1905-2005, April biography: Olav V

[norwegianne]

Friday July 3rd, 1903 the following words were printed in The Times:

“Her Royal Highness Princess Charles of Denmark (Princess Maud) gave birth to a son this evening at 5.50. Both mother and son are well.”

There were no big headlines in the newspapers, since the newborn boy was too far down the line to the throne of Denmark, and even further down the line in Great Britain. But to his parents he was a welcome child, for after all, they had been married seven years.

Born July 2nd, at Appleton House, Prince Carl and Princess Maud’s house in Sandringham, he would spend the first few months of his life in Great Britain, before moving to Copenhagen, Denmark with his parents where they lived in an apartment in Bredgade.

On August 11th, 1903, he was christened Alexander Edward Christian Frederik: Alexander after his grandmother, Queen Alexandra of Great Britain; Edward after his grandfather, King Edward VII of Great Britain; Christian and Frederik because he was in line to the Danish throne. His grandmother, Queen Alexandra of Great Britain, nicknamed him Hamlet, because he was her little Danish prince.

In 1905, the Norwegian Stortinget offered the throne to Prince Carl of Sweden with Prince Carl of Denmark as the alternate choice. However, the Norwegian delegates secretly offered the Norwegian throne to Prince Carl while negotiations with Prince Carl of Sweden were still ongoing. Little Prince Alexander received a Norwegian flag from one of the delegates. He became so fond of the flag that he refused to part with it. Unfortunately for the sake of diplomacy, the flag was taken away, when the Swedish Crown Prince came for a visit before the selection process was complete.

As his father ascended to the Norwegian throne in November, 1905, little Alexander’s life changed forever. From a life of relative anonymity, Alexander was elevated to Crown Prince of Norway. His name was changed from Prince Alexander Edward Christian Frederik of Denmark to that of Crown Prince Olav of Norway.

He led a quiet and almost solitary life. His playmates included children of his parents’ friends, his cousins, and sometimes children of the servants at the Palace. He remained shy during the parties that Queen Maud enjoyed throwing for children, and it was during one of those occasions that the following scenario took place:

A young girl sat down in one of the chairs in a room. “You can’t sit there,” seven-year-old Olav objected, “That’s Daddy’s place.” King Haakon, who had been a witness to the exchange, sat down in the chair, and pulled the little girl onto his lap. The Crown Prince still had objections: “You can’t sit there either. That’s Mummy’s place.”