The crisis in the royal family has brought 93-year-old, wheelchair-bound Princess Astrid back into the public eye.

In a rare interview last month, the sister of our 88-year-old king seemed to remind Norwegians that «I can still make myself useful.»

The Norwegian monarchy, once known for its remarkable popularity, is now haunted by crises including ill health, criminal cases and Meghan-and-Harry style. Princess Astrid may well find that her offer is taken seriously.

2024 was not kind to Norway’s royal family. The royal family was reduced to a single acting member: Harald’s heir, Crown Prince Haakon, writes Matthew Dennison in The Spectator.

Haakon is also struggling with his own family problems. His wife is ill, and her son is in the media spotlight for his behaviour towards several former girlfriends. The media revel in the scandals.

Perhaps the centrepiece of the tragicomic story of the royal family is Haakon’s daughter, Princess Ingrid Alexandra (21). She stood in uniform on the palace balcony on our National Day, 17th of May, following tradition by serving her duty in the Armed Forces. But here, too, there may be skeletons in the cupboards.

Monarchies are being slimmed down, and there are fewer and fewer worthy representatives, both in the UK and in Norway.

How is a small team supposed to execute a programme of public engagements that have been drawn up for a significantly longer order? When does the illness of a monarch start to raise concerns about the stability of the institution itself? And what about government funding for a failing public presence?

King Charles III can rely on two trusted siblings, including his indefatigable sister, Princess Royal, as well as his son William and the unassuming royal faithful, the Gloucesters. But Charles has made a name for himself as a climate activist, which is unlikely to be popular in the current energy crisis.

In Norway, Harald has only one surviving sibling, Princess Astrid, and no working royal cousins. Both he and his 87-year-old wife, Queen Sonja, have recently spent time in hospital. Last year, King Harald was fitted with a pacemaker and cut back on the official duties he first reduced in 2006.

When his second cousin Elizabeth II died in September 2022, King Harald became Europe’s oldest reigning monarch, and he is also the oldest ruler in Norwegian history.

Harald is personally popular, but support for the monarchy is markedly less than it was ten years ago, writes Dennison.

Not everyone is equally enthusiastic about our king. The fact that he said that Norwegians come from Afghanistan and Somalia was not so popular with everyone. The fact that he allowed himself to be commanded by Espen Barth Eide’s troops at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and failed to send his condolences to Israel after the terror on 7 October 2023, also created reactions.

The King’s successors are largely challenges. Märtha Louise is no longer professionally active, having married a bisexual American conspiracy theorist and shaman whom she claims to have met in a previous life in ancient Egypt.

What serious country needs a princess who starts a school and makes a living by getting people to talk to angels, perfecting her abilities of «reading», «healing» and «touching» for only 2ooo + USD a year? Who promotes himself as a person with supernatural abilities?

And then marry a pure charlatan? The wedding was, of course, sold to the highest bidder, a new low in the history of the Norwegian monarchy.

How many jaded Norwegians are enthralled by such things? Because surely there are still some of these jaded Norwegians – or are they all hypnotised by today’s spiritual madness?

Neither of the King’s two royal grandchildren have commissions, and his daughter-in-law, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, suffers from incurable pulmonary fibrosis, which limits her public life as the heir to the throne.

Mette-Marit’s troubled and troublemaking son, Marius Borg Høiby, is the main culprit. The media can’t get enough of the scandals, without showing a hint of understanding for the pressures the young man has been exposed to growing up.

This doesn’t excuse his actions, if the news is true. But Marius didn’t choose to be at the centre of the media spotlight. In this context, he is an innocent victim, without this in any way giving him the right to treat others badly.

Mette-Marit herself has chosen what she called an abusive behaviour, but she too can point back to her convicted father, whose second marriage was to a woman who was described as either an exotic dancer or stripper.

Haakon, however, has to take responsibility himself. He chose his partner, despite her troubled background, and was lauded for it by much of Norway’s population, as well as the media who fuelled the wave of enthusiasm.

Märtha Louise was once mentioned as a possible bride for Prince Edward. Instead, she chose Norwegian author Ari Behn.

While Ari Behn was alive, he was despised by everyone, including his old friends. When he died, he was suddenly celebrated by all the hypocrites.

Since I happened to be the restaurant manager during the wedding party for Ari Behn and the princess, I have met him, actually several times, since he was a regular at the restaurant Bølgen & Moi Briskeby in Oslo, our sister restaurant.

The reason everyone was confused by Ari Behn was that he came across as an American. He was overly jovial. But once you got to know him, you realised that his interest in other people was real. He actually cared about the people he met, which was unthinkable, of course.

Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra (21) follow the rules, and har allready started her military education.

🇧🇻 Princess Ingrid Alexandra extends the initial service.
The princess will fullfil 15 months of service as a gunner on the CV90 wagon. The princess is an operator at a weapons station on the tank. pic.twitter.com/dzlCVnscZl

— The Lost Comms 🇳🇴 (@thelostcomms) September 19, 2024

Bur Durek is another piece of cake.

His crazy ideas – and his lecture tour with Märtha Louise, where she broke an agreement with her father not to use the title of princess in connection with money speculation – have created discontent.

Once upon a time, the monarchy was so popular that Harald’s father, King Olav, claimed he didn’t need protection in a country where all four million of his subjects were his bodyguards.

All Norwegians of a certain age remember with pride when King Olav took the tram to Nordmarka outside Oslo to go skiing, since the oil crisis in teh seventies led to restrictions on car traffic. That’s the behaviour of a real king, because of course no one would have reacted if the king had been run over by his driver.

But support for the royals declined. Märtha Louise’s marriage to Verrett last year brought support for the royals down to its lowest point ever, 62 per cent, from a high of 81 per cent. Calls for Märtha Louise to be stripped of her princess title are now widespread in the Norwegian press.

The Crown Prince’s children – Princess Ingrid Alexandra and her younger brother, Prince Sverre Magnus – may be the young blood that restores confidence in the Norwegian monarchy. Of course, we don’t know this yet, and there’s certainly a lot we don’t know.

The British monarchy probably died with Elizabeth II.