that people seem to prefer to invite the younger or more high-profile members of the royal family in preference to her.
Princess Astrid has always been close to the King, with whom she shares a human warmth and sense of humour as well as their dedication to duty. She is also an excellent storyteller, blessed with a good recollection and a sense of history which makes her something of the royal family’s living memory. This I came to experience personally when writing my biography of her, Kvinne blant konger (“A Woman Among Kings”), which was published in 2007.
Princess Astrid rarely misses a state banquet, to which she will turn up wearing one of her five tiaras (two of which will eventually revert to the King), the broad version of the sash of St Olav (rather than the narrower now given to women) as this was what she was given by King Haakon 56 years ago, and the family orders of Haakon VII, Olav V and Harald V. She is the only member of the royal family to wear more than one family order, but insists that her way is the correct and that all family orders should be worn. In her case it is also a visual reminder of the fact that she is alone in having served all three monarchs.

My latest article: The King at 75

2012-02-09T12:37:00.000+01:00

The King will be 75 this month, i.e. on 21 February, and to mark the occasion I have written an article for the February issue of the British monthly magazine Majesty (Vol. 33, No. 2) titled “Royal Reformer”. In this article I look in particular at how the Norwegian monarchy has been reformed and modernised during his 21-year-reign and at the King’s handling of the terrorist attacks last summer, for which he has been much lauded.

On this date: Diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain

2012-02-06T13:02:00.000+01:00

In the early hours of today, sixty years had passed since King George VI of Britain died in his sleep at Sandringham House in Norfolk, leaving the thrones of Britain and a number of other countries to his then 25-year-old daughter. Thus Queen Elizabeth II today marks her sixty years as monarch, although the main celebrations will take place in early June.
However, to mark accession day Buckingham Palace today released the following message from Queen Elizabeth:

Today, as I mark 60 years as your Queen, I am writing to thank you for the wonderful support and encouragement that you have given to me and Prince Philip over these years and to tell you how deeply moved we have been to receive so many kind messages about the Diamond Jubilee.

In this special year, as I dedicate myself anew to your service, I hope we will all be reminded of the power of togetherness and the convening strength of family, friendship and good neighbourliness, examples of which I have been fortunate to see throughout my reign and which my family and I look forward to seeing in many forms as we travel throughout the United Kingdom and the wider Commonwealth.

I hope also that this Jubilee year will be a time to give thanks for the great advances that have been made since 1952 and to look forward to the future with clear head and warm heart as we join together in our celebrations.

I send my sincere good wishes to you all.

ELIZABETH R

To mark the occasion the British court has also released the two official photos seen above, taken at Buckingham Palace in December by John Swannell. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh do not perhaps look exactly thrilled to be there, but the choice of background for the photo of Queen Elizabeth is interesting as one sees the monument to her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, the only other British monarch to reach her diamond jubilee on the throne.
On the occasion of the jubilee an official diamond jubilee website was also launched today: http://www.thediamondjubilee.org/ (external link).

Sauli Niinistö elected President of Finland

2012-02-06T12:48:00.000+01:00

Yesterday’s second round of Finland’s presidential election saw the conservative candidate Sauli Niinistö elected the country’s twelfth president with a comfortable majority. Niinistö won 62.6 % of the votes as opposed to 37.4 % for Pekka Haavisto of the Green Party. With more than 1.8 million votes Niiniströ received more votes than his predecessors since direct elections of president were introduced in 1994. Electoral participation was, however, record low at a mere 68.9 %.
The election result is something of a watershed as it means that the President of Finland will, for the first time since 1982, not be a Social Democrat, and that, unusually, the President and the Prime Minister will belong to the same party.
In the first round of the election, held on 22 January, Sauli Niinistö won 36.96 % of the votes, while Pekka Haavisto received 18.76 % of the votes and thus narrowly bypassed Paavo Värynen of the Centre Party (17.53 %) as the second candidate in the second round. The Social Democrat candidate, former Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, received only 6.7 % of the votes.
Sauli Väinämö Niinistö, who was born on 24 August 1948, is a jurist by profession and was an MP 1987-2003 and 2007-2011. He served as leader of the Conservative party 1994-2001, was Minister of Justice 1995-1996 and Minister of Finance 1996-2003. He was his party’s candidate in the 2006 presidential election and gave the incumbent President, Tarja Halonen, tough competition, winning 48.2 % of the votes against Halonen’s 51.8 %. From 2007 till 2011 he served as Speaker of Parliament. He will be sworn in as President on 1 March, when Tarja Halonen’s second six-year term comes to an end.
Widowed in 1995, Niinistö remarried in 2009 to Jenni Haukio. The incoming First Lady of Finland is 34 years old, a poet and head of communication of the Conservative party.
The once significant powers of the President have been cut in recent years, most recently in October last year. The role of the President is now mostly ceremonial, but he or she retains a modest influence in foreign policy. The political scientist Ann-Cathrine Jungar wrote an interesting essay (external link) on the development of the presidential office in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet yesterday.
The photo shows the Presidential Palace in Helsinki.

My latest article: The need for a royal museum

2012-02-01T20:48:00.001+01:00

While the Museum Liechtenstein in Vienna has closed down, the debate on the need for a permanent museum for the royal collection goes on in Norway and in Aftenposten today I have added my voice (external link) to those who argue that such a museum ought to come into existence the sooner the better.
Many good arguments in favour of a royal museum have already been put forward, and I choose to focus on one argument which has so far received less attention. While the interdisciplinary research field called court studies has grown around Europe in recent decades, there has been little academic interest in the monarchy in this country.
The history and the art history related to the monarchy have thus been left mostly to dilettantes or to academics with no special knowledge of the topic, which has led to some regrettable results. The lack of serious research into the monarchy is probably also part of the reason why the history of the Norwegian monarchy is often not properly understood; for instance there seems to be a not uncommon misconception that monarchy was something which was introduced in Norway 107 years ago.
Hopefully a museum for the royal collections might inspire serious and professional research into the history and art history of the monarchy, which could again lead to a better understanding of the monarchy and thus also of the country’s history, in which the monarchy has played a central role through the centuries.
As it now seems to be too late to have such a museum up and running in time for the bicentenary of Norway’s independence in 2014, which had originally been hoped, I suggest the King and Queen’s silver jubilee in January 2016 as an ideal opportunity to open a museum for the royal collections. This would also be an excellent way to mark the fact that preservation of and accessibility to the part of our common heritage that is the royal collection has been a priority for the current King and Queen and something which will also be an important part of their legacy when they are gone.

Museum Liechtenstein closes down

2012-01-31T20:45:00.000+01:00

Of the royal collections of Europe, the princely collection of Liechtenstein is second only to the Royal Collection in Britain and since 2004 parts of it have been exhibited in the Liechtenstein Garden Palace (Gartenpalais Liechtenstein) in Vienna. However, as from the beginning of this year the Museum Liechtenstein has sadly closed its doors to ordinary visitors.
In the future it will only be possible to visit the palace when taking part in occasional guided tours of the collection. The focus will from now rather be on renting out the palace to corporate events and so on. The reason for this sad development seems to be that one had hoped for 300,000 visitors per year, but only managed to attract some 45,000.
Meanwhile the Liechtenstein Mansion (Palais Liechtenstein) in the centre of Vienna, which was the main residence of the Sovereign Prince of Liechtenstein until 1938, is being restored. The plan was that it would serve as a second branch of the Museum Liechtenstein, but this too will now not be generally open to the public after the restoration is completed next year.
The closing of the Museum Liechtenstein means that the website of the princely collections has now also changed to www.palaisliechtenstein.com. The new website will be launched in February.
The photo shows a detail of the ceiling fresco in the Great Hall of the Liechtenstein Garden Palace. The fresco was done by Andrea Pozzo between 1704 and 1708 and shows the entry of Hercules into Olympus.

New books: Europe’s lost states

2012-01-29T20:50:00.002+01:00

History books are full of states which no longer exist. Now some of these states have gotten a book of their own: Norman Davies’s Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe, which was published by Allen Lane last autumn.
It is, obviously, a vast subject and Davies, an historian known for books such as Europe: A History, Europe at War, The Isles: A History and God’s Playground: A History of Poland, has had to restrict his book of 830 pages to some of those vanished states. Each chapter begins with a visit to a present-day remnant of the relevant state, followed by the history of its rise and fall and an epilogue on its afterlife. The time span stretches from the fifth century to the present.
Among the states included are Aragon, the many Burgundian states, the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania, Prussia, Savoy, Montenegro, Galicia, Etruria, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the USSR and Ireland. Some of the states included, such as the Byzantine Empire, existed for a very long time, others only very briefly, such as the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine, which lived for a single day in 1939.
Thus the book covers a wide range of European history, but it is also quite uneven. Most of it is well-written and ought to be easily accessible also for those who are not themselves historians, but some chapters are not as clear as one would wish for. It is hard to get through the chapter on the ancient Scottish “Kingdom of the Rock” and while struggling through one often wonders where the author is actually heading.
Other chapters offer clear and concise analyses of the emergence and disappearance of states, and the most successful chapters also offer some fresh perspectives. Sometimes these set the spotlight upon a lesser known part of history, such as the chapter on the Kingdom of Etruria (and the Napoleonic Grand Duchy of Tuscany), which charts the oft-overlooked history of Florence during the revolutionary and Napoleonic age.
Some of author’s choices of states to include in the book may seem surprising, but mostly one finds that there is a good reason behind it. One example is Montenegro, which does indeed exist as a state today, but which was alone among the victorious allies in disappearing from the map following World War I, something which happened in a rather dubious way.
If one wonders why Ireland is included in the book, one will eventually find that Davies considers the history of Ireland’s struggle against the British crown as simply the first part of the ongoing and, in his view, inevitable dissolution of the United Kingdom. The developments concerning a referendum on Scottish independence since the book was published have thus only made it more relevant to the present.
Its diversity is one of the book’s strengths, but also one of its weaknesses. With such a vast subject one can hardly avoid finding some mistakes, but more disturbing than this is the fact that several of the genealogical tables, which one may assume have been included to help the reader keep track of the people and relationship which have influenced the rise and fall of these states, are so flawed that they are in fact useless.
The two rival Serbian royal families, Obrenovic and Karadjordjevic, are for instance presented as one big family; King Petar I (of the House of Karadjordjevic) is in fact shown to be the son of King Aleksandar and Queen Drage (of the House of Obrenovic), whose assassination in 1903 brought him to the throne. Students of the First Empire will also be surprised to learn that Empress Joséphine’s first husband was not Alexandre de Beauharnais, but his brother, and even more astonished to find out that she and Napoléon did in fact have a son.
The book is a tour de force through some of those vanished European states which most people do not normally spare a thought for. It ends beautifully with William Wordsworth’s 1802 poem “On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic”, concluding: “Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade / Of that which once was great is passed away”.

My latest article: How Nidaros Cathedral became the coronation church

2012-01-24T23:11:00.000+01:00

Picking apart historical myths and misconceptions is of course one of the favourite pastimes of historians and in an article in Adresseavisen (external link) today I address the not uncommon idea that Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim has “always” been the coronation church of this country.
In fact, most medieval coronations took place in Bergen and later in Oslo. It was only towards the end of the medieval age that three coronations happened in Trondheim. The first of them was held on 20 November 1449 and caused by extraordinary circumstances.
After the death of King Christoffer of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 1448, Sweden chose Karl Knutsson (of the House of Bonde) to be its king, while Denmark opted for Count Christiern of Oldenburg (Christian I). Norway had little choice but to choose one of them and a majority of the Norwegian council voted for Christian, an election which marked the transformation from hereditary to elective monarchy.
However, a minority of the council, among them the powerful Archbishop of Nidaros, Aslak Bolt, tried to push through their candidate by staging an election in which Karl was victorious and consequently had him crowned in Nidaros Cathedral.
At the time of the coronation Karl’s supporters made the claim that rightful kings of Norway ought to be crowned in Trondheim, but this was an invention. However, when Christian defeated Karl the following year, he too was crowned in Nidaros Cathedral, obviously to “annul” the coronation of the “usurper”.
Christian I’s son, King Hans, was later crowned in Trondheim in 1483, but Christian II was crowned in St Hallvard’s Cathedral in Oslo in 1514. However, the claim made in 1449 was so effective that it very soon seems to have become a generally accepted notion that coronations had traditionally been held in Trondheim. For instance, the Council used this argument when Frederik I decreed that his Norwegian coronation should take place in Kongehelle.
Frederik I was eventually never crowned in Norway and neither were his successors after Norway was declared part of Denmark in 1536. But it is possible to find references during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the supposed fact that coronations were usually held in Trondheim and this may well have inspired “the founding fathers” at the Constituent Assembly of 1814, who made it a constitutional requirement that the kings of Norway should be crowned in Nidaros Cathedral.
The myth about Nidaros Cathedral as the ancient coronation church of this country is, I argue, an excellent example of what historians call “the invention of tradition”. This is also a topic which I will return to in a longer and more scholarly article in the near future.

A Princess of Denmark was born this morning

2012-01-24T10:32:00.001+01:00

The Danish royal court has announced that Princess Marie gave birth to a daughter at the National Hospital in Copenhagen this morning at 8.27. The newborn Princess is 49 centimetres long and weighs 2,930 grams.
The Princess is the second child of Prince Joachim and Princess Marie, but her father also has two sons from his first marriage to the former Princess Alexandra (now Countess of Frederiksborg). She is the eighth grandchild of Queen Margrethe II and Prince Consort Henrik.
The Princess, whose name in keeping with royal Danish tradition will not be revealed until her christening, is tenth in line to the Danish throne.
Her birth will be marked with a 21-gun-salute at noon and flags will be flown from public buildings from the same hour.

On this date: Princess Birgitta’s 75th birthday

2012-01-19T19:30:00.000+01:00

Princess Birgitta of Hohenzollern, Princess of Sweden, turns 75 today. The older sister of King Carl XVI Gustaf, Princess Birgitta Ingeborg Alice was born at Haga Palace outside Stockholm, now the home of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel, on 19 January 1937.
She was the second of the five children born to Prince Gustaf Adolf and Princess Sibylla and had only just turned ten when her father died in a plane accident on 26 January 1947. Princess Birgitta studied at the Gymnastic Central Institute in Stockholm, but was not allowed to pursue her intention of training as a physiotherapist.
Having turned down a proposal from Shah Mohammed Reza of Iran, Princess Birgitta eventually married Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern, a younger brother of the late Fürst Friedrich Wilhelm of Hohenzollern. The civil wedding was held at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on 25 May 1961, followed by a religious blessing in Sigmaringen five days later.
At the time of her marriage Princess Birgitta converted to Catholicism, but has stated that she has since “distanced” herself from the Catholic church due to her resentment over how “they forced me to sign a paper saying that I should live as a Catholic and raise my children as Catholics”.
Furthermore, her grandfather King Gustaf VI Adolf’s wish that a Lutheran priest should bless the couple was vetoed by Pope Johannes (John) XXIII himself. Apparently unbeknown to Princess Birgitta this seems to have been the result of a dispute between the Swedish and Belgian royal families and Pope Pius XI when the Lutheran Princess Astrid of Sweden married the Catholic Prince Léopold of Belgium in 1926.
As she was the only of the four sisters to marry “equally”, Princess Birgitta is also alone among them of remaining the style Royal Highness and her membership of the Swedish royal house. However, she is not in line of succession to the throne.
Following their wedding, Princess Birgitta and Prince Johann Georg settled in Munich, where “Hansi”, who holds a doctorate in art history, eventually became head of the Alte Pinakothek.
The couple had three children – Carl Christian, Désirée and Hubertus – but when the children moved out, Princess Birgitta realised that she and her husband had nothing in common and consequently left him in 1990 to set up home in Majorca, where she has lived ever since, spending most of her time playing golf.
However, the couple are neither separated nor divorced and Princess Birgitta insists that this arrangement works well for them. They keep up appearances by attending family events together, and the Princess vented her fury in public when her husband some years ago was photographed at some event with his mistress.
While Princess Birgitta goes to Munich twice a year to visit her family, Prince Johann Georg has not been to Munich since her seventieth birthday in 2007. Their golden wedding anniversary last year was celebrated in Munich.
In 1997 Princess Birgitta published her memoirs, Min egen väg(“My Own Way”). She has also given many interviews through the years and become known for her outspokenness. On the occasion of her anniversary today she has been interviewed by Svensk Damtidning, but this does not contain much of interest (perhaps except for the fact that she has “thrown away the family silver”). The birthday will be celebrated by a dinner with friends.

New books: The iconography of Margrethe II

2012-01-19T13:42:00.000+01:00

Denmark is blessed with a monarch who is passionate about the arts, and portraiture is an art form which has had a revival during her reign, the art historian Thyge Christian Fønss points out in his interesting new book Portrætter af en dronning – Margrethe den [sic] II i portrætkunsten 1972-2012, published in October on the occasion of her jubilee, which was celebrated in the usual grand style last weekend.
The author has chosen to include painted portraits, tapestries and busts, but only those for which the Queen has sat and/or which have been acquired by the monarch herself or by public institutions. He states his reasons for excluding photography, caricature and other art forms, but does not explained why miniature paintings are not included (the “family orders” worn by Queen Margrethe’s daughters-in-law are examples of the now rather rare technique of miniature painting). Some of the portraits show the Queen together with the Prince Consort, one shows her in a group and another is more a history painting than a portrait, but such distinctions are not made here.
While some reigns are almost defined by the works of one artist – such as the reign of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein – or at least strongly identified with one artist – such as Christian IX with Laurits Tuxen or Carl XIV Johan with Fredric Westin – no artist has stood out as The Court Painter of Margrethe II. The individual with the greatest influence on the iconography of Margrethe II is probably the late photographer Rigmor Mydtskov.
The twenty or so portraits of Queen Margrethe are thus rather diverse in style. However, there are some painters who have been commissioned to paint the Queen on several occasions, among them Preben Hornung and Niels Strøbek – the latter’s fourth portrait was unveiled at the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Palace on the occasion of the jubilee. There are some famous international names among the artists – Pietro Annigoni and Andy Warhol stand out – but the majority are Danes, of various generations, most of them male.
Following an introduction about the history of royal portraits, which may be enlightening to many, the author treats each portrait chronologically. There are large reproductions of the artworks and often also of details. Some are also shown in the milieu where they hang and earlier or alternative sketches for some of them are also included. Fønss analyses the composition of the portrait, the references it contains and frequently he also gives the readers the background history of each portrait and some glimpses of the process leading to the picture’s completion. The author has obviously benefited from the assistance offered him by the artists (or their heirs).
Fønss has done a good job in identifying other artworks of relevance to the portraits he discusses and the historical references they contain. For instance he points out how the Queen’s pose in Thomas Kluge’s second portrait of her is obviously inspired by that of Christian II’s daughter Christina, Duchess of Milan, in Holbein’s portrait of her, painted when she was considered as a possible fourth wife for Henry VIII of England.
Each portrait is thus given a thorough consideration in a chapter of its own, but the book might have benefited from the portraits being seen more in the context of each other. This might perhaps have been solved by including a summarising chapter towards the end, where the author could also have made some concluding remarks about the development of royal portraiture in Denmark through the last four decades. Nevertheless he makes the reader fully aware of the fact that the reign of Margrethe II has been a golden age for portraiture, particularly considering the low standing of this genre in Denmark forty years ago, and that the many portraits of the Queen have been hugely significant for the positive development in this regard.
The author appears quite diplomatic in that he very rarely has anything remotely critical to say about any of the portraits, although it must be admitted that a few of them are not very good. But it seems to me that sometimes, between the lines, one may just sense that some of the portraits are more the author’s cup of tea than others.
Given the absence of critical remarks about the portraits of Queen Margrethe it is altogether more notable that Fønss is generally dismissive of the portraits of other current monarchs. His rather negative view of Lucian Freud’s famous portrait of Elizabeth II comes as something of a surprise, while Håkon Gullvåg’s portraits of the King and Queen of Norway are written off with some remarks about their not being well-received by a tabloid newspaper, which is certainly a very un-nuanced version of the story. And should contemporary art necessarily be uncontroversial?
I am also not sure I agree entirely with Fønss when he states that “English [sic] royal portraiture of the twentieth century has been extraordinarily retrospective and unoriginal”. One may in my opinion well argue that some of the portraits of Elizabeth II or the state portraits of King Harald V and Queen Sonja are more artistically daring than the portraits of Margrethe II, most of which could be described as rather conventional paintings which have not really moved artistic boundaries within the genre.
The book, which is in large format, is beautifully produced, but unfortunately it has been very badly proof-read. As a result there are many grammatical errors, particularly when it comes to punctuation, capitalisation, words being split into two and the difference between “hans/hendes” and “sin”. The author generally writes “England” and “English” where “Britain” and “British” would have been correct, the name of Frederik VIII’s consort is mistakenly given as “Louisa” (she was born Princess Lovisa of Sweden and of Norway and became Queen Louise of Denmark, but she never used the name Louisa), Lucian Freud has become “Lucien Freud” etc.
One also wonders why the author refers to King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland as a parvenu, given that he belonged to a dynasty which had been reigning for some 300 years at the time. The pearl tiara which Queen Margrethe wears in several portraits is erroneously said to have been a wedding present to “Louisa” in 1869, although primary sources show clearly that it was in the possession of her mother at the time of the latter’s death in 1871 (consequently, Louise must have inherited it after her mother’s death).
While Mikael Melbye’s recent portrait of the Queen surrounded by the three silver lions from Rosenborg is the last to be included in the book, the iconography of Margrethe II keeps evolving. A portrait of her with her two heirs, by Niels Strøbek, who also painted the first portrait of her as Queen, was, as mentioned above, unveiled last week, while Thomas Kluge, the artist behind two of her more significant portraits, is currently working on a group portrait of the Queen and Prince Consort with their sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, which will hang at Fredensborg Palace and mirror Laurits Tuxen’s famous painting of King Christian IX and Queen Louise with their descendants. I am told that the latter painting will be the subject of Fønss’s next book.
For an art historian of the younger generation this is book is an impressive and convincing debut which makes one look forward to his future publications.

