Princess Astrid Dies at 94 After King’s Funeral

Princess Astrid sat in a wheelchair inside Oslo Cathedral. At 94 she was the last surviving child of King Olav V. Harald V had died on August 28 at age 89, and the coffin now rested draped in the royal standard. She remained there, the final time she appeared in public.

Harald’s death left her a link to the generation that had returned from wartime exile in 1945. She had watched her younger brother ascend the throne in 1991 and had continued to represent the family at events long after his marriage ended her years as first lady. The cathedral filled with foreign royals and Norwegian officials who had come for the state funeral. Astrid stayed seated as the 21-gun salute sounded outside.

When the service ended she was wheeled back out into the light. Two days later the palace issued the announcement of her own death.

Princess Märtha died in 1954. Astrid, twenty-two years old and the second of three children, stepped into the duties her mother had carried at the Norwegian court. King Haakon VII, her grandfather, still reigned from the palace in Oslo. Astrid accompanied him on official rounds and hosted events that required a senior woman in the household. When Haakon died in 1957, her father Olav V took the throne and the same responsibilities passed to her without interruption.

She handled state visits and the full calendar of ceremonies for the next fourteen years. The work placed her at the center of receptions for foreign heads of state, national commemorations, and the smaller daily obligations of representation. Astrid carried out these tasks from the royal estate at Skaugum and later from her own home in Vinderen after her marriage. No other member of the immediate family remained available for the role once her older sister Ragnhild moved abroad.

The arrangement ended only when Crown Prince Harald married Sonja Haraldsen in 1968. At that point Astrid relinquished the position of first lady to the new crown princess. She retained her title and continued selected public work, yet the daily schedule of court representation shifted away from her.

In 1960 the engagement was announced to Johan Martin Ferner, a businessman and Olympic sailor she had hired to race her yacht. Ferner had already been married once and held no royal rank, which brought immediate objections from the Norwegian Church. King Olav searched until he found a bishop willing to officiate, the Bishop of Nidaros, after the Bishop of Oslo and the local minister at Asker both declined.

The service was held on January 12 1961 inside Asker Church. Two hundred guests filled the pews, every one of them a private guest; no government ministers or foreign envoys attended. Astrid walked the aisle in a winter-white gown of point d’esprit covered in rows of silver embroidery. A tulle veil pinned with flowers took the place of a tiara, and the dress had no train. When the couple emerged, she was no longer styled Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid of Norway but Princess Astrid, Mrs Ferner. The annual endowment of 50,000 crowns that had paid for her public work stopped the same day.

She and Ferner settled in a house her father gave them in Vinderen and raised five children there. The marriage lasted until his death in 2015.

In the years after Johan Ferner’s death, Astrid kept her place on the board of the Crown Princess Märtha Memorial Fund and continued as patron to groups that aided children and young people with dyslexia. Those duties required steady attendance at events large and small, from cultural gatherings to association meetings, without the title or income that would have come with a throne.

March 2026 brought a hospital admission for pneumonia. Another stay followed in May after she carried out a scheduled engagement. Both she and her brother received pacemakers that August. Appearances grew less frequent after that point. She relied on a wheelchair in her final months.

Her last public outing took her to Oslo Cathedral on September 9 for the funeral service. Two days later the palace released the announcement of her death at age 94.

The Royal Palace in Oslo released its statement on September 11. “The Princess died today, Friday, September 11, at the age of 94,” it read. King Haakon VIII ordered the Norwegian flag lowered to half-mast from the palace balcony and again on the day of her funeral.

In the statement the king described his aunt’s place in the family. “Aunt Astrid was a great source of support for King Harald and the rest of the family,” he said. “We learned a lot from her, and she was never afraid to express her opinion.”

The flag on the balcony remained at half-mast through the light.