Thursday 23 August 2012

Marius Borg Høiby to be confirmed on 2 September

The royal court has announced that Marius Borg Høiby, the son of the Crown Princess and her ex-boyfriend Morten Borg, will be confirmed in Asker Church on 2 September. The King and Queen will be in attendance.
Asker Church lies close to the crown princely residence Skaugum in Asker. Princess Märtha Louise was also confirmed in this church in 1986 and it was also the venue for the weddings of Princess Astrid and Johan Martin Ferner in 1961 and of Princess Ragnhild and Erling S. Lorentzen in 1953.

8 comments:

  1. I take it that Crown Prince Haakon was confirmed elsewhere? Was that because he was a heir apparent?

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  2. Yes, the then Prince Haakon was confirmed in the Palace Chapel, as was his parents and his aunt. Princess Märtha Louise was the first member of the royal family to be confirmed in a "public" church.

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  3. Marius Høyby is not a member of the royal family, nor a royal of any kind. He is the son of Morten Borg, an ex-convict.

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    1. You are wrong. It is up to the King to define who is a member of the royal family, and the royal website clearly states that Marius Borg Høiby (not "Marius Høyby") IS a member of the royal family, but not of the royal house. I quote:

      "The Royal House of Norway belongs to the House of Glücksburg. The members of the Norwegian Royal House are Their Majesties King Harald and Queen Sonja and Their Royal Highnesses Crown Prince Haakon, Crown Princess Mette-Marit and Princess Ingrid Alexandra.
      The remaining members of the Royal Family are the Crown Prince and Crown Princess’s other children, His Highness Prince Sverre Magnus and Mr Marius Borg Høiby; Her Highness Princess Märtha Louise, Mr Ari Mikael Behn, Miss Maud Angelica Behn, Miss Leah Isadora Behn, Miss Emma Tallulah Behn, Her Highness Princess Ragnhild Mrs Lorentzen, Mr Erling Sven Lorentzen, Her Highness Princess Astrid Mrs Ferner and Mr Johan Martin Ferner".

      http://www.kongehuset.no/c27259/seksjonstekst/vis.html?tid=28435

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  4. He is not a royal. He is not a member of the royal family. Some website with very inaccurate facts is not authoritative. It is established by law who is a royal in Norway and who is not. A person born to two non-royal parents, who has also not married a royal, is not a royal. Only the children of Haakon Magnus are royals. This was also made clear by the royal house when Haakon married that woman. The ridiculous suggestion by Sven O. that Marius should become a royal was rejected.

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    1. Please respect the rule that comments should be signed.

      It seems you mix things up, or alternatively are blinded by your personal opinion about how things ought to be.

      The royal website does indeed contain many mistakes. However, the official list of members of the royal family appear in the State Almanach, which gives the same information as I directed you to on the royal website. Thus there is no doubt that Marius Borg Høiby IS in fact a member of the royal family, whether you and I like it or not.

      No, it is not established by law who is a member of the royal family or not. What is established by law is to whom the King can give titles, i.e. only to those in the line of succession (he can also choose not to give them any title, as he did concerning the Behn granddaughters). That was what made Sven O. Høiby's idea that Marius should become a prince ridiculous - it was constitutionally impossible.

      On the other hand there is no constitutional limit to to whom the King can extend membership of the royal family. The current King has been more generous with membership of the royal family than his father was. Whether this is a good thing or not is another matter.

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    2. The royal website does indeed contain many mistakes.

      Out of curiosity, what sorts of mistakes are to be found in the Norwegian royal website? I have always found it to be far less sloppy than the websites of certain other European royal houses, but naturally I am no expert on the Norwegian monarchy.

      What is established by law is to whom the King can give titles, i.e. only to those in the line of succession.

      Which raises the question of how the former Sonja Haraldsen and Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby acquired their titles, if one accepts the Constitution at face value.

      The current King has been more generous with membership of the royal family than his father was. Whether this is a good thing or not is another matter.

      My view is that King Harald's narrow definition of the Royal House and broad definition of the Royal Family is an effective solution.

      However, I find his distinction between "a royal" and "a member of the royal family" to be a bit strained. (If my recollections are correct, the palace released a statement, in connection with Ari Behn's appearance in an advertising campaign, that he was not in fact a "royal," in spite of belonging to the royal family.) But perhaps the distinction is more familiar to Norwegians?

      (By the way, I'm not the anonymous poster to whom you were replying - I have always signed my posts as E.)

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    3. There are all sorts of mistakes on the royal website, including several grave historical errors. Some of them have been corrected after I have made them aware of the facts, but now I have given up. A good thumb rule would be to check information found on the royal website against other sources.

      Before the change in the succession in 1990 the relevant article of the Constitution said that the heir, if he were the King's eldest son, would have the title Crown Prince and that the others would be prince or princess. Neither then nor now did it say anything about spouses, so it seems it has always been interpreted so that it also covers spouses.

      Personally I would have found it more natural if membership of the royal family were restricted to those with a royal title. I also think making people without a royal title a member of the royal family may not necessarily be to do them a favour. Being a member of the royal family but not "a royal" (of which there is no clear definition, but which I understand to cover only those with a royal title) may easily lead to some difficult situations - indeed Ari Behn is one example.

      (No, I believe the anonymous poster is identical to the person signing the previous comment as "Ja", who seems to hold a grudge against the Crown Princess and her son and therefore refuses to accept the facts).

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