New portrait of Queen Margrethe and her heirs

2012-01-11T21:05:00.001+01:00

Today Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, who is celebrating her forty years on the throne, opened the exhibition “Regent for Forty Years - Margrethe II 1972-2012” at the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Palace in Hillerød. The Queen also unveiled a new portrait of herself, Crown Prince Frederik and Prince Christian which the museum has commissioned from the artist Niels Strøbek to mark the jubilee.
The Queen is shown in the Great Hall of Christian IX’s Mansion at Amalienborg, wearing the emerald parure which is part of the Danish crown jewels and the collar of the Order of the Elephant. This is the fourth time Niels Strøbek has painted the Queen since her accession.
The portrait will be part of the exhibition, which runs until 22 April, and then join the permanent collections of the museum, which is also Denmark’s national portrait gallery.
Later this year another family portrait will be completed, this time by Thomas Kluge and showing the Queen and Prince Consort with their sons, daughters-in-law and all their grandchildren. This painting will be a private gift to the Queen and hang at Fredensborg Palace, but will go on public display before being taken to Fredensborg.

New book: Elizabeth II and her times

2012-01-10T12:55:00.000+01:00

Among the books on Queen Elizabeth II of Britain published ahead of her upcoming diamond jubilee is Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Our Times, a study by Sarah Bradford, whose many books includes Elizabeth: A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen (1996). Bradford is currently writing a biography of Queen Victoria of Britain, but has taken time off that project to produce another volume on her great-great-granddaughter. Her new book is considerably shorter than the 1996 biography and aims to see Elizabeth II in the context of the times in which she has lived. However, I am afraid I cannot say that Bradford has succeeded in that.
Bradford calls herself a historian, but has stated that she never completed her degree as she, in another world, broke off her studies in order to marry. The book bears the marks of this, as Bradford’s concept of history seems to be a record of events, not an analysis of developments.
The author tells the story of Queen Elizabeth’s life from its beginning until today, although the fifteen years after the publication of Bradford’s first biography of her are dealt with rather summarily. There is little new material and no new revelations, but Bradford has made good use of biographies, memoirs and diaries of some of the central politicians of the long reign of Elizabeth II, who the author describes as “politically, the first passive sovereign”.
But the supposed context of “our times” is often reduced simply to lists of memorable events which happened during those years a certain chapter deals with, such as one chapter which ends: “The fun was definitely over: in Asia the bombing of North Vietnam escalated with Johnson’s Operation Rolling Thunder, and Chairman Mao initiated his deadly Cultural Revolution. In the Middle East in June 1967 the Israelis rolled over the Egyptians in the Sinai, capturing the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem and taking over control of thousands of Palestinians. The next year, 1968, was a terrible year of the United States, with the assassination of Martin Luther King in April and Robert Kennedy in June; [and so on]”.
Such lists of events read like one of those news summaries which the media like to publish at the end of a year or a decade. What was the significance or influence, if any, of these events on Queen Elizabeth or the British monarchy, one may ask, but the author provides no answers. The result is that the Queen and the historical events of her lifetime are both seen isolated and not in context.
Authors of other recent books on Elizabeth II have addressed some of the key changes to the monarchy in the current reign, but Bradford passes this over. This gives the impression that the British monarchy just happens to have survived without much thought being given to how to make it relevant to changing times and circumstances.
We now seems to have reached the stage where serious authors of serious books may allow themselves to end the book, as Sarah Bradford does, by nothing less than exclaiming “God save the Queen”. Yet Bradford is not entirely uncritical; for instance, she notes that Queen Elizabeth “consistently and temperamentally has failed to prohibit her children from doing what they wanted and has reaped the consequences”.
It also detracts from the overall impression of the book that there are quite a lot of factual mistakes. Dates, years and ages are very often incorrect and the author frequently gets other facts wrong as well. To name a handful of examples George VI’s funeral took place on 15 February 1952, not the 16th; King Haakon VII of Norway did not seek exile in England in April 1940, but only when the campaign in Norway ended two months later; Franklin D. Roosevelt did not die on 27 April 1945, but on the 12th, and thus not the day before Mussolini was captured; George V’s Indian durbar took place in 1911, not in 1912; Lady Diana Spencer was not twenty in July 1980; Tony Blair, who is born in 1953, was indeed “not quite fifty-six” when becoming Prime Minister in 1997, but twelve years younger; and the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday was not the last time she appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
The idea that “Prince Philip of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg [sic] was not, as the satirists later dubbed him, ‘Phil the Greek’, but ‘Phil the German’” is certainly nonsense. For one thing he was Prince of Greece and Denmark and not of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and furthermore his Danish family was notoriously anti-German while his mother was born at Windsor Castle and the daughter of a British subject. The fact that his sisters all married Germans does not make Prince Philip himself German.
Despite all these reservations it ought to be said that the book is well-written and can probably be read as an introduction to the life of Elizabeth II by those unfamiliar with the subject, but other books provide more insight. Sarah Bradford is the author of three good biographies of members of the British royal family: George VI (1989), Elizabeth (1996) and Diana (2006). Thus it is even more unfortunate that her latest book appears to be a left-hand work, written in a hurry and based on earlier works, while the author has had her mind on another project.

New books: A political biography of Elizabeth II

2012-01-08T19:50:00.001+01:00

The diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain has, unsurprisingly, inspired several books on the aging monarch, among them The Diamond Queen: Elizabeth II and Her People by Andrew Marr, one of Britain’s best-known political journalists and host of a Sunday morning political talk show on BBC 1.
Marr’s book, which was published by Macmillan in October, is to a great extent a political biography of the British Queen. His stated aim is to “tell her life story, looking at the influences on her, and trying to explain why she does what she does”. This is done in a mostly chronological way, but the chronology is interspersed with short topical chapters.
The first quarter of the book deals with Queen Elizabeth’s life before her accession and the people the author thinks has had the greatest influence upon her, but also with the “remaking” of the British monarchy in the reigns of George V and George VI. However, this story is very familiar from other books and Marr adds no new insights. He also overdoes things a bit when he insists that Elizabeth II is “only the fourth monarch of a fairly new dynasty”, when in fact the dynasty has been the same since 1714 although its name has changed along the way.
The reign of George V saw several important reforms which strengthened the monarchy and widened its scope. Marr argues that “the House of Windsor has seen an unusually direct transmission of ideas and behaviour from its origin in 1917 through grandfather, father and daughter”. Most specifically this refers to the aim stated by George V’s Private Secretary, Lord Stamfordham, namely to “endeavour to induce the thinking working classes, socialist and others, to regard the Crown, not as a mere figurehead and an institution which, as they put it, ‘don’t count’, but as a living power for good ... affecting the interests and well-being of all classes”. This is indeed an idea which has been central also to the reign of Elizabeth II, but it ought to be said that her sixty years on the throne have also been hugely transformative.
The remaining 300 pages of the book deal with the reign, with a particular emphasis on the monarchy’s place in society and its relations to politics. The latter topic was well covered in the late Ben Pimlott’s excellent biography of Elizabeth II (first published 1996, updated edition 2002) and again Marr does not really have much original to add. It also seems that, apart from some interviews, he bases what he writes mostly on published material.
The story of the reign and its ups and downs is told in a well-written, accessible prose, but the longer lines are sometimes hard to find. As such another new book on the same monarch, written by another journalist, Robert Hardman’s Our Queen, is both clearer and more insightful.
Occasionally Marr seems to be too fond of the fancy sound bite, as when he quotes an anonymous source saying that Private Secretary is “the only appointment in the Royal Household that really matters a damn”. That this is nonsense is made clear from what he subsequently writes about the crucial role the Earl of Airlie as Lord Chamberlain played in thoroughly changing the way the monarchy is funded, which leads Marr to quote another anonymous source describing Airlie’s “importance as rivalling that of Prince Albert for the Victoria monarchy”.
“To a degree that has never been fully understood, they privatized the Queen”, Marr writes about Airlie and his team. Had these reforms not been underway at the time the reign reached its nadir around 1992, “the year of disasters could have led to a downward spiral in the Queen’s story – not the end of the British monarchy, but its radical diminishing”. But this quiet revolution is again more thoroughly and conclusively dealt with by Robert Hardman in his book.
“The Queen has been Queen of a nation in decline, and many would say her greatest achievement has been to soften and humanize that inevitable process”, Marr acknowledges. If he is at some stage critical of his monarch it seems to be in relation to how her beloved Commonwealth has “pragmatically accepted some brutal and undemocratic regimes rather than lose members”.
While stressing that the book is not authorised, Marr states in the preface that the manuscript has “been read by the Palace to correct errors of fact”, which leaves one with the impression that the both Marr and the Palace are weak on facts. To mention just a few of many factual errors the future Queen had no fiancé in 1948, George VI had never been Prince of Wales, Queen Mary did not just live to see the coronation of 1953, Prince Philip does not undertake state visits on his own and Princess Margaret did not live “with her mother at Kensington Palace”.
One is also left wondering how the Queen at the time Britain joined the EEC in 1973 may have “reflected that the Swedish, Dutch and Danish monarchies had managed perfectly well in the new bloc, never mind the reviving Spanish monarchy”, given that Denmark joined at the same time, Spain in 1986 and Sweden only in 1995.
Andrew Marr’s book adds little to our knowledge or understanding of the British monarchy under Elizabeth II, but may well be useful as an introductory read.

New books: Elizabeth II and her court

2012-01-06T13:24:00.001+01:00

The literature on Queen Elizabeth II of Britain is enormous already in her lifetime, but the journalist Robert Hardman’s new book Our Queen, published by Hutchinson in September, is one of the most insightful so far. However, its title is somewhat misleading, as it is not so much a book about Queen Elizabeth herself as a book about the British monarchy and its workings in what will inevitably be the final decades of her reign. The title of the American edition, Her Majesty: Elizabeth II and Her Court, is perhaps more fitting.
While great jubilees often cause writers to present the era in question as one glorious triumph, Hardman is more realistic. He argues that the reign of Elizabeth II has “consisted of three episodes of sustained success and two periods of recurring difficulty”. He considers that some 2/3 of the reign should be considered “contended”, but that the 23 years of the remaining third to some extent could be described as “troubled”.
And while the statement that Queen Elizabeth “has never put a foot wrong” seems to be a favourite cliché of royal writers at this stage of her reign, Hardman observes that she actually has, although only rarely. The slow response to the Aberfan mining disaster of 1966 and the royal family’s absence in the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 stand out as examples. According to Hardman, Queen Elizabeth has herself acknowledged to her advisers that she got it wrong on those occasions.
But this is not a book on her entire reign. The focus is set on the last twenty or twenty-five years, which have been an age of transformation for the British monarchy. Hardman has obviously benefited greatly from being granted access to some key players during those years, among them family members such as the Duke of Cambridge, politicians such as David Cameron and Tony Blair (interestingly, the latter highlights the Queen’s “total ability to pick up the public mood”), and courtiers who have been close to the crucial events of these years.
Among the latter category, Hardman points to the 13th Earl of Airlie, who was appointed Lord Chamberlain in 1984, as one who will stand out on the list of those he rather romantically calls the “New Elizabethans”. Lord Airlie had “greater impact on the mechanics of the monarchy than almost anyone since Prince Albert”, the author states and goes on to argue his point by charting how he set out to reform the way the monarchy was run and in particular how it was funded.
While the Queen “liked the status quo”, she gave Lord Airlie the permission he needed to go through with these changes while “the Queen Mother was continuing her guerrilla war against the modernisers from within her Clarence House redoubt”. Thus the monarchy was better equipped than what has been generally assumed to handle the momentous challenges of the 1990s, a decade which certainly ranks among the troubled times of the reign.
A major reorientation has occurred along the lines of the 1992 book Elizabeth R: The Role of the Monarchy Today, where Sir Antony Jay (of “Yes, Minister” fame) stressed the monarch’s role as “head of the nation” as at least equally important as the role as head of state. That role involves the duties “concerned with behaviour, values and standards; the ones which earn the respect, loyalty and pride of the people”, Jay wrote. According to Hardman, this was “a definition which has since helped to shape the entire way the Palace goes about its business”.
Since then the death of the Queen Mother has also meant that her daughter is no longer caught in some sort of limbo between the old and the young generations, but has herself taken on the mantle as “mother of the nation” with all that goes with such a conception. Thus her mother’s death has actually made her life in public easier, a courtier argues.
The death of the Queen Mother and the golden jubilee in 2002 marked a watershed, a courtier says: “Up until then, it felt like a reign of two halves – Act One: good, Act Two: bad. Then, suddenly, we were into Act Three”.
“For all her instinctive conservatism, this sovereign has steered the monarchy through more transition than any in modern times”, Hardman writes. He is of the opinion that the British monarchy “has actually changed more in the last twenty-five years than in the previous one hundred and twenty-five”. This is obviously not solely Elizabeth II’s achievement, but would, also obviously, hardly have happened if she had been unwilling to go along. “She is actually more open to new ideas now than ten, twenty or thirty years ago”, says one senior official.
Hardman’s account generally seems even and fair, but occasionally he goes overboard. As in the first sentence of the book, where he argues that “[w]hen the world comes to look back on the early twenty-first century, two events in Britain – just weeks apart – will be lodged in the collective memory”, i.e. the diamond jubilee and the London Olympics, which is surely to overestimate the impact on the rest of the world, or when he argues that Prince Philip should be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Hardman has previously done the BBC television series “Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work” and parts of the book are clearly influenced by this in the way that the readers are served many “behind the scenes accounts” of how foreign tours, public engagements, state visits et al are organised. This is a bit long-winded and as this topic has been thoroughly dealt with by the TV series, the book which accompanied it and also by other television series, it might perhaps have been cut somewhat in this book.
Another note of criticism might be that Hardman, like many British authors, gets caught by the impossibility of reconciling the notion that Britain is superior to most other countries (if not all) with the idea that simplicity is something exclusively British. Thus the story of how the Queen’s car broke down during an official engagement: “With certain heads of state, there would be panic stations, much yelling into electronic cuffs, a public inquiry and high-level redundancy”. Problems sorted out, “off she goes in a convoy of two cars and one police outrider – the sort of modest motorcade which might be laid on for, say, a middle-ranking trade minister from the European Union” – or, in fact, most non-executive heads of state on an ordinary day. The fact that David Cameron’s car had to stop for red lights on his way to Buckingham Palace when he was to be asked to form a government is apparently considered something essentially British, with Cameron himself chiming in to say that “[t]here’s no other country in the world which has this sort of changeover”, which is far from true.
A rather large part of the book is dedicated to the Royal Household, which Hardman argues has seen “a shift in management culture away from the gentleman amateur to unisex professionalism”. However, his account of the Royal Household is so enthusiastic that one feels that everything cannot possibly be that marvellous. And when he enthuses that there are a housekeeping assistant “with a 2:1 degree in physics from [...] St Andrews” and a footman who is “a graduate in aeronautical engineering from one of Britain’s top universities” and that such things are quite common one wonders if it is really a good thing that people are holding jobs for which they are grossly overqualified.
One department which has been particularly successfully reorganised is the Royal Collection, in recent years transformed “from a dusty curatorship into a self-financing, world-class assembly of great treasures employing hundreds and viewed by millions”. Its director, Jonathan Marsden, argues that “[i]n terms of access and conservation, this reign has been a high point in the history of the collection. It will be seen as [as] significant as that of Queen Victoria”. Thus the modernised Royal Collection “will be one of the Queen’s greatest legacies”. This is a rather surprising conclusion about a monarch who is not really known for her appreciation of fine arts, but it does speak of a professionalism extending outside the areas of the monarch’s personal interests.
So what is her greatest achievement personally? Somewhat surprisingly Hardman suggests that it might be Britain’s development into a multicultural society, which the author argues that she has not only observed, but been part of.

Book news: Some royal books expected in 2012

2012-01-05T20:41:00.000+01:00

As usual I will begin the new year with a survey of some of the books due to be published this year. The royal weddings and jubilees of 2010 and 2011 helped make those two years unusually rich on the book front, but 2012 also has some jubilees and related books to offer.
First out is Queen Margrethe II of Denmark’s jubilee next week. The museums at Amalienborg and Frederiksborg will both host exhibitions to mark her forty years on the throne and the former will focus on the Queen’s dresses. To accompany the exhibition Katia Johansen, who has for many years been a curator at the Royal Collections, has written Dronningens kjoler, which will be out next week.
The recent TV show on royal jewels is expected to result in a book to be published by Lindhardt og Ringhof in April, titled De kongelige juveler, written by Anna von Lowzow and Bjarne Steen Jensen. Anna von Lowzow is identical with Anna Lerche, a filmmaker at Nordisk Film who some may remember for her work on the A Royal Family series and book nearly ten years ago, while Bjarne Steen Jensen considers himself a jewellery expert and is the author of the not very reliable Juvelerne i det danske kongehus.
While Queen Margrethe celebrates her forty years on the throne, her third cousin Queen Elizabeth II of Britain will on 6 February be able to mark the sixtieth anniversary of her accession. Several books have already been published to mark the diamond jubilee – among them books by Robert Hardman, Andrew Marr and Sarah Bradford, of which I will post reviews in the foreseeable future – and on Tuesday Sally Bedell Smith, author of several well-received biographies, will join the rank of Elizabeth II biographers with her Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch, of nearly 700 pages, to be published by Penguin.
The British historian Kate Williams’s contribution to the jubilee is Young Elizabeth: The Making of Our Queen, to be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on 12 April. I suppose this slim volume (208 pages) may be considered some sort of sequel to Williams’s similar book on Queen Victoria of Britain.
This will, by the way, not be Williams’s only book this year; in June her biography of the Empress Joséphine of the French, Mistress of Empires: The Extraordinary Life of Josephine Bonaparte, will be published by Hutchinson.
February will also see the 75th birthday of King Harald V of Norway, on which occasion the National Museum will open the first of their six exhibitions based on the Royal Collections. The exhibitions will be accompanied by a sumptuous book titled Arv og tradisjon – De kongelige samlinger, which will be published by Orfeus and contain contributions by Tor Bomann-Larsen, Per Egil Hegge, Nina Høye, Ingeborg Anna Lønning, Knut Ljøgodt, Widar Halén, Bjørn Høie, Knut Ormhaug, Jan Haug, Sven Gj. Gjeruldsen and myself.
Also on the occasion of the King’s 75th birthday Dag Erik Pedersens has written Idrettskongen, an authorised book on the King’s interest in sports, which will be published by Gyldendal. The Queen will turn 75 in July and in the autumn Gyldendal will publish the much-awaited authorised biography of her, written by Ingar Sletten Kolloen.
The 150th anniversary of the death of Prince Consort Albert of Britain in December 1861 was recently commemorated by a conference on male consorts in history and I hear that this conference will result in a book. Meanwhile I. B. Tauris has published two biographies of such consorts, namely Jules Stewart’s Albert: A Life and Harry Kelsey’s Philip of Spain, King of England: The Forgotten Sovereign. Although both these books bear the date 2012 they did actually go on sale before Christmas.
Another British book expected this year is Jane Ridley’s Bertie: A Biography of Edward VII, which has been postponed at least twice.

