told the court<\/a> he had consensual sex with many women, but he denied having sex with anyone who was incapacitated. He argued the public claims had made it harder for him to get a fair trial. \u201cI\u2019m not Marius any more, I\u2019m a monster,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\u2018Hope for better days\u2019<\/h3>\n On the street outside the Oslo court, Norwegians were cautious about expressing their opinions of the case in late February, although some spoke to this masthead on condition their family names were not used.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel sorry for the king and queen and Prince Haakon,\u201d said Ada, 80, a retiree. She also felt sorry for the crown princess, but doubted she could become queen. Einar, 50, a software engineer, said he was a republican but believed King Harald had done a good job. \u201cI still think most Norwegians would want to keep the royal family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Support for Haakon remained strong. \u201cOur crown prince is a very good person,\u201d said Gro, 72. Simon, 25, a locksmith, said the crown prince had not done anything wrong.<\/p>\n
An opinion poll on Friday found that 58 per cent believed Haakon will do a very good job as king, while another 20 per cent said he will do \u201cquite well\u201d as monarch. And yet 47 per cent think Mette-Marit should not be queen.<\/p>\n
No constitutional monarchy faces a challenge quite like this. But the Norwegian royal family, chosen by parliament in 1905 and endorsed by a referendum in that year, has seen worse. Its founding figure, King Haakon VII, famously defied Nazi Germany to reign in exile during the Second World War and return in triumph to unify the country after the occupation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe royal family have the benefit of time and patience, and they can hope for better days,\u201d said Kjetil Alstadheim, the political editor at Aftenposten<\/em>, the country\u2019s biggest newspaper. Of course, some want to say good riddance to the monarchy: his 2014 book, The Republic of Norway<\/em>, analysed this sentiment. Even so, he told this masthead in February that he believed the monarchy would survive.<\/p>\nIn a sense, one of the reasons for this is now in Sydney. Ingrid Alexandra, 22, is popular and accomplished. She served as a gunner on an infantry vehicle during military service and is now studying politics and international relations. She stands up for her mother, but she is removed from the turmoil at home.<\/p>\n\nNorway\u2019s Princess Ingrid Alexandra is studying politics and international relations at Sydney University.<\/span>AP<\/span><\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAlstadheim said the years ahead are likely to be challenging for Haakon because, when he takes the throne, he will be unable to rely heavily on Mette-Marit to carry out public duties. This means Ingrid Alexandra may be needed by her father\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe family emphasises that she should have the possibility to take an education and to be somewhere else, and to be a student and to do something different to what she will spend the rest of her life on,\u201d he said. \u201cCrown Prince Haakon studied in California, and I think that was an important period for him. So, I think, they want to protect her from too much responsibility at too early an age.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, of course, if they have to, they will need to bring her back home.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is how constitutional monarchies work. Sooner or later, private life gives way to public duty. For now, the Norwegian royal family awaits the verdict on H\u00f8iby.<\/p>\n
In his book on the monarchy, Alstadheim reached a conclusion many Australians will understand after years of debate about a republic. Once established, a royal family can draw on deep power in the community to survive political arguments and personal scandals.<\/p>\n
\u201cMonarchies are deeply rooted and hard to topple,\u201d he said. \u201cThey fail because of war or revolution. Fortunately, we do not have either war or revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world.<\/i><\/b> Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.theage.com.au \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. AAA The plea to the press was emphatic and heartfelt when Crown Princess Mette-Marit asked for privacy for her son as he was about to turn 20. The Norwegian princess worried that the media had revealed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2347193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2347192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Scandals-surrounding-Crown-Princess-Mette-Marit-and-her-son-Marius-Borg.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2347192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2347194,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347192\/revisions\/2347194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2347193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2347192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2347192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2347192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}