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As the last full day of King Harald’s coffin lying in state draws to a close, thousands of Norwegians have continued making their way to the Palace Chapel in Oslo to pay their final respects ahead of Wednesday’s state funeral. Among those who came on Tuesday was his wife of nearly 58 years, Queen Sonja.
Similar to a recent photo of King Harald’s sister, Princess Astrid, the Royal House of Norway shared a heartbreaking portrait of Queen Sonja’s visit to the Palace Chapel. Also in the carousel of photos was a candid snapshot of the couple as parents with their children, now-King Haakon and Princess Märtha Louise, when they were very young. The caption, translated from Norwegian, read: “Thank you for a good life.” It was the same message Sonja had inscribed on the wreath she left beside the coffin when it was first brought to the chapel.
King Harald and Queen Sonja’s love story was one of the great royal romances of the 20th century, though it did not begin easily. The two first met at a dinner party in Oslo in 1959, when Harald was still a cadet at the Norwegian Military Academy and Sonja was the daughter of a clothing merchant. Because she was considered a commoner, their relationship had to be kept secret for years.
Harald, then the crown prince, ultimately told his father, King Olav V, that if he could not marry Sonja he would not marry at all, an ultimatum that threatened the continuation of the Norwegian monarchy. King Olav relented in 1968, and the couple married at Oslo Cathedral on August 29 of that year. They were married for 57 years, and when Harald died on August 28, he was just one day short of their anniversary.
Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.