Norway’s royal collection goes on display across the country

2012-01-02T20:36:00.000+01:00

As previously mentioned the government’s present for the King and Queen’s 75th birthdays this year is 30 million NOK to fund exhibitions based on the royal collections (now mostly in storage due to lack of space) to be held around the country in 2012 and 2013. The exhibitions, which are prepared by the National Museum in cooperation with the royal court, will be accompanied not by a regular catalogue, but by a lavish book titled Arv og tradisjon - De kongelige samlinger (i.e. “Heritage and Tradition: The Royal Collections”), to be published by Orfeus Forlag.
The book will consist of an interview with the King and Queen (by Ulf Andenæs) and a wide range of chapters on topics from history and art history relating to the monarchy. The contributing authors are Tor Bomann-Larsen, Per Egil Hegge, Nina Høye, Ingeborg Anna Lønning, Knut Ljøgodt, Widar Halén, Bjørn Høie, Knut Ormhaug, Jan Haug, Sven Gj. Gjeruldsen and myself. My two chapters deal with the history of royal travels and with the coronation coach of 1906, the previous coronation processions and why the traditional coronation procession was replaced by a cortege in 1906.
Each of the exhibitions will have one theme. The first of them, to be held in Oslo, deals with royal travels and will show, among other things, presents, travel equipment, dresses, uniforms, jewellery, orders and - the pièce de résistance - the newly renovated coronation coach. This exhibition will be opened by the King on 15 February and be open to the public from 16 February to 26 August this year. (The King’s 75th birthday falls on 21 February, but there will be no public celebrations on that date as the King will not be at home. However, his and the Queen’s birthdays will be celebrated on 31 May).
The second exhibition, which will be held in Bergen from 24 May to 2 September, will show gifts from the people to King Haakon and Queen Maud after their arrival in Norway in 1905 and for their coronation in 1906. The exhibition in Trondheim will open in June 2013 and focus on royal vehicles (here the coronation coach will again be on display), while the exhibition in Tromsø, also to be held in 2013, will show the magnificent collection of artworks which was the people’s present to King Oscar II and Queen Sophie for their silver wedding anniversary in 1882 and which they donated to the state when they were deposed in 1905. In addition there will be a travelling exhibition going to smaller towns which will focus on World War II and the royal family’s exile, and a travelling exhibition of photos from the royal collections which will be sent to schools all over the country.
The exhibitions also have a website, which was officially launched today: http://www.denkongeligereise.no/no/

Majority in favour of Queen Margrethe’s abdication

2012-01-02T13:21:00.002+01:00

Ahead of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark’s jubilee later this month Politiken today publishes an opinion poll conducted by Megafon, which shows that a majority of the respondees wants the Queen to abdicate within ten years. 11 % hold the opinion that the Queen should abdicate immediately, while 40 % believe she should do so in five or ten years’ time. Only 31 % think she should remain on the throne until her death.
This may be compared to a similar opinion poll by Rambøll/Analyse Danmark for Jyllands-Posten at the time of Queen Margrethe’s 70th birthday in 2010, which found that 23.5 % thought she should abdicate on her 70th birthday, 22.1 % that she should do so before she turned eighty and 42.6 % thougth she should remain on the throne for life.
Personally I believe that these results are more a result of the popularity of Crown Prince Frederik and his wife and the general infatuation with everything that is new and young. However, Queen Margrethe has made it clear many times, most recently in an interview published in Politiken yesterday, that she will never abdicate.

President of Iceland to stand down

2012-01-02T13:05:00.001+01:00

The President of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, used his New Year speech to announce that he will not seek re-election to the office of President. After sixteen years as head of state he will thus leave office when his fourth and current term comes to an end on 1 August this year.
A political scientist by profession, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who will be 69 this year, was elected President with 41.4% of the votes in succession to Vigdís Finnbogadóttir in 1996. He was re-elected unopposed in 2000, won 67.5% of the votes cast in 2004 and again re-elected unopposed in 2008.
The role of President of Iceland is largely symbolical, but Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson has twice used his right to veto parliamentary legislation (and thus cause a referendum to be held), a right which none of his four predecessors had ever used.
The next President of Iceland will be elected by popular vote in May.
This means that both Nordic republics will get new heads of state this year, as the second term of the current President of Finland, Tarja Halonen, also expires this year and she is not constitutionally eligible for re-election.

My latest articles: Queen Margrethe, Elsa Cedergren and three reviews

2011-12-30T20:36:00.000+01:00

In mid-January Queen Margrethe II of Denmark will celebrate her forty years on the throne with three days of festivities. On occasion of the jubilee I have written an article titled “Renaissance Queen”, which deals with what I consider some of the most interesting aspects of her reign and which appears in the January issue of the British monthly magazine Majesty (Vol. 33, No. 1), published on 20 December.
Also out just before Christmas was this year’s final issue of Royalty Digest Quarterly (no 4 – 2011), which includes my biographical article on the humanitarian and activist Elsa Cedergren (1893-1996), the youngest daughter of Prince Oscar Bernadotte and sister of the famous Folke Bernadotte. It seems Elsa Cedergren is now primarily remembered for having been the (so far) only Bernadotte to reach the age of 100, but there were certainly much else of interest about her.
To the same magazine I have also contributed reviews of Philip Eade’s excellent Young Prince Philip: His Turbulent Early Life and Ilana D. Miller’s The Four Graces: Queen Victoria’s Hessian Granddaughters. (Concerning the latter title the editor has, curiously, chosen to add a second “review” by Charlotte Zeepvat, who appears to be a friend of the author and is thanked profusely in the book’s preface for her help and support.)
The Society for Court Studies has also brought out this year’s second issue of their journal The Court Historian (Volume 16, 2), which contains several very interesting articles and to which I have been happy to contribute a review article about the exhibition “Härskarkonst – Napoleon, Karl Johan, Alexander” (“Staging Power – Napoleon, Charles John, Alexander”), which was held at the National Museum in Stockholm from September 2010 to January 2011.
These bring the total number of my published works this year up to nineteen, consisting of seven topical or biographical articles, four op-eds, six reviews, one obituary and one letter to the editor.

77 % support Danish monarchy

2011-12-28T18:59:00.000+01:00

Ahead of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark’s upcoming jubilee Politiken yesterday began a series of articles about the monarchy through the past forty years. While yesterday’s article (external link) dealt with the death of Frederik IX and the accession of Margrethe II, Politiken today publishes an opinion poll (external link) conducted by Megafon which shows that 77 % of the respondees support the monarchy, while 16 % want a republic.
The newspaper points out that this is a sharp contrast to the situation when Queen Margrethe ascended the throne in 1972, a time when only 42 % were in favour of a continued monarchy. Support for the monarchy then rose steadily until ten years ago (51 % in 1978, 69 % in 1987, 72 % in 1992, 93 % in 2001) before falling somewhat in recent years (82 % in 2004 and 77 % today).
The poll also shows that the monarchy enjoys support from voters of all parliamentary parties, except one: 80 % among those who votes for the Social Democrats, 68 % among the Danish Social Liberal Party, 85 % among the Conservatives, 71 % among the Socialist People’s Party, 78 % among the Liberal Alliance, 82 % among the Danish People’s Party and 87 % among the Liberal Party, but only 36 % among those who give their vote to the Red-Green Alliance.

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-23T22:49:00.000+01:00

A photo from Stockholm to wish all my readers a happy Christmas!

At the road’s end: Václav Havel (1936-2011), dramatist, dissident and president

2011-12-18T15:39:00.000+01:00

One of the greatest men of our times has died. It was announced earlier today that Václav Havel died in his sleep this morning at the age of 75, after a long battle against lung cancer. The hero of 1989 and former President of Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic was last seen in public when he met the Dalai Lama nine days ago.
Born in Prague on 5 October 1936, Havel first became known as a dramatist, essayist and poet. His works often had a political message and he became one of the country’s leading dissidents following the Soviet invasion of 1968. He was among the founders of the opposition group known as Charter 77 (from their human rights manifesto) and was consequently imprisoned on a number of occasions.
This only increased his stature as a leading dissident and in 1989 Havel was at the front of the so-called Velvet Revolution, the peaceful demonstrations centering on Wenceslas Square in Prague, which brought down the Communist regime. On 29 December 1989 Havel was elected President of Czechoslovakia by the Federal Assembly.
As President he presided over free election in the summer of 1990 and the establishment of multi-party democracy. He opposed the break-up of the country, which came into effect on 1 January 1993, but was elected President of the new republic on 26 January 1993. He was reelected for a second five-year term in 1998.
Havel was an enthusiastic advocate of the eastwards expansion of NATO and saw his country join the alliance during his presidency. Negotiations for EU membership also began during his presidency and the Czech Republic joined the union in 2004, a year after Havel had left office. He was succeeded by his political opponent Václav Klaus.
Despite health problems Havel remained active as a politician as well as an artist in the years following his resignation.
The photo is by courtesy of Martin Kozák/Wikipedia.

A documentary on royal jewels

2011-12-16T16:14:00.001+01:00

Last Sunday Danish television DR broadcast the first episode of a two-part documentary on royal jewels. The first episode dealt with the jewels of the Danish and Swedish royal families, while the second episode, to be broadcast the coming Sunday, will tell the story of the Russian imperial jewels. The documentary is to a great extent made up of interviews with current royals and archive footage and is quite well made, although there are, regrettably, several factual mistakes and inaccuracies, both concerning the jewels and history in general, and the quality of some of the still photos might have been better. A book based on the series is due to be published in the spring. The first part of the documentary can be watched in its entirety at this external link: http://www.dr.dk/nu/player/#/de-kongelige-juveler/25394

Doubts over authenticity of alleged King Carl Gustaf photos

2011-12-16T12:56:00.001+01:00

Expressen today publishes the photo allegedly showing King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden watching women having sex which has been at the heart of the scandal which began with the publication of the book Carl XVI Gustaf – Den motvillige monarken by Thomas Sjöberg, Deanne Rauscher and Tove Meyer.
The photo is due to be published in a biography of the gangster Mille Markovic in January, but experts consulted by Expressen doubt its authenticity.
The experts from British LGC Forensics and Audio Video Forensics and an unnamed Swedish firm conclude that the picture is taken from a video and that some changes have obviously been made to it to make it appear more as a video filmed in secrecy; a “rec” symbol and cross hairs have been added. The shadows and the lighting also make the experts believe that the face of the man watching the three women, said to be the King, may have been pasted on another body, but they cannot say this for sure.
Bertil Ternert, the Director of the Information and Press Department at the Royal Palace, is naturally jubilant and insists that this shows that the King spoke the truth when he denied the allegations in an interview in May.
Meanwhile Markovic continues to insist that the photo is genuine and adds that he will publish more photos and videos compromising the King on his website the day after his biography is published.
Peter Eriksson (the Green Party), the leader of Parliament’s standing committee on constitutional affairs says to the news agency TT that the revelation that the photo has probably been manipulated is of little relevance to the debate about confidence in the King. He finds it more relevant whether the King’s friends have had contact with criminals and if the King has known about such contact.

Edward VIII’s forgotten coronation portrait comes to light

2011-12-15T19:57:00.000+01:00

Last weekend saw the 75th anniversary of the abdication of King Edward VIII of Britain, which was signed on 10 December 1936 and came into effect the following day, and this anniversary was the occasion for the publication of an unknown coronation portrait of the uncrowned king.
During a recent move of offices one found a proof copy of the Illustrated London News’s coronation issue, which had been prepared in advance of his coronation, set for 12 May 1937. Among the illustrations was a reproduction of a portrait by Albert Collings, showing King Edward VIII in his coronation clothes, the Imperial State Crown and other regalia resting by his side. The original portrait is, according to the Daily Telegraph, believed to have been lost during World War II.

POSTSCRIPT: The Daily Telegraph today (3 January 2012) reports what happened to the portrait: the face of Edward VIII was quite simply painted over and replaced with that of George VI. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/8979604/George-VI-Coronation-portrait-early-example-of-photo-shopping.html)

New books: Prince Albert’s death and its impact

2011-12-14T21:04:00.000+01:00

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Albert, Prince Consort of Britain, on 14 December 1861, which the British author Helen Rappaport has made the topic of her new book Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy, published by Hutchinson. The story is very well-known, but Rappaport’s book is well-written and she has used some less familiar sources to add some new voices to the story.
The opening scene is the happy Christmas of 1860, which was celebrated at Windsor Castle, a place, Rappaport reminds us, which Queen Victoria, despite how it is often associated with her, did not much care for. This makes for a sharp contrast to the gloom of the following Christmas, by which time Prince Albert was dead. Rappaport subscribes to the theory that Prince Albert got Queen Victoria on to the track of constitutional, politically un-biased monarchy, and shows to what great extent the Queen relied on her husband.
A significant event occurring between Christmas 1860 and Christmas 1861 was the death of Queen Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent. Since her accession in 1837, Victoria had kept her mother at an arm-length’s distance, but when going through her belongings the Queen realised the extent of her mother’s love for her. Victoria threw herself into an extravagant grief, in which she seems to have found some sort of pleasure. She noted with relish how she was complimented on “the manner in which I have shown my grief” and stated quite openly that “I do not wish to feel better”. Victoria’s almost theatrical grief for her mother and the way she wallowed in it was obviously re-played, but on a much grander scale, after Prince Albert died later that year.
The story of Prince Albert’s illness and death in December 1861 is told in great detail, perhaps a bit too long-winded. More interesting is the account of the overwhelming public reaction to the Prince Consort’s death, which is followed by the story of Queen Victoria’s posthumous idolisation of her late husband, the cult created around his memory, her withdrawal from public life and the dangers this posed for the monarchy. This is again a story very well-known to anyone familiar with the history of the British monarchy in the nineteenth century, but Rappaport presents it well.
She also exposes Queen Victoria’s self-centred egotism and the way in which she was perfectly capable of doing what she really wanted, but when she did not want to do something she got her loyal (perhaps too loyal) physician to back up her claims that the fulfilment of her duty would pose a danger to her health. The author also shows how the Queen’s private secretaries were perfectly aware that she did not work as hard on the official papers as she tried to make people believe. Indeed, the more one reads about Queen Victoria the harder it is to like her.
While attempting to explain what caused Victoria’s extravagant mourning for her husband, it seems to me that the author misses out on one point, which again draws a parallel to the death of her mother. “Victoria was always there ready to adore him, to hang on to his every word, his every kiss, to praise unstintingly and monopolise his time, but Albert was tiring of her relentless, cloying admiration and her never-ending emotional hunger”, Rappaport writes about the relationship between wife and husband.
But what goes unmentioned is the fact that Victoria did not always treat her husband very well, indeed her at times irrational behaviour towards him seems to have tormented him. To lose the one she loved and realising that she had not been particularly kind to him when he was alive may well have caused a feeling of guilt and a desire to try to make it up to him by excessive displays of grief and idolisation.
The book disintegrates somewhat towards the end, where the author rather briefly sums up the remaining decades of Queen Victoria’s life before returning to Christmas 1878, when her second eldest daughter, Grand Duchess Alice, died on the seventeenth anniversary of the father she had nursed, and then moving on to a chapter where the author challenges the oft-repeated story that the Prince Consort died from typhoid fever and argues that the cause of death was most likely Crohn’s disease.
The appendix on what Prince Albert died from would have worked better if it had been inserted into its natural chronological place in the book. Particularly given the emphasis put on the Prince of Wales’s near-death experience from typhoid fever on the tenth anniversary of his father’s death it would have been better if the reader had already then been told that the author does not believe that the illness which afflicted the Prince of Wales was the same that killed his father.
The book might have benefited from a more thorough fact check. Queen Victoria was forty-two, not forty-three, when her husband died; Prince Arthur was at that time eleven and not ten. The bride chosen for the Prince of Wales was not Princess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, but of Denmark; Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck is erroneously demoted to “Princess Mary Adelaide of Teck”; there was no French “Emperor Louis Napoleon”, but an Emperor Napoléon III; the author continues to refer to “Princess Alice” even after she had become Grand Duchess; and the King of Sweden and of Norway is erroneously referred to as King of only one of these two countries when he, again erroneously, is said to have visited “the Swedish legation”. The titles of the British nobility also seem to be a mystery to the author; the same person cannot be both Lady Augusta Bruce and Lady Bruce, Lady Jane Churchill and Lady Churchill, Lord John Russell and Lord Russell, and so on.
Despite these reservations the overall impression is that Helen Rappaport has produced a readable account of the well-known story of Prince Albert’s death and its consequences.

New books: Napoléon, his age and his ideas

2011-12-13T20:39:00.000+01:00

Given that there are literally hundreds of thousands of books on Napoléon I, I generally wonder each time a new one appears what is its purpose. Many of them are obviously superfluous, but Alan Forrest’s recent book Napoleon, published by Quercus, stands out as one which is worth reading.
Forrest is professor of modern history at the University of York and may be considered one of the leading British scholars on the revolutionary and Napoleonic epochs in French history. He repeatedly states his initial reluctance to make the transition from writing social history of the revolution to a biography of Napoléon and this also influences the book, but in a good way.
If there are individuals who defined their age in such a way that their biography and the history of their era are virtually the same thing, Napoléon is obviously one of the best examples. Forrest’s book thus combines the story of Napoléon’s life with the history of France and Europe during that half-century.
The story is framed by chapters on the late Emperor’s reburial in Paris in 1840 at the beginning and his “life after death” at the end. There is less about his personal life than in many other biographies and Forrest generally avoids the lengthy accounts of campaigns and battles with which some of Napoléon’s biographers try their readers’ patience.
On the other hand Professor Forrest is particularly strong on the ideas that shaped Napoléon and his age and on the system which Napoléon created. The book is mercifully not part of the propaganda war which many of Napoléon’s biographers, perhaps in particular the British ones, still seem to be fighting. Indeed Forrest’s book is neither laudatory nor vindictive, but rather critical in the best meaning of that word and the author gives credit where he thinks credit is due and criticises what he thinks deserves to be criticised.
The book is entirely based on secondary sources and there are no new revelations to be found in this book (indeed it is by now hardly possible to find unknown primary sources), but Alan Forrest’s interpretation of the man and the age and his clear analyses make for one of the most interesting books on Napoléon to be published in recent years.

Scientists find King Magnus Ladulås is not in his grave

2011-12-12T21:16:00.000+01:00

This spring the grave of King Magnus Ladulås and his family in the Riddarholmen Church in Stockholm was opened with the purpose of comparing his DNA with the remains in Varnhem Church which are believed to be those of his father, Duke Birger Magnusson. The grave opening was the subject of an exhibition in the Riddarholmen Church this summer, but on Friday the final results were presented at a press conference at the Medieval Museum in Stockholm and they were certainly a surprise: the remains in King Magnus’s grave are not those of King Magnus!
King Magnus died in 1290 and stated in his will that he wished to be buried in the Riddarholmen Church. In the 1570s King Johan III commissioned impressive tombs for King Magnus Ladulås (pictured above) and King Karl Knutsson. When King Magnus’s tomb was opened this summer the remains of nine people were found beneath the floor, but the test results show beyond doubt that these remains are all of people who died between the 1430s and the 1520s.
The scientists will now ask the royal court for permission to open the tomb of King Karl Knutsson, which they hope they will be able to do next spring, but in the worst case not until 2014. The new theory is now that King Karl Knutsson, who reigned thrice as King of Sweden in the fifteenth century (and briefly as King of Norway 1449-1450) but did not have royal ancestry, was buried in the grave of King Magnus Ladulås to “borrow” legitimacy. The tomb of Karl Knutsson was opened a century ago, when a skeleton was found 140 centimetres below the floor. Apparently one now thinks that this might be Magnus Ladulås rather than Karl Knutsson.
What puzzles me is why one seems to reject the idea that the two tombs may simply have been placed over the wrong graves in the 1570s. Given that King Karl Knutsson died in 1470 one wonders if his remains might be among the nine skeletons from the 1430s-1520s in the grave which has until now been believed to be Magnus Ladulås’s. Apparently the scientists have not stated anything about whose bones they think these are.

