HAAKON VII, THE NEW KING OF NORWAY
There is something essentially, almost
ludicrously, modern about the creation of Norway’s
new king. Not that it is the first time a sovereign
has been, so to speak, “custom-made.”
An eligible foreign prince is tendered a seat upon
an ancient throne; the form is old, but the spirit,
how new! Republican though she is to the backbone,
Norway has elected to be governed by monarchical methods,
fearing with her isolated and primitive peasantry,
to put the machinery of control into the hands of
the people themselves. She must have a king, but
he shall be of a new variety; in short, a republican
king. She will not even have him addressed as
were the monarchs of old, by the Norwegian equivalent
of “Your Majesty.” He shall be just
Herre Konge, plain “Mister the King.”
Even as the Norwegians welcomed Haakon
VII to their shores, they took pains to show him clearly
his rightful place. In his address delivered
to the newly arrived sovereign on board the battleship
Heimdal, Herr Michelsen, President of Council, and
for six months virtual President of Norway, used these
significant words: “For nearly six centuries
the Norwegian people have had no king of their own.
To-day a king of Norway comes to make his home in
the Norwegian capital, elected by a free people to
occupy, conjointly with free men, the first place in
the land. The Norwegian people love their liberty,
their independence, and their autonomous government
which they themselves have won. It will be the
glory of the king and his highest pleasure to protect
this sentiment, finding his support in the people
themselves. This is why the Norwegian people
hail you to-day with profound joy and cry, ’Long
live the King and Queen of Norway!’”
Was ever so frank a bargain driven
with a king before? “Behold,” says
Norway in effect, “you may sit on a throne; but
beware how you attempt to king it over us. We
will give you a salary to transact our official business
and act as official figurehead. But you must never
overlook the fact that it was we who made you and
not you yourself.”
Is it any wonder that when asked to
undertake to govern a people so independent, so proud
spirited as this, Prince Karl of Denmark took time
to think? Or that he asked for a popular vote
that he might know how large a proportion of the frei
people of Norway really wanted him for a king?
This was not the only reason why he
hesitated. Being himself on his mother’s
side a Bernadotte, he could scarcely ascend the Norwegian
throne without the friendly sanction of Sweden.
Moreover, his wife, Princess Maud of England, was
more than reluctant to undertake life in Christiania
and the duties of queenship. Lastly, Prince Charles
himself ran a shrewd risk in assuming the crown, lest,
should his relations with Norway become difficult,
he might be forced to resign, and find himself having
abandoned his naval career for the throne in
a state of abject poverty.
All three objections were finally
overruled. Sweden, fearing lest an empty throne
in Norway should give impetus to the movement for a
republic, and that such a movement might afterward
spread to her own borders, was as much in haste to
see Norwegian affairs settled as the Norwegians themselves,
so she swallowed her grievances. Most amicable
correspondence passed between Prince Karl and the Crown
Prince of Sweden, the latter expressing himself anxious
to be the first to welcome Haakon VII into his capital.
What became of Princess Maud’s reluctance is
not definitely known. It is understood that she
never found life at the Danish court very amusing,
and probably the prospect of exchanging Copenhagen
for a city of less than half its size did not allure
her. She must have realized that if she accepted
a share of the Norwegian throne, she would be forced
to abandon her favorite cure for ennui frequent
flights to the court of England for Norway
has had quite enough of absentee royalty. The
English papers asserted that King Edward used his
parental authority to overcome his daughter’s
scruples. At all events, she gave in. As
for Prince Karl’s reasonable fear of dethronement
and penury, the Norwegian government quieted that
by promising a respectable pension in case the king
should find it expedient to abdicate.
So, then, the affair was comfortably
arranged. The king has a salary of $200,000,
a crown when he had no hope of ever feeling one on
his brow, and the problems of a court without a nobility.
And now the world is asking, “Has
Norway done well for herself?” Certainly she
has done well in putting a Scandinavian prince on the
throne. No alien would ever understand Norway
or be understood. If reports are creditable,
the Kaiser made the most of his friendship with the
country in support of the claims of a son of his own.
Had a German secured the throne, there would have
been sown fresh seeds of discord on a peninsula which
can raise a sufficient crop of dissensions without
any aid from the rest of Europe. For Denmark,
still nursing the rankling grievance of the Schleswig-Holstein
affair, detests the thought of everything German.
