It was love at first sight. A fairy tale come true. When Harald of Norway and Sonja Haraldsen met in the summer of 1959 through a mutual friend, their destiny began to be written in different colors. Both were 22 years old. Their love story, which they kept secret for two and a half years, has become a series that will be released on February 14 on Amazon Prime.
Their romantic relationship was known only to their closest friends. When a Norwegian newspaper published the name of the prince's first great love, a rift occurred in the palace, as it was well known that King Olaf V would not approve of a morganatic relationship, and intrigues began to break the relationship. "They tried to lure him into the sweet trap of Irene of Greece, Princess Tatiana Radziwill, or Benedicta of Denmark," wrote Sabine de la Brosse in a report for Paris Match in 1968. Sonja was a commoner, the daughter of a prosperous merchant, while Harald descended from ancestors as notable as King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, King Frederick VIII of Denmark, and Oscar II of Sweden.
While the future monarch received the necessary education and carried out official trips abroad in preparation for ascending to the throne in the future, Sonja studied English, French, and art history at the University of Oslo and, following her father's advice, also obtained a diploma in tailoring and dressmaking, refining her skills in Switzerland.
Despite the palace's reluctance, as well as that of the Parliament and the Norwegian people, the young couple lived their love in secret. However, the conflicts between the king and the prince became more frequent as neither would back down. In 1964, the palace issued a statement affirming that the heir would not marry a commoner, while Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen warned that this situation could plunge the monarchy into a constitutional crisis.
Sonja was devastated. Hounded by the media, she ended up despondent and attempted suicide in March 1965. She went to France to work as a nanny, but they soon reunited. Harald threatened to abdicate the throne. Every effort was made to avoid the major scandal that rocked the British monarchy in the 1930s when Edward VIII abdicated the throne for love of Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.
The prince eventually agreed to ascend to the throne but threatened his father with remaining single, which would have created a serious problem in the succession. Faced with such a dilemma, Olaf officially announced the wedding on March 18, 1968. After a tumultuous nine-year courtship, Harald and Sonja were married on August 29 of that year at Oslo Cathedral. It was the first morganatic marriage in European monarchies. In 1971, their daughter Marta Louise was born, followed by Haakon two years later. The succession was secured.