Swedish Parliament approves greater scrutiny of royal finances

2011-12-08T12:54:00.001+01:00

The Swedish Parliament yesterday debated the issue of greater scrutiny over royal finances. After a lengthy debate the government was defeated by 146 votes to 144. This means that earlier agreements (of 1996 and 2005) between the government and the Office of the Marshal of the Realm will have to be revised and that one will have to find a way to account in more detail for how the money the monarchy receives from the state is spent (private expenses will be exempt).
As could be expected, the ongoing scandal about King Carl Gustaf and his friends was brought up in the debate, where the Conservative MP Andreas Norlén accused the Social Democrats of having changed their minds because of the book Carl XVI Gustaf - Den motvillige monarken. This was denied by Social Democrat MP Sven-Erik Österberg, who added that the court ought to be more afraid of the King’s friends than of the Social Democrats.

King Carl Gustaf’s former friend takes all the blame

2011-12-08T12:35:00.001+01:00

In the latest chapter in the scandal relating to the King of Sweden and his former friend Anders Lettström’s negotiations with criminals over the book Carl XVI Gustaf - Den motvillige monarken, negotiations which Lettström in recently published tapes said that the King was informed about despite the monarch’s earlier firm denial of this, Lettström today launches a stinging attack on the media in an op-ed in Dagens Nyheter, where he also takes all the blame upon himself.
Much of the article is about Lettström denying claims made about himself in that book and his criticism of the way the media has handled this story (apparently he suspects that he has been bugged).
But most importantly Lettström stresses again that he did not negotiate with the criminals on King Carl Gustaf’s behalf, but solely on his own intiative. He repeats his claim that the King was neither involved nor informed.
That tapes have emerged where Lettström repeatedly says that the King has been informed about the negotiations is explained by that he felt pressured and tried to find a way to bring the contacts with the criminals to an end without endangering the safety of his family. Thus he sometimes said what he assumed the gangsters wanted to hear, “which in itself was not always true”.
Although he does not say so directly, Lettström’s op-ed implicitly admits that he also lied when he claimed that the tapes were falsifications and when he insisted he had never made any payments to the gangsters. Lettström is thus left without much credibility.
One may hope that this can contribute to taking some of the pressure off the King, but still I have the feeling that we have not heard the last about this story.

Opinion polls on the Swedish royal crisis

2011-12-07T12:26:00.001+01:00

Following the recent developments in the ongoing scandal involving the King of Sweden and the suggestion made by leading parliamentarians that there should be an investigation into whether the King has known about his friend’s negotiations with criminals (and if so, lied to the people), the country’s largest newspaper Aftonbladet yesterday published an opinion poll (external link) by Sifo which shows that 65 % of the respondees are opposed to such an investigation, while 23 % are in favour of it and 11 % undecided.
But the same poll also shows dwindling support for the King: Only 34 % believe he should remain on the throne until his death, while 20 % think he should abdicate immediately, 17 % that he should abdicate within five years and 13 % that he should abdicate within ten years, leaving 16 % undecided.
In another opinion poll (external link), conducted by Novus and published by TV4, 32 % answer yes when asked if the King should abdicate in favour of Crown Princess Victoria, 37 % say no, 21 % say that the monarchy should be abolished and 10 % do not know. When asked directly about monarchy or republic, 58 % declare themselves in favour of retaining the monarchy, while 32 % want to abolish it and 10 % do not know. Of the 1,000 respondees interviewed yesterday and the day before yesterday, 11 % say they have great confidence in the King, 19 % that they have fairly great confidence in him, 35 % that they have neither great nor little confidence in him, 16 % that they have rather little, 19 % that they have very little confidence in the King and 1 % that they do not know.
Meanwhile the leading article (external link) in Dagens Nyheter, the largest broadsheet, today says that the fire is now approaching the King and that the King’s position is dependent on people feeling confidence in him. The leader stresses that the King cannot under any circumstances associate with criminals and that he can not continue as head of state if it turns out that he has, either actively or passively, accepted negotiations with criminals.

Top parliamentarians call for investigation of King Carl Gustaf

2011-12-05T12:12:00.001+01:00

Following Saturday’s new development in the saga about King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and the alleged contacts with criminals in order to deny claims made in a scandalous book on the King, two leading parliamentarians have now called for an investigation of the King’s role in the affair.
Peter Eriksson of the Green Party (the third largest party in Parliament), who heads Parliament standing committee on constitutional affairs, said to Svenska Dagbladet yesterday that the survival of the monarchy is dependent on the people’s trust, but that this trust is now in danger of being undermined and that the King should therefore himself take the initiative to investigate this affair. This, says Eriksson, should also be in the King’s own interest.
Sven-Erik Österberg, the leader of the Social Democrat fraction in the constitutional committee, who is also the former parliamentary leader of his party and was widely expected to become its new party leader earlier this year, supports Eriksson’s view and adds that the situation is very serious if it turns out that the King has indeed lied.
On Wednesday Parliament is scheduled to debate a proposal for greater transparency in relation to the royal court’s finances, a proposal it seems will be carried against the votes of the government. MP Mia Mölleby, who representents the Left Party in the constitutional committee, says that, in light of the recent revelations, she will use Wednesday’s debate to propose the abolition of the monarchy. That proposal will surely be defeated, but it will be interesting to see to what extent the debate on transparency turns into a debate on the King or the monarchy itself.

King of Sweden in trouble again

2011-12-03T18:13:00.001+01:00

Another chapter in the never-ending story of King Carl XVI Gustaf, the scandalous biography and the gangsters was opened today, taking the story into what may be turn out to be a critical phase as it appears the King may have lied to his people. Calls for abdication if this is true have already been heard.
It may be recalled that it all began with the publication of the book Carl XVI Gustaf - Den motvillige monarken by Thomas Sjöberg, Deanne Rauscher and Tove Meyer, which made several scandalous claims about the monarch’s private life, claims which the King only partly denied. One of the few named sources in the book was a notorious gangster by the name of Mille Markovic, who threatened to publish compromising photos of the King and his friends. In May it was revealed that Anders Lettström, one of the King’s closest friends since childhood, subsequently contacted two other gangsters, Milan Sevo and Daniel Webb, in order to persuade them to get into contact with Markovic, buy the photos and make him deny the claims made in the book. The affair foundered when Markovic demanded too high a price.
In a written statement and in a highly embarrasing TV interview which surely marked the nadir of his reign, King Carl Gustaf was almost literally put up against the wall and forced to answer a series of detailed questions about his private life. In the TV interview he stated that there could not possibly exist any such photos and categorically denied that he had known about Lettström’s contacts with criminals in order to purchase such pictures. He distanced himself clearly from Lettström, even going as far as saying he would never again speak to his childhood friend, except perhaps at a deathbed reconciliation.
It was generally considered at that time that if it turned out the King had lied, he would probably be finished. And today the newspaper Aftonbladet publishes transcripts of conversations between Lettström and Milan Sevo and Daniel Webb, which the latter taped without Lettström’s knowledge, in which Lettström says, among other things, that he has informed the King that Markovic might be willing to deny the claims made in the book against payment.
When confronted with this by the newspaper yesterday, Lettström maintains that he never informed the King about the negotiations with criminals and claims that the tapes are manipulated. However, the latter claim is rejected by Swedish as well as British experts.
There remains the possibility that Lettström may not have spoken the truth when he said to the gangsters that he had informed the King about how the negotiations were proceeding.
But if it turns out to be true that the King knew about his friend’s negotiations with notorious criminals, he has made himself impossible as head of state, commentator Lena Mellin writes in Aftonbladet. The political scientist Ulf Bjereld says to Svenska Dagbladet that the King having lied to the people creates a very serious situation and that monarchists may now call for King Carl Gustaf’s abdication in favour of Crown Princess Victoria.
It seems this story, which was certainly the last thing the Swedish royal family needed, will not go away.

New books: The reign of Queen Margrethe II

2011-11-30T12:29:00.001+01:00

In the flood of books on Queen Margrethe II of Denmark – books of interviews, picture albums, year by year cavalcades, books on her art, the Queen and theatre, the Queen and archaeology, the Queen and her sisters, the portraits of the Queen and so on – I have always missed a proper biography of this perhaps most interesting of current European monarchs. Thus Jens Andersen’s biography M – 40 år på tronen, published by Lindhardt og Ringhof last Friday, is a welcome addition to the Margrethiana.
Dr Andersen, who is literary editor of the newspaper Berlingske, is one of Denmark’s most noted biographers and his tome on Hans Christian Andersen has been translated into several languages. His biography of the Queen has been written to mark her upcoming fortieth anniversary on the throne and although the Queen and other members of the Danish and Norwegian royal families have allowed themselves to be interviewed, it stands out from other Margrethe books by not being based solely on interviews with her.
Indeed Andersen has done his research well and draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources. The fact that other voices than the Queen’s are heard, thus providing other perspectives than the subject’s, alone contributes to making this one of the most interesting books which has been written about Margrethe II.
The author has chosen to leave out Queen Margrethe’s early life (except in retrospect when relevant) and to deal exclusively with his reign, which he divides up in chronological chapters which treat a few years at the time. Often these chapters will relate some key events before leading to a more thorough exploration of one or more topics which are of particular relevance to this time period, such as for instance the Queen’s constitutional role, her use of the language, her support for the new nations which emerged out of the events of 1989-1991, or her relations with Greenland.
The book does not contain any great revelations, but adds some titbits of interest, for instance that the Queen thinks her first Prime Minister, Jens Otto Krag, viewed her as a “clumsy teenager” or that she first met the future Queen Sonja already in the summer of 1959. By this stage so much has been written about Queen Margrethe that one can hardly except much new of major interest to appear in her lifetime, but Andersen succeeds brilliantly in putting Margrethe II and her reign into the context of its times and in highlighting some of the longer lines which run through those forty years. One of the long lines he treats particularly thoroughly is the immigration issue, the other women’s liberation.
The author observes that the Queen has become quite good at expressing opinions in a way that does not make them political statements in themselves, but contributes to an ethical discussion. The author has made full use of Queen Margrethe’s New Year speeches, which are rarely dull and which she has used to voice her concerns about issues which have not always been uncontroversial. One recurring topic throughout her reign has been the immigration issue, which has not always sat well with xenophobic Danes. The author sees the Queen’s concerns with this issue in relation to her own family situation, where she has seen up close the challenges faced by immigrants.
Now that Margrethe II has been on the throne for forty years, she is universally admired and respected and the Danish monarchy stands solidly on its feet, it is very useful to be reminded that this has not always been the case. She became queen rather suddenly, at the age of only 31, at a time when the standing of the monarchy was low, and the first decade or so of her reign was marked by a severe economic crisis and a chaotic parliamentary situation.
Andersen shows not only how things have changed since then, but also how Margrethe II herself has developed. For instance he investigates how the Queen in the years immediately after her accession found her way to a deep religious faith, which has come to mean much to her, and also how she began to find her feet as an artist, which afforded her the opportunity to be evaluated by talent rather than by birthright.
The author is generally respectful towards his subject and seems to have a certain admiration for her (which indeed most people seem to have), but he is not fawning or uncritical. Also, he does not avoid some of less pleasant topics or episodes, such as the Prince Consort’s difficulties with his royal role, the award of the Grand Cross of the Order of Dannebrog to the King of Bahrain shortly before his violent suppression of the uprising earlier this year, or the controversy of the antependium the Queen made for Roskilde Cathedral.
Occasionally I found some of the more narrative parts a bit long-winded (for instance about the royal visit to the USA in 1976) and I could have wished for more on the Queen’s views and thoughts about the role of the monarchy in her own days, but the overall impression is that this is an excellent biography which adds something valuable to our understanding of its subject. This seems likely to become a classic among the vast number of books on Queen Margrethe II and a book which current and future students of her reign should not miss out on.
(As a disclaimer I should add that although I am among the historians quoted in the book, this does not disqualify me from reviewing it as I have not contributed to it).

New books: Royal splendour from across Europe

2011-11-27T21:59:00.001+01:00

On the occasion of the wedding of Sovereign Prince Albert II and Princess Charlène of Monaco this summer the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco held an exhibition titled no less than “Magnificence and Grandeur of the Royal Houses in Europe”. I did not see the exhibition, but a while ago I got hold of the eponymous catalogue, edited by Catherine Arminjon, which bears testimony to a sumptuous exhibition of royal treasures from across Europe.
The catalogue is arranged geographically, starting with Portugal and Spain before moving north to France, Britain, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden and then south again from Russia via Poland, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Austria, the Hungarian Esterházys, the Savoys of Turin and the Bourbons of Naples before ending up in Monaco.
Thus Liechtenstein is the only of the current European monarchies not included in the exhibition, which is a pity given that the princely collection is one of the grandest in Europe, probably second only to that of Britain. The British Royal Collection has also not lent anything to the exhibition, so the British section is made up of loans from mostly French collections (a bust from the Victoria & Albert Museum is the only British-owned item included).
But the other extant monarchies have all lent items from their royal collections – some more generously than others. Being Norwegian I notice that the loans from this country are actually quite impressive, even including Queen Maud’s coronation gown.
Covering all this in one exhibition or one volume would obviously be impossible and the solution chosen is to focus on one monarch (or couple) per country – Denmark and Prussia being the exceptions by including respectively both Christian IV and Christian IX and the entire Hohenzollern dynasty from Friedrich I to Friedrich Wilhelm IV. The chosen person(s) is often, but not always, the founder of a dynasty – Felipe V of Spain, Adolphe of Luxembourg, Léopold I of the Belgians, Haakon VII of Norway.
For each country there is one main essay, generally followed by one or two shorter and more specific texts and finally a catalogue of the items relating to the country in question. The essays are diverse in their contents, with some authors choosing to write short biographical essays while authors set focus on one topic in particular.
As is the case with all anthologies, some essays are obviously more successful than others. Among the better ones one could mention Philippe Maarschalkerweerd on the education of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Andrea Merlotti on the achievements of King Vittorio Amadeo of Sardinia and Sicily, Gustaf Janssens on King Léopold I of the Belgians’s brand of constitutional monarchy, Peter Kristiansen on King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway, Magnus Olausson on the public persona of King Gustaf III of Sweden and Lorenz Seelig on the artistic patronage of King Ludwig I of Bavaria.
The only main essay which does not measure up is, unfortunately I must say, the Norwegian one, which has been written by Widar Halén, director of design and decorative art at the National Museum in Oslo. It seems obvious that Halén has very little knowledge and understanding of the topic he has been asked to write about and has done little about this.
His essay is, bewilderedly, entitled “The new Norwegian monarchy and its context”, and from the text it seems clear that he does indeed think that there was an entirely new Norwegian monarchy in 1905. Thus he refers to “King Oscar II of Sweden” as if Norway had been a Swedish province rather than an independent kingdom in a personal union with its eastern neighbour. He also claims that independence came only in 1905 and that the monogram of Haakon VII “was soon being brandished as a symbol of freedom, particularly during World War II”. In fact this happened only during World War II. It seems obvious that Halén has understood little of what really happened in 1905.
He adds some nonsense about the mediaeval book The King’s Mirror saying that “to serve and honor the king is to pay homage to God”. If this “is seen simply as a description of the king’s immunity and exceptional status, its significance for modern Norway is more readily understood. It was on this basis ten that the Norwegian people chose Prince Carl of Denmark and Princess Maud, daughter of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra of Great Britain, as king and queen of Norway”. Reading this, one can but wonder what on earth he is talking about.
To these examples of his own confusion he adds several factual mistakes, such as the claim that Queen Maud died at Appleton House, that the accession of a new monarch was proclaimed from the palace balcony in 1958 (sic) as well as in 1991 or that the Constitution of 17 May 1814 irrevocably abolished the nobility. Using Snorre Sturlason’s Heimskringla as a historical source is highly questionable, to put it mildly.
If asked to write an essay on a topic about which one knows little, one can either decline, or try to learn something about it in order to make the best out of it, or put one’s own confusion into print. Sadly the Norwegian essay of this catalogue is an example of the latter option.
There are inevitably some mistakes to be found also in other parts of the catalogue and the English language is sometimes flawed. Occasionally there is a quaint expression, sometimes a sentence does not make sense, but I am left wondering whether this is due to the translators or a result of the various authors with varying command of the language having been required to write in English.
The catalogue is beautifully designed and having read it, the main impression is that it makes for an interesting grand tour through the history of Europe’s monarchies, taking in some of the most interesting stories to be found along the way and giving an impression of the splendour associated with the royal courts of Europe in recent centuries.

At the road’s end: Elisabeth, Duchess of Hohenberg, Princess of Luxembourg (1922-2011)

2011-11-22T21:22:00.001+01:00

The grand ducal court of Luxembourg has announced the death of the Grand Duke’s aunt, Duchess Elisabeth of Hohenberg, née Princess of Luxembourg, at the age of 88.
The second of the six children of Grand Duchess Charlotte and Prince Félix, Princess Elisabeth Hilda Zita Marie Anna Antonia Friederike Wilhelmine Luise of Luxembourg was born on 22 December 1922. Like the rest of the grand ducal family she spent part of her youth in exile during World War II, but was able to return to Luxembourg following its liberation.
on 9 May 1956 she married Duke Franz Ferdinand of Hohenberg, the grandson of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne whose assassination together with his morganatic wife in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 sparked World War I. The couple had two daughters: Anna, known as Anita, born in 1958, and Sophie, born in 1960. The Duke died in 1977.
The late Duchess will be buried at Artstetten Castle in Austria, where the victims of Sarajevo are also buried, but a memorial service will also be held in the Church of Saint Michel in Luxembourg at a date which has not yet been decided.

At the road’s end: Danielle Mitterrand (1924-2011), activist and former first lady of France

2011-11-22T21:11:00.001+01:00

It has been announced that Danielle Mitterrand, activist, veteran of the French resistance and the country’s former first lady, died today at the age of 87.
Born Danielle Émilienne Isabelle Gouze in Verdun on 29 October 1924, she joined the French resistance movement as a nurse at the age of seventeen. She met the resistance fighter François Mitterrand while helping him to escape, fell in love and married him in 1944. The couple had three sons.
Danielle Mitterrand was noted for her involvement in a wide range of issues, including supporting the Tibetans and the Kurds, water ressources, slavery, the death penalty and, more recently, anti-globalisation. Her activism was not always welcomed by the Quai d’Orsay.
In 1981 her husband was elected President of France, in which role he served until 1995. He died from cancer the following year and many will remember the image of his widow and their sons standing shoulder to shoulder with his mistress and their daughter at his funeral.

On this date: The first coronation in Nidaros Cathedral

2011-11-20T18:38:00.003+01:00

Today is the 562nd anniversary of the first coronation to take place in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, now considered Norway’s foremost national monument and the obvious coronation church since time immemorial.
But it was in fact only on 20 November 1449 that such a ceremony took place in the great cathedral. Earlier coronations, which are known in Norway from 1163/1164, took place first in Bergen and later in Oslo, when that town succeeded Bergen as capital.
The Kalmar Union, which had been founded in 1397 and which united the three Scandinavian realms under one monarch, fell apart when King Christoffer on 5 or 6 January 1448 died suddenly in Helsingborg on his way to Sweden.
The Danes subsequently elected Count Christian of Oldenburg their new king, while the Swedes chose the nobleman Karl Knutsson of the Bonde family. Norway was no longer strong enough to stand alone and thus had to choose between Christian and Karl.
There were parties in favour of both candidates, but in June 1449 the Norwegian Council of the Realm chose Christian as King of Norway. This marked the transition from hereditary monarchy to electoral monarchy and Christian I thus issued a royal contract, the first such in Norwegian history.
But Karl’s supporters, led by Archbishop Aslak Bolt, did not give up. In June they managed to get the populace at the assembly called Frostating to declare their willingness to elect Karl king on certain conditions. The election took place at Hamar on 25 October and Karl continued north to Trondheim, where his coronation took place on 20 November.
We know little about the actual coronation, except that the Archbishop placed the crown on the King’s head with the assistance of the Bishop of Hamar and that several men were subsequently knighted.
Four days later an open letter to Christian I was issued in the name of the Norwegian people, where he was encouraged not to come to Norway as one had now elected and crowned Karl in the place where “rightful kings should be elected and crowned, which is in Trondheim”.
But this was not quite true, given that no kings had ever before been crowned in Trondheim. However, Nidaros, as Trondheim was called then, was where kings had been installed (or “taken as king”, as the term said) since at least the tenth century and since 1152/1153 it was also the seat of the powerful archbishop. And Nidaros Cathedral was the shrine of King Olav Haraldsson, Norway’s patron saint. Thus there were several reasons to hold a coronation there.
A practical reason was obviously that the Cathedral was the Archbishop’s own church and his crowning the King there was a visual demonstration of his role as kingmaker and underlined the position of the powerful church in relation to the King. One reason why Archbishop Aslak Bolt supported Karl’s candidature in the first place may well have been that he seemed likely to be a weaker monarch than Christian, which the church would benefit from. The royal contract issued by Karl was indeed more generous towards the church than Christian’s, which it otherwise closely resembled.
The coronation of Karl Knutsson, which contravened the Council of the Realm’s decision and could therefore be considered revolutionary, meant that there were now two rival kings of Norway. King Karl went back to Sweden to collect an army, but the following year he failed in his attempt at taking Akershus Castle in Oslo.
Negotiations were held in Halmstad, where the Swedish representatives, much to Karl’s chagrin, agreed that he should renounce his rights to Norway in favour of King Christian. Karl had little choice but to accept the outcome and on 10 June 1450 he ratified the Halmstad agreement.
Later that summer Christian I was crowned in Nidaros Cathedral, obviously in order to cancel out the usurper’s coronation. Christian’s son, King Hans, was also crowned there in 1483, but thereafter no coronations were held in Nidaros Cathedral until 1818, by which time the Constitution of 1814 had decided that kings should be crowned in that church.
Karl Knutsson’s remaining life was turbulent and marked by continued struggles with Christian I over supremacy in the north. He was twice driven from the Swedish throne, but returned in 1467 and reigned until his death in 1470. Much to the irritation of King Christian he also continued to use the title “King of Norway”. The Norwegian lion is also incorporated into his arms on his sarcophagus in the Riddarholm Church in Stockholm (second photo), which was executed by Lukas van der Werdt around 1574.
Unlike other claimants and usurpers Karl Knutsson is still included in the official lists of the kings of Norway. The reason for the difference in treatment seems to be the fact that he was indeed crowned in the national monument that is Nidaros Cathedral.