King Haakon combines the advantages
of Scandinavian birth with the very positive political
asset of blood relationship to half the courts of
Europe. Grandson of the late King Christian of
Denmark, the young monarch is also nephew to King
George of Greece, the Dowager Empress of Russia, and
Alexandria of England, a grand-nephew to the late Oscar
of Sweden, son-in-law to King Edward VII, and cousin
to the Czar. To a relatively defenseless country
like Norway, this means a good deal.
In himself the new king is a clean-lived,
healthy young man of thirty-three, in personality
quite fit to represent a nation which thinks well
of itself. Tall, though not quite so tall as his
uncle, Prince Christian, whose mark on the famous
old royal measuring-column at Roskilde comes just
under that of the giant, Peter the Great, King Haakon
is slight, yet vigorous-looking, and splendidly well
set up. The face, while scarcely so handsome
as the profile pictures lead us to think, is a distinguished
one, and has for Norway this charm, that it is markedly
not of the Bernadotte type, although his mother is
a Bernadotte. Those who know him describe him
as an extremely intelligent and sensible young man,
easy and tolerant without being weak, and capable
of strenuous devotion to hard work. These things
bespeak an industrious, efficient, and tractable king,
such as the Norwegians, who would equally resent either
vacillation or tyranny, know how to appreciate.
It has been said in France that King
Haakon abandons tiller and compass for crown and scepter
without one hour’s training in politics or diplomacy.
The statement appears incontestable.
In view of the remarkable longevity of the late king
of Denmark, and the excellent health and prospects
of the Crown Prince and his immediate heir, this younger
son of a royal house was not brought up to look for
a crown. Instead, he was destined from the outset
for a naval career. For all that, it is not safe
to say that he has had no training in politics or diplomacy.
One can scarcely grow up in the family of the “father-in-law
of Europe” and not learn the principles of the
great game of world affairs. King Haakon is no
stranger to the queer old palace among the beeches
at Fredensborg, where every summer King Christian gathered
together his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren
from the courts of England, Russia, Denmark, Sweden,
and Greece; and where conversations took place which,
if reported, would vitally interest the whole round
world. In his lifetime, the Czar Alexander III
was particularly fond of holding long talks at Fredensborg
with his nephew Karl, then a lieutenant of the navy,
whom he found especially intelligent and open-minded.
It is thought in Copenhagen that King
Haakon may, even during the last years of his father’s
life, have had some experience in the government of
Denmark, since his father, the Crown Prince, was called
upon to perform many of the old king’s duties.
At least, if he did not actually transact royal business,
he acquired no small acquaintance with the working
of government machinery.
Nothing, certainly, could have been
more fitting than that a ruler of Vikingland should
be educated for the sea. Nor could anything have
been devised better calculated to knock the nonsense
out of a princeling than apprenticeship in the Danish
navy. Hrolf Wisby, who messed with Prince Karl
when he was a naval cadet, says that the lad was at
first little more than a piece of court furniture.
Any one who is familiar with the appalling frankness
and unvarnished brusquerie of grown-up Danes can judge
whether the hazing and horse-play on a Danish man-of-war
was agreeable, and whether it was medicinal in a case
of congenital self-esteem. Prince Karl lived
the life of an ordinary middy, scrubbed decks, mended
his own clothes, slept in a hammock, and ate provender
which was anything but fit to set before a king.
It is recorded of him that he was an expert in polishing
a certain brass binnacle lantern. We wonder if
he ever thinks now of a certain line in Pinafore,
“I polished that handle so care-ful-lee, that
now ”
As ensign, second lieutenant, first
lieutenant, and finally captain of a frigate, the
young man acquitted himself well, earning the reputation
of a capital officer, hardworking, careful, no martinet
towards his men, though by no means to be trifled with.
In practical seamanship, he excels any other prince
of his age, and can command any kind of naval craft
from torpedo boat to battleship, and lead in actual
battle.
In forming their court, King Haakon
and Queen Maud are gathering about them the literary,
artistic, and musical people of the realm, for they
are devoted to the companionship of gifted folk.
The queen has herself written plays under the pseudonym
“Graham Irving,” and the king paints a
little in aquarelles, and plays the piano almost
too well to be termed an amateur. Both are accomplished
linguists, speaking with discrimination French, German,
Russian, English, Norwegian, Swedish, and, naturally,
Danish. There is no barrier of speech in their
intercourse with members of the diplomatic corps.
