The death of King Harald V closes a period that was hard on the Norwegian royal family by any measure. The last few years brought a criminal trial that ran for months, a transplant operation, a series of hospital admissions across three generations, and a persistent public argument about whether the monarchy could be kept separate from the people who happen to belong to it.

None of it changed the constitutional position of the crown. Much of it changed how Norwegians talk about the family that wears it.

The case that dominated two years

Marius Borg Høiby, 29, is Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s eldest son, born before her marriage. He is Crown Prince Haakon’s stepson and the half-brother of Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus. He has never been a member of the royal house and has never stood in the line of succession — a distinction the palace has emphasised repeatedly, and which shaped how the case was reported.

He had been involved in criminal matters since 2017, involving allegations of violence, drug use and breaches of a restraining order. In August 2025 he was indicted on four counts of rape along with dozens of further offences, including violence and abuse in close relationships. Two further indictments were added, in January and March 2026, bringing the total to 40 alleged offences.

The trial opened in Oslo District Court in early 2026 and was among the most extensive rape investigations Norway has seen in recent years. More than 70 witnesses were heard. Prosecutors put 830 pages of messages and over 10,000 pages of evidence before the court. Høiby denied the rape charges and admitted some of the other offences, including aggravated assault, reckless behaviour and transporting 3.5 kilograms of marijuana.

He had been held in custody since early February. Several applications for release were refused, including one in June that cited his mother’s serious illness. A request to serve his remand under electronic monitoring at Skaugum, the crown prince family’s residence, was refused by the district court, the court of appeal and the Supreme Court in May.

What the court decided

On 15 June 2026 Oslo District Court sentenced Høiby to four years in prison. The judgment ran to 128 pages and was unanimous. He was convicted on 34 of the 40 counts, including two rapes, and acquitted of two further rape charges. He was also convicted of abuse in a close relationship against a former partner, and of violence and a range of other offences. He was ordered to pay 640,000 kroner in compensation to three of the complainants.

Explaining the acquittals, the presiding judge Jon Sverdrup Efjestad said the court had to find it proven in each case that the complainant was unable to resist, with sleep and severe intoxication as the typical examples.

Høiby appealed the two rape convictions and the domestic abuse conviction. The prosecution appealed only the sentence. He remains in custody while the appeal is pending, which means nothing in those three counts is finally settled.

A transplant twelve days after the announcement

Crown Princess Mette-Marit was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2018, a condition in which lung tissue scars and stiffens. On 5 June 2026 the palace announced she had been placed on the waiting list for a lung transplant.

The operation took place at Rikshospitalet just twelve days later, on 17 June, and the palace described it as successful. A lung specialist told VG there was no reason to think anyone had been moved ahead in the queue.

Doctors were unusually direct about what follows. Are Holm, head of the lung department, said roughly one in eight lung transplant patients does not survive the first year, and around half are alive after ten. Arnt Fiane, the heart and lung surgeon leading the thoracic department, described the intensive care period as a heavy burden that can last from a day to several weeks, with risks including bleeding, infection and kidney failure. She was discharged on 14 July.

Her position has drawn controversy on other grounds too. Her contact with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been raised repeatedly over the years, and was reported again by VG in February 2026.

The queen, and the king

Queen Sonja, also 89, was admitted to hospital with heart problems in January 2025 and again in late May this year, the same week she had been due to accompany the king on a county visit to Vestland. She recovered quickly on both occasions and was travelling with him again to Bodø and Beiarn by early June.

The king’s own record of illness stretched back two decades, and the eleven days that ended on Friday were the last of many hospital stays.

Märtha Louise, and a different kind of argument

Princess Märtha Louise, the king’s daughter, gave up her official duties in November 2022 after years of debate over her commercial and spiritual ventures, and married the American Durek Verrett in Geiranger in 2024. The couple attracted sustained criticism in Norway over Verrett’s public claims and the commercial use of her title.

Verrett recently underwent a kidney transplant, and was himself at Rikshospitalet during the king’s final illness. Märtha Louise was at the hospital this week, and her daughters were among the family members who arrived on Thursday and Friday.

Where a family ends and an institution begins

Norwegian commentators disagree about what all of this has cost the crown, and the disagreement is worth setting out rather than resolving.

Trond Albert Skjelbred, a reputation adviser at the communications firm Apriil, argued after the June verdict that the case was ultimately good for the institution, because it demonstrated that family connection buys no leniency in Norway. He also said the opposite pressure was real: in his view Høiby received a harsher sentence than an ordinary defendant precisely because of who he is.

Trine Villemann, royal commentator at the Danish paper Ekstra Bladet, took the contrary view, arguing that Høiby cannot be separated from the family at all and that his troubles are therefore Haakon’s troubles.

Tove Taalesen, a royal commentator at Nettavisen who worked for the king and queen for more than ten years, made a third argument: that the real cost was neither the sentence nor the monarchy’s reputation but the family’s privacy, and that Norwegians had spent two years discussing the family rather than the institution. Royal experts also noted that the palace’s insistence on keeping the two apart appeared to work during the trial itself, with coverage focused on Høiby and the witnesses rather than on the monarchy.

That question now passes to a new king, in a period of court mourning. The mechanics of that transition are set out here: Norway Already Has a New King. Here Is What Happens Next.

Sources

Oslo District Court judgment of 15 June 2026 as reported by NTB; the Norwegian royal house (kongehuset.no); VG; NRK; Nettavisen; Store norske leksikon.