New books: The iconography of Elizabeth II

2011-11-19T19:26:00.001+01:00

The diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain is approaching and to mark the occasion the National Portrait Gallery is, as previously mentioned, holding a travelling exhibition titled “The Queen: Art & Image”. Having already been shown in Edinburgh, it is now in Belfast and will go to Cardiff before ending up in London from 17 May to 21 October.
David Moorhouse, the NPG’s curator of twentieth century portraits, has put together the catalogue of the same name, which begins with an essay of historical reflections on the reign of Elizabeth II by the renowned historian Sir David Cannadine. The story of Britain and the British monarchy in the days of Elizabeth II is in many ways the story of recessional, Professor Cannadine argues.
It is also a story of great change, and he points out that Britain and its “imperial-ornamental” monarchy as they were at the outset of Elizabeth II’s reign might have been fairly easily recognisable to the old Queen Victoria. The “most pronounced themes” of Elizabeth II’s sixty years are “the de-Victorianisation and the downsizing of Britain and its empire, and also of the British monarchy”.
Cannadine also touches upon how the image of Queen Elizabeth, “probably the most visually depicted and represented individual ever to have existed across the entire span of human history”, has evolved and how the way the constitutional monarchy has developed makes it “in many ways a feminised monarchy”, which again “makes it easier for a regnant queen to be sympathetically portrayed than a mere dignified king”.
But the image and perception of the Queen is mostly dealt with by Paul Moorhouse in the book’s second essay. Moorhouse argues that the sixty years of Elizabeth II’s reign has seen “a revolution in the way the Queen is represented and perceived”. He divides these sixty years into three eras:
The period from 1952 to the mid-1960s “reflects a concern with the young Queen’s appearance”; the era from the late 1960s to the early 1980s “demonstrates a new concern with reinventing the sovereign’s public image”; while era consisting of the last thirty years “manifests and ongoing engagement with the questions of what the Queen represents”.
The first era saw a certain interest in the new monarch’s youth, beauty and glamour, but as public interest faded and the early “sense of glamour” was “replaced by something more dependable” one had to find new ways. That way was not to project “an image of special status”, but to make the Queen seem more down-to-earth. Moorhouse pins this down to 1968-1969, when “[s]tiff formality was replaced with a renewed emphasis on the Queen’s qualities as a human being”. This led to the groundbreaking 1969 television documentary on the royal family, which has subsequently been criticised for making the royals appear too ordinary and breaking down the barriers between public and private life.
One of the most interesting aspects of the catalogue is that it does not focus on painted portraits alone, but on a diverse range of media. Another new book on Queen Elizabeth states that she has sat for more than 140 portraits, but obviously press photographs have been more influential in shaping the public conception of Elizabeth II than have painted portraits. And then there are other media, such as formal photographs, video/television and the portraits which she has not sat for. The only art form missing from the catalogue is sculpture, with no explanation given for this.
With such a wide range of images to choose from the curator has probably had to make some tough choices. But the final selection is interesting and represents a cross-section of images of Elizabeth II through sixty years. Viewing them together furthermore makes apparent the connections across art form and time, for instance how Pietro Annigoni’s painting from 1954-1955 is obviously related to a formal Cecil Beaton photograph from 1968 and how Annigoni’s portrait and a second one done in 1969 “meet” in Annie Leibovitz’s 2007 photo.
Having read the catalogue with interest I look forward to seeing the exhibition.

Plans for Queen Margrethe’s jubilee announced

2011-11-14T21:01:00.002+01:00

The Danish royal court has today published the preliminary initerary for the celebrations of Queen Margrethe II’s forty years on the throne in January 2012. The celebrations will take place during the weekend stretching from Friday 13 January to Sunday 15 January.
The jubilee will commence with a reception hosted by Parliament at 11 a.m. on Friday. The following day, which is the actual anniversary of the accession, the Queen and Prince Consort will drive through Copenhagen from Amalienborg to the City Hall, where there will be a reception at 1 p.m. and where the royal couple will appear on the balcony. In the evening there will be a gala performance, not as usual at the Royal Theatre, but at the Concert House.
On the third day, the Queen will, quite unusually, hold a State Council on a Sunday (at Christiansborg Palace 10 p.m.), before appearing on the balcony at Amalienborg at noon. At 3 p.m. a service will be held in Christiansborg Palace Church and at 8 p.m. there will be a state banquet at Christiansborg for Danish authorities, foreign guests and family (for jubilees “foreign guests” normally means only from the Nordic countries and not royalty from all over Europe).
According to the royal website there will also be several exhibitions to mark the jubilee, including one at the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Palace, where, I have been told, a new portrait by Niels Strøbek showing Queen Margrethe together by Crown Prince Frederik and Prince Christian will be unveiled.

The Queen makes public debute as artist

2011-11-10T12:39:00.001+01:00

Today the Queen makes her public debut as an artist when the exhibition “Under stort press” (“Under Great Pressure”) opens at Dunkers kulturhus in Helsingborg. The Queen is among the eighty European artists exhibiting more than 1,000 graphic works.
In cooperation with the artists Kjell Nupen and Ørnulf Opdahl the Queen has transformed photos from a journey to Svalbard in 2006 into graphic prints and a series of 24 of them, titled “Tre reiser, tre landskap” (“Three journeys, three landscapes”), will be shown at the exhibition in Helsingborg.
The proceeds of the sale of fifty portfolios containing eight prints by the Queen, eight by Nupen and eight by Opdahl will in its entirety be used to fund “Her Majesty Queen Sonja’s Scholarship for Artists”, which every second year will award a scholarship to a young graphic artist from one of the Nordic countries and will surely be among the art-loving Queen’s most important legacies.
The Queen’s works may all be viewed at the royal website (external link) and in an article on Dagbladet’s website (external link). They will also be exhibited at Henie Onstad Art Centre in Bærum next summer.
The Queen will be present for the vernissage in Helsingborg today, which will also be attended by the King, the Crown Prince and the Queen of Sweden.

My latest article: The death of Queen Maud

2011-11-07T20:03:00.002+01:00

“Queen Maud’s mysterious death” was the headline Dagbladet chose to splash all over their front page on the day the fifth volume of Tor Bomann-Larsen’s biography of her and King Haakon was published. The so-called mystery was supposedly that Queen Maud might have been sent on her way through euthanasia, something which seems subsequently to have become a “truth” in the pages of that newspaper.
However, in today’s Dagbladet I point out that this is utter nonsense. No such claim is made in the book, though it mentions that the British royal physician Lord Dawson of Penn used euthanasia to ensure that King George V of Britain, Queen Maud’s brother, died in time to catch The Times’s deadline (pun unintended), something which has been publicly known since George V’s biographer Kenneth Rose revealed it in 1983.
As Queen Maud died in London, Lord Dawson of Penn was among the doctors who signed the bulletin announcing her death, but he was not around when she died in a private hospital in the middle of the night in the presence of only a nurse. A few days earlier she had undergone surgery for cancer, which had revealed that it was incurable, and had been in a weak condition for some days when she died suddenly from acute heart failure.
Following her death King Haakon (and others) wrote that this had spared her further suffering, which is the thing one typically says when someone dies in the early stages of an incurable and painful illness.
To claim that this indicates that her death was caused by euthanasia is surely to add 2 and 2 and get 7.

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to set up permanent home at Kensington Palace in 2013

2011-11-06T17:01:00.002+01:00

Several British newspapers report today that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Prince William of Britain and his wife Catherine) will set up their permanent residence in a wing of Kensington Palace from 2013, although it is worth noting that this has apparently not been officially confirmed by the royal court.
The wing in question is Apartment 1A, which was most recently inhabitated by Princess Margaret until her death in 2002. Following her death the apartment was turned over to Historic Royal Palaces, which opened it up for exhibitions in 2004 and uses other parts of it for offices and storage. It is reported that Queen Elizabeth II has agreed to reimburse HRP for their expenses.
Apparently an exhibition planned for 2012 will go ahead and the apartment will therefore only be returned to the Royal Household in September 2012. Following extensive renovation work the Duke and Duchess will probably be able to move in in mid-2013, at which time Prince William will complete his military service in Wales.
Following their wedding in April 2011 the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have used the small Nottingham Cottage, which is adjacent to Kensington Palace, as their London home, but this has only been a temporary solution. According to media reports Prince Harry will take over the cottage in 2013. The office of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will move from St James’s Palace to Kensington Palace in the middle of next year.
Kensington Palace has evolved from a property called Nottingham House, which was purchased by King William III and Queen Mary II in 1689. Extended several times through history it now consists of various wings and buildings which together form the complex structure that is Kensington Palace. The state apartments are open to the public, while other parts serve as homes to royal employees as well as the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, and Prince and Princess Michael.
Prince William himself grew up at Kensington Palace, but not in the apartment which will be his future home. Following the separation of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1992 the former moved out, while Diana, Princess of Wales continued to live at Kensington Palace until her death in 1997. Her former apartment has subsequently been turned into offices.

At the road’s end: Sivert A. Farstad (1931-2011), former Lord Chamberlain

2011-11-02T13:01:00.001+01:00

Among the death announcements in Aftenposten today is that of former Lord Chamberlain Sivert A. Farstad, who died at the hospital Diakonhjemmet in Oslo on 28 October, aged 80.
Sivert Andreas Farstad was born on 4 July 1931 and made a career in the Navy, where he reached the rank of Rear Admiral.
He was appointed Lord Chamberlain in 1993 in succession to Kaare Langlete. This was a rather challenging time for the royal court, which was in the middle of the complicated (and eventually controversial) restoration of the Royal Palace.
Farstad took his leave in the autumn of 1996 at a crucial phase of the restoration process, citing age as his reason. He was succeeded by Lars Petter Forberg, who became the (so far) last Lord Chamberlain from the armed forces (following Forberg’s resignation one has chosen diplomats instead).
Unlike most other Lord Chamberlains, Farstad was not given the Grand Cross of the Order of St Olav when he left royal service.
He is survived by his wife of 55 years, two daughters and five grandchildren. His funeral will take place in Ullern Church in Oslo on 8 November.

My latest article: Royal appeasers

2011-11-01T12:20:00.000+01:00

On Friday I attended the release of the fifth volume of Tor Bomann-Larsen’s biography of King Haakon and Queen Maud, Æresordet (published by Cappelen Damm). The media has made a big deal out of the fact that the author quotes a letter the then Crown Prince Olav wrote to his cousin the Prince of Wales in December 1935, advocating rapproachment between Britain and Germany. While this has been presented as a huge revelation it is in fact not a revelation at all, given that Philip Ziegler writes about it in his official biography of Edward VIII, which was published in 1990, and that I quoted from the letter in my biography of King Olav and Crown Princess Märtha (Dronningen vi ikke fikk - En biografi om kronprinsesse Märtha og kong Olav) eight years ago.
What I have been missing in the media is the context in which this should be seen, which is not, as Professor Trond Nordby claimed in a radio debate we took part in on Friday, that Crown Princess Märtha’s family were Nazi sympathisers (they were most certainly not), but that Crown Prince Olav’s closest family was his mother’s British family and that the British royal family were all warm supporters of appeasement until the bitter end. About this I have written a short article (external link) which is published in Aftenposten, Norway’s biggest newspaper, today.

On this date: Carl Johan Bernadotte turns 95

2011-10-31T12:16:00.001+01:00

The Bernadottes are famous for living to ripe old age and today yet another of them turns 95. Today’s birthday boy is Count Carl Johan Bernadotte af Wisborg, by birth Prince of Sweden and uncle of the King of Sweden as well as of the Queen of Denmark.
Born on 31 October 1916 he is the youngest of the five children of King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden and his first wife, Crown Princess Margareta, née Princess of Britain. Sadly his mother died when Prince Carl Johan was only 3 ½ years old and he regrets that he has no memories of her.
Prince Carl Johan lost his succession rights and was stripped of his royal titles when he married a commoner, the divorced journalist Kerstin Wijkmark, in 1946. As plain Mr Carl Johan Bernadotte he made a career for himself as a businessman. In 1951 his distant cousin Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg created him, his brother Sigvard and their cousin Lennart counts of Wisborg.
Widowed in 1987, Carl Johan Bernadotte married an old friend, Gunnila Bussler, née Countess Gunnila Wachtmeister of Johannishus, the following year. The couple, who are thus approaching their silver wedding, live in a villa in the hills above the popular summer resort Båstad on the coast of Scania.
Except the oldest, Prince Gustaf Adolf, who was killed in a plane crash at the age of forty in 1947, all the children of Gustaf VI Adolf have, like him, reached a great age. The former Prince Sigvard died in 2002 at the age of 94, while Queen Ingrid of Denmark was ninety when she passed away in 2000 and Prince Bertil nearing his 85th birthday at the time of his death in 1997.
For those who like to keep track of such things it is also noteworthy that Carl Johan Bernadotte is the only surviving great-grandchild of Queen Victoria of Britain. Except for a critical attack of illness some years ago, which was dealt with successfully in hospital, he continues to enjoy rude health for his age.
With the passing of his siblings Carl Johan Bernadotte has come to fill the role as the grand old man of the family and was consequently given a prominent position at the wedding last year of his great-niece Crown Princess Victoria, with whom he shares a fond relationship. In his old age it has also become increasingly clear to many what an asset this warm, generous gentleman would have been to the Swedish monarchy if one had not kicked him out of the royal house 65 years ago.
His plans for the birthday are not known, but on 14 October King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia hosted a private dinner party for him at Drottningholm Palace outside Stockholm. Among the guests were two of the King’s sisters, Princess Christina and Princess Margaretha (the latter herself turns 77 today).

Elizabeth II’s prime ministers agree to change succession laws

2011-10-29T00:59:00.001+02:00

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that the prime ministers of the sixteen nations of which Elizabeth II is queen have agreed to the changes to the succession to the throne which were recently proposed. These changes will mean that the succession to the throne will henceforward be gender-neutral and that people marrying Catholics will no longer be excluded from the line of succession.
The prime ministers of Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis agreed about the reform at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which is currently taking place in Perth in Australia.
As Head of the Commonwealth Elizabeth II is present at the CHOGM, but did obviously not attend the deliberations about this issue. However, her Private Secretary, Sir Christopher Geidt, is reported to have been present.
The changes, which it has earlier been reported will only apply to the descendants of Prince Charles, require changes to a wide range of laws in the realms of Elizabeth II and it has frequently been speculated that the complicated process would not be ignited because of the constitutional complications it would involve. However, it now seems that the sixteen countries which are in personal union under Elizabeth II have been able to reach an agreement fairly smoothly, although the parliamentary processes do of course remain to be carried through with.

Saudi king appoints new crown prince

2011-10-29T00:46:00.000+02:00

Following the death last weekend of the 85-year-old Crown Prince Sultan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has appointed the 78-year-old Prince Nayef as the country’s new crown prince.
The ultraconservative Prince Nayef, who has been Interior Minister for decades, is thus set to succeed to the throne on the death of the 87-year-old King Abdullah, whose reign has been marked by some willingness to reforms.

At the road’s end: Crown Prince Sultan of Saudi Arabia (1926?-2011)

2011-10-22T13:44:00.001+02:00

Crown Prince Sultan of Saudi Arabia has died, the Saudi court has confirmed. The Crown Prince, who was probably 85 years old, is believed to have died from colon cancer in a hospital in New York. He was the half-brother and heir to King Abdullah, who is around 87 years old and currently in hospital in Riyadh following back surgery earlier this week. Crown Prince Sultan held a number of government posts throughout his life and was at the time of his death Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence and Aviation.
Born sometime between 1925 and 1931, but most likely in 1926, Sultan was one of the many sons of the founder of the Kingdom, King Abdul-Aziz (Ibn Saud). The succession has so far passed from one brother to another, meaning for instance that King Fahd on his death in 2005 was succeeded by his brother Abdullah, who appointed Sultan his heir. Following the death of Sultan the most likely candidate for crown prince is considered to be his 78-year-old brother, Prince Nayef, who is currently Interior Minister and Second Deputy Prime Minister, but it is also possible that the choice of heir will be left to the Allegiance Council, a body of princes which was set up a few years ago.
The funeral will be held in the Imam Turki bin Abdullah mosque in Riyadh on Tuesday. Crown Prince Sultan is survived by 32 children by eleven wives, including Prince Bandar, who is best known for having been the Saudi ambassador to the United States for several years.