The little heir apparent, Alexander,
rechristened Olaf, has already done much toward ingratiating
himself with the Norwegian people, although but a
half dozen years old. On the day when the royal
couple entered Christiania, the boy was but two
and a half years old, but he was very much interested
in the decorations, and seemed to catch the enthusiasm
of the crowd, for he waved his little hand spontaneously.
In counting up the merits of the king, the promising
little heir must by no means be left out.
Trondhjem Cathedral, where all the
kings and queens of Norway for centuries have been
crowned, and where the coronation of King Haakon VII
and Queen Maud occurred, stands on the site of what
was undoubtedly the first Christian church in the
country that erected by Olaf Trygvason
in 996. Within its confines bubbles the spring
which sprang from the tomb of that later Olaf who
is the patron saint of Norway, and somewhere under
its walls lie moldering the bones of medieval kings,
four of whom accepted their consecration before the
altar where King Haakon received his crown. It
is a thousand pities that hammer and chisel should
have exorcised the spirits which ought to haunt this
venerable shrine. It is as if England’s
Abbey had been scrubbed and resurfaced, and new noses
had been provided for all the crumbling stone kings
and queens. Trondhjem Cathedral has burned down
so many times, and the work of restoration has been
so sweeping, that it takes an active imagination to
invest it with the proper glamour of romance.
Trondhjem itself is an odd place for
festivities. The people say that it is fear of
fire which makes them separate their insignificant
wooden houses by such disproportionately broad streets.
Certainly it gives to the town a low look anything
but imposing.
Whatever may be the esthetic shortcomings
of King Haakon’s coronation city, it was amply
atoned for by the enthusiasm and whole-hearted devotion
of his new people. The king and queen are in very
truth “the father and mother of the land.”
Even toward the rulers they shared with Sweden their
cherished warm affection until their grievances waxed
too sore. When Sophie of Nassau was on her way
to Trondhjem to be crowned, in 1873, she drove herself
in a carriole from the Romsdal, stopping perforce
at humble posting-stations by the way. And everywhere
the peasants came with flowers, greeting their queen
by the affectionate and familiar “Du.”
More than once when the press was thick about her,
and those on the outskirts could not see, the queen
was urged to mount upon the housetop that the eyes
of all might be gladdened by the sight of the dear
land-mother. There was a significant demonstration
of this sort of heart-loyalty when Haakon VII and
Queen Maud entered Christiania. The crowds
which waited in the steadily falling snow, and shouted
themselves hoarse, might be accounted for by curiosity
and mob enthusiasm.
Triumphal arches, flags, and even
the rain of flowers which descended on the royal pair,
might be classed as perfunctory, an essential part
of the occasion. But at night the spirit of the
people showed beyond mistake. Not only were the
streets arched and bordered with festoons of colored
incandescent lights, not only were the battleships
in the harbor strung with fiery beads to the topmost
spar, but every window in every house in the city
bore its light. Fine houses had candelabra behind
the glass, and the poorest mere tapers, but everywhere
the same fire of welcome burned.
Haakon VII has the privilege of ruling
over the most united people on the face of the earth.
Before the plebiscite, Sweden declared that the desire
for separation was confined to a party who were poisoning
the minds of the common people. When the plebiscite
had shown that only 164 men out of 368,000 could be
found to uphold the union, Sweden protested that the
peasants had been intimidated and dared not vote as
they thought!
Now, it was just at this stirring
time that I was driving through Norway, or cruising
in her fjords, and talking with graduates of her university,
with sea-captains, hotel proprietors, traveling men,
porters, drivers, serving-maids all, in
short, who spoke English enough to make themselves
clear. It was as if all Norway spoke with one
voice. From Hamerfest to Stavanger there was the
same complaint of the same wrongs, the same quiet
insistence upon the same remedy. Nor was it only
the subjects of King Oscar who spoke; Norwegians settled
in France, in England, or in America either hurried
home to vote or sent their vigorous endorsement of
the revolutionary proceedings. A window in Christiania
was completely filled by the mingled flags of Norway
and the United States, crossed by a banner bearing
the words, “For Disunion.” It was
the voice of Norway and America. It was a modest
desire they expressed. In the words of Olaf Sprachehaug,
our humble-minded skydsgut, the whole country
was saying, “And now I t’ink we get a
king of our own.” They have their own king
now, and all the world wishes them joy in him.