New books: A princess of consequence

2011-10-21T12:48:00.001+02:00

If Princess Sophia Albertina of Sweden and of Norway (1753-1829) is remembered today it is probably as little more than the lady who built the Hereditary Prince’s Mansion in Stockholm and whose name is inscribed on its façade. Unmarried, childless princesses tend to be considered as little more than that, but as the historian Carin Bergström, head of the Swedish Royal Collections, shows in her new book Självständig prinsessa – Sophia Albertina, 1753-1829, published by Atlantis this month, there was much of interest about the life story of the sister of Gustaf III and Carl XIII.
The book’s title translates as “Independent Princess” and Bergström takes the bold choice of starting not with the Princess’s birth, but with the death of her dominant mother, Queen Lovisa Ulrika, in 1782. The disadvantage of this approach is that we are left in the dark about the Princess’s formative years and perhaps in particular about the extent of her mother’s complex personality upon her.
The advantage is that it sharpens the book’s focus on how Sophia Albertina carved out a life of her own. Bergström briefly discusses the reasons why Sophia Albertina, who certainly had to be considered quite a match on the royal marriage market, never married. But the fact that a grand mansion was built for her, starting in 1783, must surely have meant that one had by then realised that she would not marry.
The mansion is in itself significant, the author argues. Gustaf III’s brother, Carl and Fredrik Adolf, were given apartments at the Royal Palace instead of mansions of their own. This underlines Sophia Albertina’s independence, but might also be a result of the fact that she as a woman could not challenge the monarch’s position in the way that the royal brothers might do.
Sophia Albertina was to live to be nearly 76, a great age in her days. She saw the coups carried out by Gustaf III in 1772 and 1789 respectively, the wars against Russia and the Napoleonic wars, the assassination of Gustaf III in 1792, the deposal of Gustaf IV Adolf and the elevation of her brother Carl XIII in 1809, the election of a new crown prince and his sudden death shortly thereafter, the election of a French marshal to crown prince in 1810, the formation of the union with Norway in 1814 and the accession of the Bernadotte dynasty in 1818. In 1826 it was she who brought Carl XIV Johan the news of the birth of his grandson (Carl XV), which secured the Bernadotte succession in the third generation. By the time of her death in 1829 she was the last surviving member of the House of Holstein-Gottorp in Sweden and in an age of growing nationalism she was, not entirely correctly, hailed as “the Vasa Princess”.
Sophia Albertina could be considered a survivor, but she was also an important link between past and future. Throughout the upheavals of the Gustavian and post-Gustavian era Sophia Albertina and her sister-in-law Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotta were unchangingly dignified in carrying out the royal duties and upholding the presence and visibility which were often neglected by other members of the royal house. (Indeed, following Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotta’s death in 1818, Sophia Albertina was the actual first lady until Queen Desideria could be bothered to move to Sweden five years later). For the upstarts Bernadottes she was obviously of great value in their legitimisation process.
Yet one of the great strengths of this biography is how it stresses that Sophia Albertina was more than simply a Swedish princess. In 1787 she became Abbess of the Protestant diocese Quedlinburg, a small city-state in what is now Saxe-Anhalt. This position has often been treated as little more than a piece of curiosa by Swedish writers, but Bergström stresses how it meant actual sovereignty over this small state and that this was something Sophia Albertina was serious about.
Unlike her predecessor as abbess Sophia Albertina came to spend considerable time in Quedlinburg (which also caused her to miss out on some important developments in Sweden, such as much of the Reuterholm regime). This meant that she had greater impact on her small realm than her predecessor, but also that she came in close proximity to her maternal relations in Germany, whose cultural interests may have had a certain influence on her.
By paying thorough attention to Sophia Albertina’s reign in Quedlinburg and her life in Germany (as well as her journey to Italy) Carin Bergström succeeds in putting her subject squarely into the international context in which she belongs and showing how her life was shaped by events outside Sweden.
In 1802 Quedlinburg was ceded by the Habsburg Emperor to the King of Prussia and subsequently secularised, but the latter allowed his first cousin Sophia Albertina to retain her residence and her income. However, five years later Quedlinburg was lost to France. Sophia Albertina daringly declared her intention to negotiate with Napoléon, but Quedlinburg was incorporated into his brother Jérôme’s Kingdom of Westphalia and the reign of Sophia Albertina came to an end.
One of the events of Sophia Albertina’s life which has caused most comment, both in her days and later, is her campaign to have her chambermaid Lolotte Forsberg recognised as the illegitimate daughter of King Adolf Fredrik, i.e. as her own half-sister. This severely strained her relationship with her brothers and was in the end unsuccessful, but Bergström launches the theory that the way the Princess allowed herself to be led to believe that Forsberg was indeed her sister might be seen as a result of Sophia Albertina’s longing for a family of her own.
Having married noble courtier, Countess Lolotte Stenbock (as she then became) was eventually appointed Sophia Albertina’s Mistress of the Robes and the Stenbock family came to fill the role as Sophia Albertina’s immediate family until her death, when most of her estate was left to them.
This was one of the books I had been looking most forward to this year and I was not disappointed in my expectations. Occasionally Bergström gets a year wrong, she misspells the name Désirée throughout and repeats the tenacious myth that Napoléon I proclaimed himself emperor, but she is mostly on safe ground and appears to have full command of her subject. The book is also well-written and insightful and adds greatly to our knowledge of its subject. Following the publication of this biography there can be no doubt that Sophia Albertina was much more than an insignificant appendage to the Gustavian court.

French Socialists elect François Hollande presidential candidate

2011-10-17T12:44:00.002+02:00

In the second round of the first primary elections to be hold in France the Socialist Party yesterday chose its former leader François Hollande to be its candidate for president in 2012. Hollande defeated the current party leader, Martine Aubry, with some 56 % to 44 % of the estimated 2.7 millions votes cast.
The first round of the presidential election is to be held on 22 April, with a second round on 6 May unless one candidate wins more than 50 % of the votes in the first round. Opinion polls have indicated that whichever candidate the Socialists chose would defeat the deeply unpopular President Nicolas Sarkozy and that Hollande might defeat him with 60 % to 40 % of the votes, but obviously it is in the nature of politics that much may change in six months (Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a living testimony to that).
However, it seems safe to say that Hollande currently stands the best chance of being President of France by next summer, which would make him the country’s first Socialist president since the presidency of François Mitterrand in 1981-1995.
There are no major political differences between Hollande and Aubry, but the latter is considered to be slightly more to the left of the party. Thus Hollande may perhaps stand a better chance than Aubry of attracting voters from and across the political centre, while voters further to the left may on the other hand rather vote for other parties in the first round.
Hollande is 57 years old and has been an MP from 1988 to 1993 and since 1997. However, he has never held a government post, which may turn out to be one of his weaker points in the election. Since 2008 he is President of the General Council of the region of Corrèze. He has four children with Segolène Royal, who was the Socialist Party’s candidate in the 2007 presidential election, but their relationship ended at about that time.

At the road’s end: Count Conradin of Castell-Rüdenhausen (1933-2011), cousin of King Carl Gustaf

2011-10-15T19:39:00.001+02:00

Yesterday the funeral of Count Conradin of Castell-Rüdenhausen, a first cousin of the King of Sweden, was held in Ingå Church in Finland. The Count died on 1 October, some days before his 78th birthday.
Born in Berlin on 10 October 1933, His Illustrious Highness Count Conradin Friedrich of Castell-Rüdenhausen was the second of three children born to Princess Caroline-Mathilde (Calma) of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in her first marriage to Count Friedrich-Wolfgang of Castell-Rüdenhausen. The parents divorced in 1938 and the father was killed when taking part in German air attacks on Britain in June 1940. Conradin was thus a nephew of Princess Sibylla of Sweden.
He moved to Finland to study horticulture and there he met Märta Lönegren, whom he married on 6 July 1961. The couple, who were thus able to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary earlier this year, were the parents of a daughter, Anne-Charlotte, and a son, named Carl-Eduard for his paternal great-grandfather, who lives in Denmark.
The late Count stayed in touch with his cousin King Carl Gustaf, but lead a private life at Ingå, where the family ran a plant nursery.

David Cameron takes initiative to change British succession

2011-10-12T20:45:00.002+02:00

The Daily Telegraph reports today (external link) that British Prime Minister David Cameron has written a letter to the prime ministers of the fifteen (the article erroneously says sixteen) other countries of which Queen Elizabeth II is head of state proposing certain changes to the succession to the throne.
Cameron wants to introduce gender-neutral succession (like in all other European kingdoms except Spain), to end the ban on those who have married Catholics from succeeding to the throne and to limit the need to ask the monarch’s permission for marrying to the first six people in line to the throne. The issue will also be discussed at the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth in Australia later this month.
While there is widespread support for these changes the complicating fact is that all the countries of which Elizabeth II is queen must make the same changes to their acts of succession to avoid a scenario whereby the various thrones are inherited by different heirs based on different rules.
This is obviously not in danger of happening as these changes would not affect the positions of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge as first and second in line to the throne, but were Prince William to have a daughter as his first child, this might become an issue.
Thus this is probably the best time to make these changes, although some have feared that raising the issue of the succession to the throne in the overseas realms may be like opening a can of worm in relating to the various countries’ links to the British monarchy.
Were Prince William to have a firstborn daughter before the changes are made the changes will be retroactive, the BBC adds. It could also be added that the changes will only apply to the descendants of Prince Charles, meaning that his brothers and their descendants will still be ahead of Princess Anne in the order of succession.

New Danish government wants to remove monarch from Constitution

2011-10-11T21:01:00.001+02:00

Berlingske today reports that the new Danish government, made up of the Social Democrats, the Danish Social Liberal Party and the Socialist People’s Party, has decided to set up a commission to consider a revision of the Constitution, which will aim at removing the monarch from it and including the human rights.
The current Constitution, which received the royal assent on 5 June 1953 (pictured above), has not been altered since and to do so will require a referendum in which at least 40 % of the entire electorate (not only those actually voting) will have to vote in favour of the amendments.
I suppose “removing the monarch from the Constitution” means that one desires literally to change those articles which say “the King” where one actually means the government. However, as the referendum about changing the Act of Succession two years ago showed, this might easily be like opening a can of worms and lead to a more extensive debate on the monarchy.
As recently as last year an opinion poll showed a majority in favour of scrapping the monarch’s right to appoint the government and sign bills into law, thus reducing the Danish monarchy to a merely symbolic institution like its Swedish counterpart (an arrangement Queen Margrethe has earlier said she would find difficult).
The European Convention of Human Rights has the status of an ordinary law and it has long been the wish of several parties to include it in the Constitution itself, which would also mean that it could not simply be scrapped by a parliamentary vote.
It appears from Berlingske’s report that the Danish Social Liberal Party is the driving force behind these revisions, but that the Social Democrats and the Socialist People’s Party are in full agreement with their coalition partner. However, the two parties which were just ejected from the government offices, the Liberal Party and the Conservatives, see no reason for amending the Constitution, while a spokesman for the right-wing extremist Danish People’s Party, which has earlier described human rights as left-wing values, says they will not “under no circumstances” contribute to such changes.

New books: A millennium of English royal weddings

2011-10-10T12:43:00.001+02:00

Ahead of the wedding of Prince William of Britain and Catherine Middleton the historians Alison Weir, Kate Williams and Tracy Borman and the journalist Sarah Gristwood teamed up to write the book The Ring and the Crowns, which sets out to chart the history of British (i.e. English) royal weddings since 1066.
The book is divided into four parts, each written by one of the authors. Alison Weir is responsible for the first chapter, which takes the story from 1066 to 1714. Hers is by far the longest period of time, but this is a challenge she takes in her stride. Obviously she can impossibly recount every single English royal wedding over 650 years in forty pages, but her choices about what to include and what to exclude seem wise. Weir also manages to paint a wider picture and draw some longer lines, something which cannot be said about all the authors of this book.
The second part, covering the years 1714-1918, is written by Kate Williams and has been give the odd title “Pomp and Circumstance”. The choice of title is peculiar as this was the era in which royal weddings, as Williams acknowledges, generally took place rather privately and without the pomp and circumstance which only in the twentieth century came to be associated with them.
Williams’s contribution is the weakest part of this book. The chapter is well-written enough and she is on sure ground when writing about the marriages of Princess Charlotte of Wales and Queen Victoria, which is familiar ground for the author of the book Becoming Victoria (2008), but otherwise she makes a number of grave errors throughout.
The wife of Prince Frederick, Duke of York is said to be the “only daughter of King Frederick II of Prussia”, although it ought to be fairly well-known that “Frederick the Great” had no children. She forgets the future James II and Anne Hyde when she claims that no royal had married a subject between 1515 and 1871, she claims that the marriage of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia in St Petersburg in 1874 was conducted by the Duke of Westminster (!), she lets the future Edward VII be accompanied by three sons rather than two to the wedding of one of his sisters, the painter Laurits Tuxen becomes “Tucman” and the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz becomes the maternal grandmother of Queen Mary rather than her aunt.
When she reaches the royal wedding of 1896, she claims that Princess Maud married Prince Christian of Denmark, although she did in fact marry his brother Prince Carl. She goes on to relate how “Prince Christian” “in late 1906 [...] was chosen by a committee of the Norwegian government to become King Haakon VII of Norway”. This took place in 1905 and Prince Carl was in fact elected by Parliament unanimously after winning 79 % of the votes in a referendum. A plethora of such mistakes indicates either carelessness or lack of knowledge.
Sarah Gristwood picks up the story in 1919, when Princess Patricia’s wedding in Westminster Abbey was the first grand public affair of the sort we have become used to, and takes it through to the wedding of Princess Margaret in 1960. This was the age when the royal wedding became “the embodiment of the national fairy story”, Gristwood observes. What one might wish for in this chapter are some reflections on why this was the case, perhaps particularly which role the media played in it, and the crucial developments which meant that the nature of royal marriages changed fundamentally at this time (i.e. that World War I had made it clear that dynastic marriages was of little significance for international diplomacy and that marriages to non-royals consequently become more common). What Gristwood provides the reader instead is mostly a description of each individual wedding.
The final part, by Tracy Borman, covers the weddings from 1961 to 2005, with only that of the then Prince Richard of Gloucester passed over for some unexplained reason. I am somewhat puzzled by the authors’ (or editor’s?) choice to let Gristwood’s chapter end in 1960 and Borman’s begin in 1961, as it appears more natural to consider the wedding of Princess Margaret in 1960 together with the other royal weddings of the 1960s. The line dividing the two chapters would probably have been better drawn in 1947, after which there were no further royal weddings for thirteen years.
Borman reflects how the 1980s “had witnessed an apotheosis of royal weddings”, but centring around ill-fatted marriages. In reaction to these grand weddings ending in disaster, “[a] quieter, more understated tone was called for, and this was exactly what the following two occasions achieved”. However, these two occasions were the weddings of Princess Margaret’s children, whose low profiles are probably better explained by the simple fact that these were not royal weddings, but the weddings of private citizens whose mother happened to be a princess.
The book is richly illustrated throughout, but one might occasionally wish for more information about some of the illustrations. The artist’s name is not always given, nor is one always informed about whether the illustration is contemporary or not. The book offers its readers an accessible but not always entirely reliable survey of how English royal weddings have been conducted through the centuries, but regrettably little on the external circumstances which shaped them.

Nobel Prize in Literature for Tomas Tranströmer

2011-10-06T20:53:00.003+02:00

The Swedish Academy today awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature to the 80-year-old Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, with the citation that “through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality”.
Tranströmer is the seventh Swede to be awarded the Literature Prize, following Selma Lagerlöf in 1909, Verner von Heidenstam in 1916, Erik Axel Karlfeldt in 1931, Pär Lagerkvist in 1951, and Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson jointly in 1974 (eighth if Nelly Sachs (1966) is counted as Swedish).
Thus Sweden may be said to be well represented among the laureates, but it is noteworthy that it is now 37 years since the last time a Swede received the Prize. The award of the 1974 prize to Johnson and Martinson caused controversy as both of them were members of the Swedish Academy and truth to be said they are not really outstanding figures in the history of literature.
But of the Swedish laureates through history Tranströmer is in fact only the second not to be a member of the Swedish Academy at the time of receiving the Prize, the only previous laureate being Selma Lagerlöf, who later became the first female member of the Academy.
This year’s recipient of the most prestigious of all the Nobel Prizes, the Peace Prize, will be announced in Oslo at 1 p.m. tomorrow. A record number of candidates have been nominated and speculation has centred on the Arab spring, but from the various hints dropped by the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s leader, Thorbjørn Jagland, I will not be surprised if the Peace Prize is awarded to the EU.

King opens 156th Parliament

2011-10-03T20:26:00.004+02:00

The State Opening of Parliament, which takes place on the second weekday of October (except in election years), is a certain sign of autumn and today the 156th Parliament was opened by the King, accompanied, as is usual, by the Queen and the Crown Prince.
Nowadays Norway is one of only three European monarchies, the other being Britain and the Netherlands, to let Parliament be opened with all the traditional pomp and circumstance. Except for minor changes, such as where the Queen sits, the ceremony in the Parliament Chamber has been the exact same since independence in 1814.
As usual the monarch, standing in front of the throne, read the King’s Speech, which is written by the government and sets out the policy of the government in the coming year. Thereafter the most junior minister reads a speech on the state of the nation, i.e. what has been done in the year that passed, and finally the Speaker of Parliament gives a short speech. The King’s Speech may be read in its entirety here (external link).
The State Opening of Parliament is the only time the King is allowed to be present in the Parliament Building, as the Constitution says that no parliamentary debates can take place in the presence of the monarch. This year has seen an unusual exception from this in that the King and the Crown Prince were present at the commemoration held in the Parliament Chamber following the terrorist attacks on 22 July.
(If someone wonders why this is only the 156th Parliament, considering that Norway has been independent for 197 years, the explanation is that until 1871 Parliament was only held every third year and that there were obviously no Parliament during the German occupation).

New Danish government takes office

2011-10-03T20:25:00.000+02:00

Today Queen Margrethe II of Denmark appointed a new government following the centre-left victory in the general election on 16 September and the Social Democrats’, the Danish Social Liberal Party’s and the Socialist People’s Party reaching a government agreement yesterday.
After the new government had been appointed by the Queen at Amalienborg, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt drove to the Prime Minister’s Office at Christiansborg, where her predecessor Lars Løkke Rasmussen was in tears as he handed over the reins of government.
While the leader of the Social Democrats is obviously Prime Minister, the Danish Social Liberal Party’s Margrethe Vestager was appointed Home and Economics Minister and the Socialist People’s Party’s leader Villy Søvndal Foreign Minister. The Social Democrats keep the post of Finance Minister for themselves, a post which was given to Bjarne Corydon following the spectacular end a few days ago of the political career of the obvious candidate Henrik Sass Larsen.
The new cabinet consists of 23 ministers, of whom eleven are Social Democrats, six from the Danish Social Liberal Party and six from the Socialist People’s Party. It is the first time in Danish history that these three parties form a government together (indeed the Socialist People’s Party has never been part of a cabinet before).
Only 39 % of the ministers are women, but the new cabinet is noteworthy for including the youngest minister in Danish history, 26-year-old Thor Möger Pedersen of the Socialist People’s Party, who becomes Minister of Taxes. Indeed there are now two ministers in their twenties, as 29-year-old Astrid Krag from the same party becomes Minister of Health. For the first time there is also a minister of non-European origins, as Manu Sareen of the Danish Social Liberal Party (of Indian origins) becomes Minister of Gender Equality, Church and Nordic Cooperation.
The new government has difficult times ahead of it, not only because of the chaotic economy left behind by the outgoing government, but also because of its parliamentary basis, which means that it will be dependent on the Red-Green Alliance to achieve a parliamentary majority. This may prove a challenge given that there are some significant differences in opinion between the three parties of the government and between them and their support party.
But however this turns out, 3 October 2011 will for always mark a milestone in the history of Denmark not only because it ended ten years of the exceptional circumstances under which the country was governed by a rightwing coalition dependent on the extreme right wing, but also because it marks the day when Denmark got its first female Prime Minister.

Agreement about new Danish government - new cabinet expected tomorrow

2011-10-02T15:02:00.002+02:00

It has now been confirmed that the Danish Social Democrats, the Socialist People’s Party and the Danish Social-Liberal Party have reached an agreement about forming a new government. The agreement will however only be published tomorrow, but we know already now that, as expected, all three parties will be formally part of the cabinet (while the Red-Green Alliance, upon whom the coalition is dependent for parliamentary support, will remain outside cabinet).
The leader of the Social Democrats, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who was appointed Royal Investigator by Queen Margrethe following the election two weeks ago, will go to Amalienborg in one and a half hour to inform the Queen of the she is ready to form a government. The outgoing, acting Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen will then be summoned to the Queen to confirm that there is not a parliamentary majority against such a government.
Thereafter Helle Thorning-Schmidt will again be summoned by the Queen and appointed “designated Prime Minister”. Tomorrow she will again return to Amalienborg, accompanied by her chosen ministers, and the new cabinet will then be formally appointed. Thus 3 October 2011 is set to become an historical milestone for Denmark.

The “archbishopric” returns to Trondheim

2011-10-02T14:42:00.002+02:00

This morning the King, the Speaker of Parliament and other notables were present at mass in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, where Helga Haugland Byfuglien was installed in the new position as Senior Bishop of the Church of Norway, making her in effect (although not in title) the first archbishop in centuries. Indeed this is a doubly historic day as the creation of this new position for the Primate of the Church again makes Trondheim the spiritual capital of Norway.
The last actual Archbishop of Norway was Olav Engelbrektsson, who fled the country at the time of the Reformation in 1536-1537, at which time Norway also lost its status as an independent realm. Subsequently there have been no archbishops, but after Norway regained its independence in 1814 a practice was established, through decisions of 1817 and 1820, whereby the Bishop of Oslo was “primus inter pares” among the bishops.
This arrangement lasted until 1998, since which date the bishops have elected one among their number to be Primate for four years at a time. Eventually it was felt that it was difficult to combine the role of Primate with a bishopric and it was therefore decided to create a twelfth bishop who would be Primate on a permanent basis and not hold any bishopric. On 25 March this year Helga Haugland Byfuglien, until then Bishop of Borg, was appointed to the position by the King in Council.
Parliament furthermore decided, after some political wrangling, that this Senior Bishop should be located in Trondheim. Thus Byfuglien caused quite an outcry when she recently stated her intention only to visit Trondheim when necessary and spend most of her time in Oslo. An apartment has now been arranged for her within walking distance of Nidaros Cathedral and the mediaeval Archbishop’s Palace, where her office will be.

Book news: This autumn’s book harvest

2011-09-30T19:45:00.003+02:00

New books are a certain sign of autumn and this year is no exception. Among the books I look most forward to this autumn is Självständig prinsessa – Sophia Albertina, 1753-1829 by my fellow historian Carin Bergström, who is head of the Swedish Royal Collections. Princess Sophia Albertina of Sweden and of Norway was the only sister of King Gustaf III and King Carl XIII and became secular abbess of the Protestant convent of Quedlinburg, which she lost in the Napoleonic Wars. She is also remembered for having built the Hereditary Prince’s Mansion in Stockholm, which is now the seat of the Foreign Ministry. Surviving well into the reign of Carl XIV Johan, she also became an important symbolic link between the old Holstein-Gottorp dynasty and the new House of Bernadotte. The book will be published by Atlantis in October.
Another book I look forward to is The Diamond Queen: Elizabeth II and Her People by the well-known BBC journalist Andrew Marr, which is also expected in October. Ahead of Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee the journalist Robert Hardman has also written Our Queen, which is just out and for which he has been granted exclusive interviews by family members and others close to the British monarch.
Margrethe II is another queen who will celebrate a jubilee next year and the art historian Thyge Christian Fønss has written Portrætter af en dronning – Dronning Margrethe den II i portrætkunsten 1972-2012 (yes, the grammatical mistake seems to be on the cover), which examines the painted portraits of the Queen of Denmark. The book is expected to be published in two weeks. A related book is The Queen: Art & Image, which deals with the iconography of Elizabeth II and is related to a travelling exhibition by the National Portrait Gallery of her portraits leading up to the diamond jubilee.
In Norway we can look forward to the fifth volume of Tor Bomann-Larsen’s biography of King Haakon VII and Queen Maud, Æresordet, which will be published by Cappelen Damm in November. This fat volume will take the story from after the formation of the first Labour government in 1928 to the black day of 7 June 1940, when the King had to leave his country. The sixth and final volume is expected in 2013. Ingar Sletten Kolloen’s authorised biography of the Queen, which was also expected this autumn, has been postponed to the autumn of 2012, I have been told.
In politics we can expect the journalist Thor Viksveen’s biography of the Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg – Mannen og makten, to be published by Pax in November. The book has obviously had to be altered and updated quite a lot in its final stages, given the events of this summer and the PM’s much-praised handling of the situation. Another Norwegian Prime Minister, Ole Richter, best remembered for his suicide in 1888, is the subject of Karl Over-Rein’s biography Ole Richter - Statsministeren som valgte revolveren.
Christopher Hitchens has collected some of his essays and articles in a monumental volume titled Arguably. Another collection of essays and articles out this autumn is I min tid – Artikler og tilbageblik 1938-2011, which collects some of the now 93-year-old Danish journalist and political scientist Erling Bjøl’s articles from 1938 to 2011. Bjøl’s classic history of the USA, which he keeps updating despite his age and blindness, will also be published in a new edition this year and also in a Norwegian translation.
In Denmark we can also expect the prolific Henning Dehn-Nielsen’s Danmarks konger og regenter, to be published by Frydendal in November, which seems to be another encyclopaedia-like book on all the Danish monarchs. Apparently there is also a book out about Queen Caroline Amalie, Den gode dronning i Lyngby - Historien om dronning Caroline Amalie og hendes socialkulturelle base by Arne Ipsen, but I have not been able to find any more information about that.
This year marks 150 years since the birth of the explorer and statesman Fridtjof Nansen, which has so resulted in two biographies. Carl Emil Vogt has written Fridtjof Nansen – Mannen og verden, while Harald Dag Jølle has just released the first of his two volumes, Nansen – Oppdageren. Among the other Norwegian biographies out this autumn is Per Eivind Hem about Paal Berg, the leader of the home front during WWII, who was given the task of forming a national coalition government in the summer of 1945 (but failed) and eventually became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Fifty years after the inauguration of John F. Kennedy as US President his family continues to fascinate and Historiska Media in Lund has just published the journalist Lennart Pehrson’s book Familjen Kennedy, which I have just read and found quite good. Another Swedish book on my reading list is John Chrispinsson’s Den glömda historien – Om svenska öden och äventyr i öster under tusen år, which deals with the history of Sweden’s lost eastern provinces.
Among the new history books is also Jean-Vincent Blanchard’s biography of Richelieu, titled Éminence: Cardinal Richelieu and the Rise of France and published by Walker & Company.
On the subject of royalty there will not be many books in Sweden this year, which is quite understandable given the unusually high number of such books published last year (which saw the Crown Princess’s wedding and the bicentenary of the dynasty), but the British journalist Peter Conradi’s excellent book on the current European monarchies has just been published in a Swedish translation by Forum with the title Kungligt – Europas kungahus – Släktbanden, makten och hemligheterna.
The author Helen Rappaport, who has written several books on Russian history, has now shifted the focus westwards and November will see the publication of her book on the death of Prince Albert of Britain and its impact, titled Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy.
December will see the 75th anniversary of the abdication of King Edward VIII of Britain and Anne Sebba marks the occasion with That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, which was published a month ago.
For those interested in historical novels I can mention that Karsten Alnæs has written I grevens tid, which deals with the early life of Count Herman of Wedel-Jarlsberg, one of the most significant Norwegian politicians of the early nineteenth century, and that Gyldendal will soon publish Cecilie Enger’s Kammerpiken, which tells the story of Hilda Cooper, the young British woman who came to Norway as Queen Maud’s dresser and continued to live at the Palace in Oslo until just before her death in 1992.

King Carl Gustaf about Drottningholm

2011-09-28T13:32:00.001+02:00

In the September issue of Gods & Gårdar (no 9 – 2011) King Carl Gustaf takes the readers on a tour of Drottningholm Palace outside Stockholm, which has been his and Queen Silvia’s home since 1981.
Ingalill Snitt’s photos are as always good, but the article is unfortunately not very interesting as the King really does not say much of significance. Such an article might have been a good opportunity to get the King to talk about the challenges and limitations of living in a palace which is not only open to the public but even on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As it is, the King only touches on it when he says that he as a child rarely ran around inside the palaces and that he these days do not use the palace park as there are too many tourists.
The other points of interest are that Tullgarn Palace was considered when the royal family decided to leave the Royal Palace and that a plan was worked out for turning it into a modern family home, but that the plan eventually foundered on the distance to Stockholm and the school situation, and that the King expects Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel to remain at Haga Palace and not move to Drottningholm when they succeed to the throne.

At the road’s end: Wangari Maathai (1940-2011), environmentalist and Nobel Peace laureate

2011-09-26T13:03:00.002+02:00

Today came the sad news that the Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, lost her battle against cancer in a hospital in Nairobi last night. She was 71.
Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, which planted millions of trees in order to ensure supplies of firewood and protect water sources and crops. She was also known as a social activist and a staunch opponent of Daniel arap Moi’s regime. As the first woman in east and central Africa to obtain a PhD and as the first female professor at the University of Nairobi she was also an academic pioneer.
In 2004 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace”. She received the Peace Prize in Oslo on 10 December 2004.

Princess Christina’s son to marry tomorrow

2011-09-23T12:59:00.005+02:00

Tomorrow the designer Oscar Magnuson, the third son of Princess Christina of Sweden and Tord Magnuson, will marry his fiancée Emma Ledent in the south of France, where the Magnuson family has a summer house. The couple got engaged last February.
The groom’s father has earlier told the media that it will be a relatively small wedding with some 50 guests (I happened to see him and Princess Christina depart from Arlanda Airport on Wednesday, by the way). King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia have been carrying out engagements in Paris in the past days, but as the King has an engagement in Sweden on Saturday it seems he will not be attending his nephew’s wedding.

POSTSCRIPT: According to Svensk Damtidning the wedding in Gattières was attended by Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel.

Female PM and end of right-wing rule in Denmark

2011-09-16T12:08:00.003+02:00

Yesterday’s general election in Denmark turned out to be quite a thriller, but when all the votes had been counted it was clear that the right-wing coalition which has governed the country for ten years had been narrowly defeated by the centre-left opposition, with 50.3 % against 49.7 % of the votes, which translates into 89 seats in Parliament for the red block and 86 for the blue block. Consequently Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen an hour ago tendered his resignation to Queen Margrethe. He will be succeeded by the leader of the Social Democrats, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who will become the country’s first female Prime Minister, making this an historic hour.

The results of the election are:
- The Social Democrats: 24.9 % (-0.6), 44 seats (-1).
- The Socialist People’s Party: 9.2 % (-3.8), 16 seats (-7).
- The Danish Social Liberal Party: 9.5 % (+4.4), 17 seats (+8).
- The Red-Green Alliance: 6.7 % (+4.5), 12 seats (+8).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- The Liberal Party: 26.7 % (+0.5), 47 seats (+1).
- The Danish People’s Party: 12.3 % (-1.6), 22 seats (-3).
- The Conservative Party: 4.9 % (-5.5), 8 seats (-10).
- The Liberal Alliance: 5 % (+2.2), 9 seats (+4).

Historically, Danish governments, whether of the left or the right, have “always” been dependent on the political centre. This changed dramatically in 2001, when the two right-wing parties the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party were able to form a majority with the far-right wing Danish People’s Party (DF). The latter did not formally become part of the government, but had a formalised agreement with the government which enabled them to demand political “payment” for parliamentary support. DF being an openly racist party (with Muslims and Germans singled out), this usually took the form of increasingly restrictive rules of immigration. Sadly the ten years of this unholy alliance have in many ways permanently changed the country’s political landscape, so that even parties in the red block now supports some of DF’s ideas.
Following the election Danish politics may seem set for a return to the more usual situation in that the two leading opposition parties, the Social Democrats and the Socialist People’s Party, have entered into an agreement with the Danish Social Liberal Party (R), which belongs to the political centre.
However, the interesting - and complicating - factor is that while both the Social Democrats and the Socialist People’s Party backed in the election, the red majority was salvaged by the increases of R and the far-left wing Red-Green Alliance. While R is considering joining the government, the Red-Green Alliance will remain outside, but provide parliamentary support. Obviously this will be at a price and it will be interesting to see the outcome as the four parties of the red block disagree on some significant issues.
Although Helle Thorning-Schmidt is celebrating today, her party actually achieved its worst election result since 1903. The Socialist People’s Party also did worse than expected, but will now become part of the government for the first time in its history.
Having received Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s resignation a short time ago, the Queen has, as is the custom, asked him to remain in charge of a caretaker government until a new cabinet has been formed. In what has been the custom since 1909 two representatives of each party will now go to the Queen (who this time has Crown Prince Frederik at her side) to advice her about who should be given the task of forming the new government. They will then point to Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who will be entrusted with the task by the Queen and then start the negotiations with the other parties which will lead to the formation of the new government. How much time will be necessary for the negotiations remains to be seen, meaning that the day of the actual change of government has not yet been settled.
The incoming Prime Minister is 44 years old and joined the Social Democrats as late as in 1993. She was an MEP 1999-2004 and was elected to the Danish Parliament in 2005, only two months before becoming the party’s leader. Foreign readers may be interested in the fact that she is the daughter-in-law of Neil Kinnock, the former leader of the British Labour Party.
When Helle Thorning-Schmidt becomes Prime Minister Sweden will be the only Nordic country never to have had a female head of government.

New books: A privileged life on the royal sideline

2011-09-15T21:19:00.002+02:00

Many may remember Margaret Rhodes only for being interviewed by Peter Sissons on BBC shortly after the news of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother of Britain’s death had been announced, an interview which many found insensitive and intrusive. Apparently Sissons was not aware that the Hon Mrs Rhodes, the Queen Mother’s niece and Woman of the Bedchamber, had been present at her aunt’s deathbed only a few hours before.
This episode goes entirely unmentioned in Margaret Rhodes’s recently published memoirs, The Final Curtsey: The Autobiography of Margaret Rhodes, First Cousin of the Queen and Niece of the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, which opens with a moving account of the Queen Mother’s death. While royal employees writing their memoirs or talking to the press is generally frowned upon, Rhodes has spoken to the media on many occasions and is obviously one of those who are sufficiently trusted to be allowed to do so.
The youngest child of the 16th Baron Elphinstone and his wife Mary (the Queen Mother’s eldest sister), Margaret was seven years junior to her nearest sibling, but only a year older than her first cousin, Princess Elizabeth. This meant that she came to be a close companion of the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, occasionally living with them, for instance at Windsor Castle during parts of World War II. In 1991, when she had been a widow for ten years, she was asked to become Woman of the Bedchamber to the Queen Mother, “a mix of Lady-in-Waiting and companion”. She believes the Queen Mother came to regard her as her “third daughter” and she has remained close to Queen Elizabeth II to this day.
Thus she has been in a position to observe things closely, but remains careful not to give much away. Indeed the book offers little that is new to those who have already read a few books on the British royal family and many of the anecdotes told by Mrs Rhodes are well-known from other books. There are also the by now familiar “corrections” from people in the inner circle: no, the Queen Mother did not drink a lot. And no, she did not hate the Duchess of Windsor.
One exception is a rare look behind the closed doors of the monarch’s weekly audiences with the Prime Minister, about which Margaret Rhodes is able to tell us that when the young Queen Elizabeth II had her first meeting with Winston Churchill, “she was so over awed at being in the presence of the great man that she hardly dared to speak”, while Churchill “was overcome with emotion and wept tears of chivalric adoration”.
From someone this close to the royal family one might perhaps have expected something contributing to the readers’ understanding of their characters, but this Margaret Rhodes does not deliver. There are in fact not many characterisations in this book, neither of her relatives nor of other people she has met. About meeting Nelson Mandela she has nothing more to say than that “I like to think that [...] I had rounded the circle as far as South African politics were concerned” as she had met Smuts decades before. The most memorable thing about the Dalai Lama was apparently what kind of shoes he wore.
One exception is perhaps Princess Margaret, who her cousin considers “missed her vocation; she should have been in cabaret”. She adds that her cousin had “such great promise, beauty, intelligence and charm”, but that she was “very indulged, especially by her father” and “did have the most awful bad luck with men”. She concludes that “the Almighty usually gets the right people to be born first”, but only a brief look at the recent history of the British monarchy shows that in the two generations preceding Elizabeth II the person born first was not the right one.
On the same topic, Mrs Rhodes believes her cousin Elizabeth “hoped she might have one [a brother] and be let off the hook, but deep down she knew that it wasn’t very likely. She accepted that she would be Queen one day but thought it was a long way off”.
When writing about the euphoria of VE Day she admits that she does not remember much of it herself and quotes instead from her cousin’s diary, which is in itself quite a scoop (but if the terse, factual statements of the diary of 1945 is representative the future official biographer of Elizabeth II should not expect too much from her diaries).
Except for her closeness to the royal family Margaret Rhodes’s upbringing seems to have been rather the prototype of British pre-war upper class child-raising and she compares it herself to Downton Abbey and Gosford Park. She never went to school, yet apparently thinks she did not miss out on much and considers herself self-educated by virtue of having read many books, which of course indicates a certain unawareness of what an education is really about.
She worked for the MI6 during World War II and was thereafter hired to work for a businessman by the name of Denys Rhodes, with whom she began an affair and married after he had had his marriage to his first wife annulled.
Two chapters are dedicated to their travels in Asia and Africa. Such descriptions of foreign journeys are standard in the memoirs of British aristocrats of a certain age, but here, like in so many other memoirs, they are rather uninteresting because of Mrs Rhodes’s lack of education and her not making much of an attempt at understanding the “exotic” customs witnessed. Thus one ends up with rather meaningless descriptions such as this: “He danced again, but more soberly and the he spoke a few words, which were of course incomprehensible to us, but apparently it was deemed sufficient to keep the crowd satisfied”.
It is also a drawback that the author tends to get her facts wrong, particularly when it comes to years. Early on she claims that her eldest sister Elizabeth was “ten-years-old” when she was a bridesmaid for their eponymous aunt, but as the wedding took place in 1923 and Elizabeth was born in 1911 this obviously does not match up. The wedding was “solemnized at St Margaret’s, Westminster, where I was also to be married”, she tells us, but in fact the royal wedding took place next-door in Westminster Abbey.
Later we hear that Princess Margaret, born in August 1930, was “a couple of months short of eight” in May 1937 and she even manages to get her own age wrong she claims to have been “eighty-one, soon to eighty-two” when the Queen Mother died (she was in fact five years younger). In a rare attempt at seeing things in a greater context she states that her aunt’s and uncle’s state visit to France in 1938 took place at “a time when, despite the Munich Agreement, many people believed that war was inevitable”, but in fact the state visit happened more than two months before Munich. There are also at least two photos which are obviously misdated by some two decades, while her sister Jean appears in a photo dated 2000 although she died the year before.
The book is written with a certain sense of humour and is not free of self-irony. There are some funny stories (“Poor Britannia. She would have hated being Cool”, the Queen Mother said to Margaret Rhodes’s daughter at the outset of Tony Blair’s premiership), but there is one so-called hilarious story which is at best in bad taste if not downright disgusting. “I have been assured by my children that I am a consummate hostess even when disaster looms”, Mrs Rhodes tells us and continues to relate how on one “mid-winter occasion [...] our overworked heating system blew up” and they had to receive their guests in candlelight and rearrange the menu. Then the housekeeper appeared and said “that the cowman’s wife had arrived to say that she thought her husband was dead and please, could Mr Rhodes go over and see if he was actually dead”.
One hardly believes one’s eyes when one reads that Denys Rhodes refused to do so, but sent the gardener instead. “Ten minutes later the hatch opened again and the message was that Mr Mallet thought the cowman was dead, although he had twitched a couple of times”. Still neither a dying nor a dead cowman could get Mr Rhodes to leave his dinner party. “The final request, death having been established, was for Mr Rhodes to go and lay the poor man out. This pleasure, I’m afraid, Denys also declined”.
After this callous account of how they refused to help in the face of death, Marie-Antoinette Rhodes concludes that “the whole macabre sequence was unbelievably funny and our rather ribald weekend guests were convulsed”. A recently widowed guest was the only exception, seeming “merely bemused”. However, she later wrote to say “that perhaps she had been taking death too seriously – which was very tactful of her”. Margaret Rhodes concludes: “Queen Elizabeth would have revelled in the situation if she had been there”. Would she have found it equally hilarious if her own husband had been the one dying, one wonders?

New books: The history and art history of Rome

2011-09-12T20:16:00.001+02:00

Recently I have been reading several books on cities, among them Simon Sebag Montefiore’s latest book Jerusalem: The Biography and Robert Hughes’s Rome, the latter published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson before the summer. The Australian-born, US-based art critic Robert Hughes first came to Rome in 1959 and his book, in which he charts the history and art history of Rome from its beginnings until the present day, is the product of a lifetime’s acquaintance with the city (in which it should be said he has never actually lived).
The book is engagingly written, with some refreshing personal asides and the author does away with some popular myths (no, Caligula did not make his horse a consul and no, Nero did not fiddle while Rome burnt). The sheer magnitude of the topic such as the Eternal City obviously means that the author has to be selective when deciding what to include and on what to focus.
The author’s perspective is indeed often that of the critic, which means that there are many highly personal evaluations. Personal preferences also seem to have a strong influence on what Hughes chooses to focus one.
Occasionally the author will allow himself to be carried away into some rather lengthy digressions on topics which appear rather peripheral to the story but for which he evidently has great enthusiasm. There are for instance several pages on the brilliance of Velazquez, who was never more than a visitor to Rome.
At first the focus is mostly on the history of the city, but as one reads on its shifts to Rome’s art history and one is able to tell that the author feels more at ease with the arts than with history. The best part of the whole book is probably the pages on Bernini, whose artistic genius Hughes does full justice – to the extent that one may wish that a book on Bernini might be his next project.
The shifting of focus is not entirely unproblematic, as some key historical events during recent centuries are passed over quite summarily. This is also the case for the post-war years. Hughes is rather pessimistic about the current condition of Roman and Italian culture and although he argues that nothing of great value – except Fellini’s films – have been produced after World War II, he spends many pages on saying so while hardly saying a word about the post-war history of Rome.
There are some unnecessary repetitions and some contradictions. For instance that Vercingetorix is said to have been “ignominiously strangled in a dungeon” in 52 BCE on page 49, but “beheaded in 46 CE” on page 104. To die twice, in two different ways and 98 years apart would surely have been a remarkable feat.
But all in all this 534-page tome is an enjoyable and informative, although selective and not exhaustive, account of the rises and falls of one of the world’s most intriguing cities.

At the road’s end: Archduke Felix of Austria-Hungary (1916-2011)

2011-09-07T20:36:00.002+02:00

Hardly two months after the death of his brother Otto it has been reported that Archduke Felix of Austria-Hungary, the last surviving child of Emperor Karl I and Empress Zita, died in Mexico yesterday at the age of 95.
Born at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna on 31 May 1916, His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Felix Friedrich August Maria vom Siege Franz Joseph Peter Karl Anton Robert Otto Pius Michael Benedikt Sebastian Ignatius Marcus d'Aviano was the third son born of the marriage of the then Archduke Karl and Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma. His great-great-uncle Franz Joseph I was still on the throne (and had been so for 68 years), but passed away in November of that year, making Felix’s parents Emperor and Empress. Two years later the Austro-Hungarian empire and centuries of Habsburg rule were at an end.
Archduke Felix thus grew up in exile, but was allowed to re-enter Austria in 1937, when he joined the Theresian Military Academy. However, the advent of the Anschluss made him leave Austria and he eventually ended up in the USA.
In civil life Archduke Felix became a marketing consultant and lived in various countries until eventually settling in Mexico. After the war his refusal to renounce his imperial pretentions meant that he, unlike his eldest brother, was banned from entering Austria. He was allowed in for his mother’s funeral in 1989 and paid an illegal visit in 1996, but eventually reached an agreement with the Republic which involved his declaring his allegiance to the Republic without specifically renouncing his claims. He was not well enough to make the long journey to attend his eldest brother’s spectacular funeral in Vienna two months ago.
In 1952 he married Princess and Duchess Anna-Eugénie of Arenberg, with whom he had four daughters and three sons. Archduchess Anna-Eugénie died in 1997.

New books: A royal couple of their times

2011-09-04T19:18:00.002+02:00

Among the several books published to mark the Crown Prince and Crown Princess’s tenth wedding anniversary is Haakon og Mette-Marit i ti år by Liv Berit Tessem, a journalist of Norway’s largest newspaper Aftenposten who also wrote a book about them ten years ago.
While Aasta Børte and Monica Aafløy Hansen in their anniversary book chose a thematic approach, Tessem arranges her richly illustrated book year by year. Each chapter ends with a list of some of the events of that year, but Tessem adds the original twist of letting each chapter evolve around a topic related to one of the key events of the year.
For instance, the chapter on the year 2002, when the newlyweds moved to London to study, evolves around the education of kings; the chapter on 2007, which saw the death of the Crown Princess’s father, who had been turned into some sort of media clown, deals with the crown princely couple’s relations with media; the chapter on 2008, when the Crown Princess put together a CD containing her favourite psalms, deals with the couple’s religion; and the chapter on 2010, the year of the Swedish royal wedding, evolves around the new generation of European royalty.
This is an approach which works well and makes the book something more than just a chronicle of ten years in the public spotlight. At first sight the book may resemble the rather unreflective picture postcard royal books which flooded the book market in the 1980s, but this approach enables the author to say something intelligent and thoughtful about the development of the crown princely couple’s role through the first decade and to look closer at various aspects of it.
The weakness of the book is that it appears to have been produced in haste, which has resulted in some odd phrases and wordings but also in a rather large number of factual mistakes. To name some of several examples Diana, Princess of Wales did not die “a few years” after her divorce, but the following year; it is not correct that neither of the King’s sister has any higher education (Princess Astrid studied in Oxford); the former Duchess of York was never styled “Princess Sarah in Britain”; the King’s illness in 2003-2004 was not the first time the Crown Prince served as regent; the crown princely couple do not make state visits; gun salutes were not fired all over the country when the Crown Princess’s pregnancy was announced, but when the child was born; Taj Mahal is not a palace, but a mausoleum; even if Bulgaria had been a monarchy Princess Rosario’s husband Kyril would not have been its crown prince; Princess Mathilde of Belgium was not a countess before she married; the King of Sweden’s humiliating TV interview earlier this year was not done in a TV studio but in his office; and of course the great jubilee in 2005 did not mark the centenary of Norway’s independence, but of the dissolution of the union of crowns with Sweden.
Such factual mistakes could easily have been avoided if the publisher Schibsted Forlag had taken the time to proof-read the book properly. It is not the first time Schibsted fails this test and it is a shame that such carelessness is allowed to pollute what is in itself a book more intelligent and interesting than the average anniversary book.

On this date: Bicentenary of the University of Oslo

2011-09-02T12:27:00.004+02:00

Today the University of Oslo (my alma mater) celebrates its bicentenary in the presence of the King and Queen and the Queen of Denmark.
A Norwegian university was one of the dearest wishes of Norwegian patriots as the eighteenth century gave way to the nineteenth, but the Dano-Norwegian King was reluctant to grant one. Eventually he gave way and on 2 September 1811 Norway’s first university was founded by King Frederik VI. His reluctance was perhaps understandable, as the foundation of the University is generally considered a significant step towards the independence Norway achieved three years later.
It was not immediately clear where the University would be located, but in 1813 it began its work in Christiania, as Oslo then was. The main University buildings in the city centre were the work of architects Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Christian Heinrich Grosch and were completed in 1852. Today they house the Faculty of Law, while the rest of the University moved to a new campus at Blindern in the middle of the twentieth century. The name of the University was originally Frederik’s Royal University (Universitas Regia Fredericiana) in honour of its founder. This was a thorn in the eye of King Carl XIV Johan, who feared Danish revanchism and tried unsuccesfully to have it changed. However, the name remained until 1939, when it was changed to simply the University of Oslo (Universitas Osloensis).
Today there are some 27,600 students at the University of Oslo, which employs 7,094 people. It has fostered five Nobel laureates and currently ranks 75th among the universities of the world.

President Zuma honours victims of terrorism on state visit to Norway

2011-08-31T20:36:00.001+02:00

President Jacob Zuma of South Africa and his most recent wife, Tobeka Zuma (who seems to be the flavour of the month among his wives), today began a two-day state visit to Norway. The ties between Norway and South Africa are particularly close thanks to Norway being one of the few countries which stood by the ANC throughout the fight against apartheid (and not only through the last few years like Britain, the USA and many other countries did).
Between the usual events of the state visit’s first day – ceremonial, political talks and museum visits, the President and his wife found time to stop outside Oslo Cathedral, where they each laid a bouquet of flowers in honour of the 77 victims of the right-wing extremist terrorist attacks on Oslo and Utøya on 22 July. In the days following the attacks Oslo was literally covered in flowers and the largest sea of flowers was to be found outside the Cathedral, where people still continue to place their tributes. The King and Queen, who have been justly praised for their conduct after the attacks, accompanied their guests to the Cathedral.
Right now the King and Queen are hosting a state banquet at the Royal Palace. The state visit will conclude tomorrow afternoon, but the King and Queen will receive another head of state already on Friday, when the Queen of Denmark comes to Oslo to take part in the celebrations of the bicentenary of the University of Oslo, which was founded by King Frederik VI of Denmark-Norway on 2 September 1811 (the University carried his name until 1939).

My latest article: The crowns of the King and Queen

2011-08-31T12:18:00.003+02:00

The 2010 edition of Trondheim Historical Association’s yearbook Trondhjemske Samlinger has finally been published and in it you may find an article I have written about the origins and ceremonial use of the crowns of the King and Queen. The article is based on research in Norwegian and Swedish archives, where I have found a lot of previously unused material.
For instance I am now able to say fairly certainly why the coronation of Queen Desideria, planned for the late summer of 1830, was suddenly cancelled; to show that the King’s crown most likely made it first appearance at the funeral of Carl XIII rather than at the coronation of Carl XIV Johan, as the official version now says; and to prove that it is not correct that the Queen’s crown unlike the King’s has never been used for funerals.
Some related “side questions” are also addressed, among them if it is correct when one often reads that Queen Lovisa - the first queen to be crowned in Norway since 1299 - unlike her predecessors was a Lutheran. And what happened to the tiara worn by Queen Sophia for her coronation in 1873?
The photo, which is a facsimile of the now defunct Swedish weekly Vecko-Journalen, shows the King’s crown on King Haakon VII’s coffin at his lying-in-state in the Palace Chapel in September 1957.

Ont his date: Princess Lilian turns 96

2011-08-30T12:42:00.004+02:00

Today is the 96th birthday of Princess Lilian of Sweden, the poor girl from Wales who, after having waited 33 years to be able to marry the love of her life, became one of the greatest assets of the Swedish royal family.
This much-loved Princess is now very frail and has not been seen in public for nearly 3 1/2 years. Last summer her Court Marshal, Elisabeth Palmstierna, was quoted as saying that the Princess suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, but I have since been told that Baroness Palmstierna considers herself misquoted and that she only said that Princess Lilian suffered from senile dementia.
As far as we know Princess Lilian remains in her home Villa Solbacken at Djurgården in Stockholm, where she is looked after by nurses around the clock.

New books: Ceremonial headgear

2011-08-28T18:45:00.006+02:00

After several years’ delay the Dutch goldsmith René Brus has at last finished his long-awaited book Crown Jewellery and Regalia of the World, which was published by Pepin Press of Amsterdam earlier this month.
This is a monumental book based on a lifetime’s passion for crowns, an interest which has apparently taken Brus to many a distant country in order to study crowns or witness ceremonial events. The result is not, he stresses in the preface, an encyclopaedia of regalia, but “an attempt to show that crowns can be found everywhere, in any form and design”.
This Brus certainly succeeds in doing, as he does not limit himself to royal crowns, which the somewhat misleading title might indicate, but covers a wide range of ceremonial headgear, including tiaras, votive crowns, mitres, beauty queen tiaras, various headdresses worn for religious and tribal rituals and much more. Africa and Asia are the continents which figure most prominently in this book while Britain and the Netherlands are the European countries most closely studied. There are some surprising omissions, such as the splendid crown regalia of Bavaria, which are not mentioned once.
One cannot help being impressed by the enormous effort Brus has laid down through many years to document so many crowns of different types from far away corners of the earth and to supply the readers with photos (although not all of them of the best quality, he admits). But on the other hand I could also not help feeling that he tries to cram too much into one book, which is also arranged in a rather disorderly manner.
The sequence of the chapters does not feel entirely natural – why “Royal children and marks of rank” before “Coronations”? Why is there suddenly a photo of Queen Sophia of Sweden and of Norway’s malachite parure, which has never been worn for any wedding, in the chapter titled “Royal and aristocratic weddings”?
Despite René Brus’s expert knowledge there are also several mistakes to be found in this book. The book opens with a disclaimer saying that “Every effort has been made to ensure that all information and original names are accurate. However, due to the historical and langual [sic] ambiguities inherent to the subject matter, the author and editor are not in the position to guarantee, with absolute certainty, the historical information provided”.
But if every effort had really been made, one would certainly have avoided such basic mistakes as referring to Britain as “England” throughout (there are no kings or queens of England since 1707, nor is there an “English Parliament”) and to the Bernadottes as kings simply of Sweden during the near-decade when they were kings also of Norway. His statement that “Norway’s Crown Prince has a crown that was actually made for the Swedish Crown Prince” is certainly nonsense – the crown was made for in Norway and paid for by the Norwegian Parliament to be worn by Norwegian crown princes at Norwegian coronations. But later on, Brus writes that Norway “became an independent kingdom” only in 1905, so he is obviously ignorant of the basic facts about the nature of the union between the two kingdoms.
He goes on to say that the Norwegian King’s crown was made by Adolf Zethelius, although it is now two decades since it was established that it was actually made by Olof Wihlborg (the most recent book on the Norwegian crown regalia, which was also published in English in 2006, is not included in Brus’s list of sources). He also maintains that Queen Desideria was not crowned in Norway “as her husband King Oscar I was never crowned as King of Norway”, although Oscar I was in fact her son. Her husband, Carl XIV Johan (whom Brus calls “Carl XIV”), was crowned in Norway and there were other reasons why Desideria’s coronation never took place.
Concerning Sweden, Brus writes that the crowns of both king and queen “were present at the accession ceremony of King Carl XVI Gustaf on 18 [actually 19] September 1973 and at his wedding in 1976”, although only the King’s crown was present at the enthronement (at which time Sweden had no queen). Regarding Denmark he states that “the coronation crown of King Frederik III, made in 1665” was used for Frederik IX’s lying-in-state in 1972 although there is no such crown and the crown actually used was Christian V’s, which is pictured on the same page of the book.
The regalia of the Scandinavian countries are those I am most familiar with and when noticing so many mistakes and misunderstandings concerning them, I cannot help wondering if I can trust the information about the regalia of those countries I am less familiar with. The result is that I have mixed feelings about this book, which it seems is not as reliable as such a great work, the fruit of decades of work, ought to be.

Norwegian “archbishop” defies Parliament

2011-08-26T12:39:00.004+02:00

The history of medieval Norway is full of archbishops opposing the political masters of the country, but this was probably not what one expected when it was decided last year to create a twelfth bishop as Primate of the Norwegian Church.
The post of primate had until the 1990s belonged to the Bishop of Oslo and thereafter to any of the eleven bishops elected, but because of complaints that it was difficult to reconcile the duties of primate with those of one’s diocese it was decided that a twelfth bishop without a diocese should be appointed primate. The title Archbishop has not been used in Norway since the reformation and one rather chose the designation “leading bishop”
After a lengthy debate it was decided by Parliament that the primate should be located in Trondheim rather than in Oslo and have her office in the Archbishop’s Palace in Trondheim (pictured above). This was in my opinion only logical, as the only major cathedral in Norway is to be found in Trondheim and the city could well be considered the ecclesiastical centre of the country.
Thus several MPs from the Trondheim area have reacted strongly against an interview with the leading bishop, Helga Haugland Byfuglien, in Adresseavisen yesterday, where she states that she will not move to Trondheim, will carry out most of her work in Oslo and will only go to Trondheim when necessary.
This is a rather blatant disregard for the decisions of Parliament and obviously no individual public servant is in a position to choose to ignore what has been decided by Parliament. If the leading bishop is not prepared to accept the conditions set for her job by Parliament she should not have accepted the post and unless she changes her mind it might soon be time for the government to consider her future in the post.

Danish PM calls snap election

2011-08-26T11:53:00.004+02:00

After months of increasingly frantic speculations the Prime Minister of Denmark, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, has just announced that Parliament is being dissolved and that new elections will be held on 15 September.
The current government has been in power since 2001, although Lars Løkke Rasmussen has only been Prime Minister since 2009, when he succeeded Anders Fogh Rasmussen when the latter became Secretary General of NATO. Løkke’s government is a coalition of his own Liberal Party and the small Conservative Party, but for a parliamentary majority it has been dependent on formal support agreements with the far-right wing Danish People’s Party, which has used their powerful position to force through much of their policies.
The opinion polls indicate that it might be tight race, but most of them show the government falling behind the opposition. Thus it seems most likely that the next Danish government will be a coalition between the Social Democrats, the Socialist People’s Party and the Danish Social Liberal Party, possibly dependent on the Red-Green Alliance for support. If so, the leader of the Social Democrats, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, will become Prime Minister (the country’s first female PM).
In any case it is to be hoped that Denmark will finally get a government which is not held hostage by an openly racist party which seems to consider human rights a four letter word.

On this date: Crown Prince and Crown Princess mark ten years of marriage

2011-08-25T20:30:00.004+02:00

Today ten years have passed since the Crown Prince and Crown Princess were married in Oslo Cathedral, to which they returned today to celebrate their wedding anniversary. I was among the hundreds who attended a ceremony which, in music as well as in words, was clearly in the crown princely couple’s spirit and marked by the values which have guided their work through the past decade.
The main speech was given by the former Bishop of Oslo, Gunnar Stålsett, who married the couple ten years ago and who, unlike the current Bishop, subscribes to the liberal/progressive brand of Christianity with which the crown princely couple are also associated.
A bible quotation was read by Princess Ingrid Alexandra, who was lifted to the rostrum by her godmother Crown Princess Victoria. Crown Princess Victoria read St Francis of Assisi’s prayer, while Marius Borg Høiby and Princess Märtha Louise also read bible extracts.
The service concluded with the national hymn and “Old Wedding March”, to which the bridal couple left the Cathedral ten years ago. Unusually, the royal family, led by the King, were warmly applauded by the guests as they left the Cathedral, something which may perhaps be interpreted as a mark of appreciation for the royals’ conduct after the terrorist attacks a month ago.
Among the several hundred guests from all walks of live were also the Queen, Prince Sverre Magnus, Princess Astrid and Johan Martin Ferner, Prince Daniel, Ari Behn, the Crown Princess’s mother and siblings with partners, the Prime Minister and five other ministers, many friends, including Princess Rosario of Bulgaria, staff, etc.
The celebrations continued with an event in University Square, marking the tenth anniversary of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess’s Humanitarian Foundation, at which the Crown Prince and Crown Princess both addressed the crowds.
Tonight the King and Queen are hosting a private dinner at the Palace.

Historian criticises Queen Silvia’s Nazi investigation

2011-08-24T21:03:00.006+02:00

It is now two weeks since the Swedish royal court published Erik Norberg’s investigation into the Nazi past of Queen Silvia’s father Walther Sommerlath, which had been commissioned by the Queen. The investigation mostly confirmed the findings of TV4’s two-part documentary on the topic last year, but nuanced some points, most importantly that Sommerlath had paid for the factory he took over from the Jewish businessman Efim Wechsler, who was forced to sell it by the Nazi authorities, by giving him a coffee plantation in Brazil in exchange, which also made it possible for Wechsler to emigrate to Brazil.
However, Norberg’s report is fiercely criticised by historian Håkan Arvidsson in a long article in Svenska Dagbladet today (external link). As I expected, the fact that Erik Norberg is a Lord-in-Waiting to the King is used to cast doubt over the impartiality of Norberg’s investigation. The report seems mostly solid to me, but exactly to avoid such doubts it would have been better if the task of investigating the issue had been given to someone not bound to the King and Queen by bonds of loyalty.
Arvidsson also criticises the fact that Norberg describes his investigation as a “narration”, arguing that a narration and an investigation are in themselves incompatible. Arvidsson considers the report “a mix of narration and investigation where narration progressively becomes dominant”.
A large part of Arvidsson’s article is a summary of Norberg’s report. He takes issue with how Norberg’s choice of words occasionally appears to try to put a positive spin on things and makes some valid points about certain weaknesses of Norberg’s investigation.
He points out that the report does not say anything about the value of Wechsler’s factory, which Arvidsson estimates at between 55 000 and 65 000 Reichsmark. As the value of the plantation and the stocks Wechsler received in exchange was 25 000 Reichsmark, this was a good affair for Sommerlath, but not for Wechsler.
Arvidsson also points out that the report says that Wechsler immediately after his arrival in Brazil handed over the plantation to Sommerlath’s brother-in-law, but that it does not say at what prize, if any at all. This, Arvidsson suspects, could possibly mean that it had been agreed that Wechsler should return the plantation and that he might not have received any compensation for doing so.
Arvidsson’s perhaps most interesting point is that what Norberg says about Sommerlath’s apparently passive membership of the Nazi party is based solely on Brazilian sources and thus only concerns the years when Sommerlath was living in Brazil. But Sommerlath returned to Germany in 1938, Arvidsson points out, and Norberg has not looked at whether he was an active or passive party member during those years he lived in Germany and thus had more of an opportunity to be active. The way he took over Wechsler’s factory as part of the “Aryanising” process at least shows that Sommerlath knew how to use his position as a party member to his own advantage, Arvidsson argues.
Arvidsson’s view of Walther Sommerlath is harsh. He believes that there are a lot of indications of Sommerlath being “a man without any particular moral conviction, a fellow traveller who seems to have cynically exploited every opportunity to save his own skin even at the expense of others”.
I cannot agree with his conclusion that “this entire sad and tragic story remains as shrouded in darkness as it was before Chamberlain [sic] Norberg’s effort”, but at least he shows that there are still questions which remain unanswered.

Princess Marie of Denmark is also pregnant

2011-08-24T20:57:00.004+02:00

Yet another Scandinavian royal pregnancy was announced today when the Danish royal court released the news that Princess Marie is expected togive birth to her second child in January.
Princess Marie is the second wife of Queen Margrethe’s youngest son, Prince Joachim, whom she married in May 2008. The couple’s first mutual child, Prince Henrik, was born in May 2009. Prince Joachim is also the father of two sons, Prince Nikolai and Prince Felix, by his first wife.
The expected child will be Queen Margrethe’s eighth grandchild and tenth in line to the throne.