Princess Astrid, Mrs. Ferner, has died at 94, just two days after being wheeled into Oslo Cathedral for the state funeral of Norway’s late King Harald V, her brother. In its announcement on Friday, September 11, 2026, the royal palace said she had died peacefully.
“The Princess fell asleep today, Friday 11 September, at the age of 94,” the palace said in a statement.
Her nephew King Haakon VIII, 53, who succeeded Harald on Friday, August 28, ordered the flag above the Royal Palace balcony flown at half-mast on September 11 and again on the day of her funeral. The service will begin at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, September 23, at Ris Church in Oslo, the palace has confirmed, and Norwegian television will carry it live. It is expected to be considerably more intimate than her brother’s state funeral, which began at the same hour on September 9, with King Haakon leading mourners.
King Haakon, Queen Mette-Marit, Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Queen Sonja will all attend, according to the palace, as will Astrid’s children and other relatives. The princess will be buried at state expense.
King Haakon Pays Tribute to His Aunt
“Throughout her long life, Princess Astrid represented the Royal House in a warm and dutiful manner,” King Haakon said in his tribute.
The king said she carried out her duties with “loyalty, dedication and an infectious sense of humor,” and described an aunt “never afraid to speak her mind,” a key support to Harald and the wider family.
Her five children — Cathrine, Benedikte, Alexander, Elisabeth and Carl-Christian Ferner — said in a joint statement: “In our grief, we stand together with gratitude. Thank you for all the wonderful memories. You will forever hold a great place in our hearts.”
A Sister at Her Brother’s Side
The princess had been in declining health: she was hospitalized with pneumonia in March, and in May she was admitted again with heart failure and fitted with a temporary pacemaker. Photographers caught Astrid leaving the National Hospital in Oslo on August 27 after several hours at her brother’s bedside; he died the following day at 89, Europe’s oldest monarch, after more than 35 years on the throne.
In the days before her own death, the palace released photographs of her alone beside her brother’s coffin in the Palace Chapel. She made her final public appearance at the funeral on Wednesday, September 9, when thousands lined the procession route from the Royal Palace to Oslo Cathedral.
Wartime Exile and a Life of Duty
Astrid Maud Ingeborg was born February 12, 1932, at Villa Solbakken in Oslo. She was the second daughter of the future King Olav V and Crown Princess Märtha, and was named for her aunt and godmother, Queen Astrid of Belgium.
Germany invaded Norway in April 1940, when she was eight, and she fled with her mother, her sister Ragnhild and her brother Harald — first to neutral Sweden, then on to the United States, reaching New York that August. She went to school in Washington, D.C., while her father spent the war years in England with King Haakon VII. She returned home in 1945 and later studied at Oxford for two years.
Cancer killed her mother in 1954 at 53. Olav never remarried, and Ragnhild had settled in Brazil after marrying her bodyguard in 1953, so the duties of first lady fell to Astrid, then 22. For 14 years she joined her father at receptions, official functions and state visits, until Harald married Sonja Haraldsen in 1968. She chaired the board of the memorial fund established in her mother’s name and was a patron of charities working with women and with young people with dyslexia.
The Marriage That Cost Her a Title
Johan Martin Ferner, a businessman and Olympic sailor who took silver at the 1952 Helsinki Games, won her heart in the late 1950s. They met when she took him on as crew for a yacht race, and conservative figures in the Norwegian establishment objected to a commoner. Because he was also a divorcé, the church objected too. Astrid was said to have threatened a hunger strike unless her father consented.
Olav relented, and after the bishop of Oslo refused, a retired bishop officiated. The couple married at Asker Church on January 12, 1961. The match cost Astrid the style of Royal Highness and her yearly allowance, and from then on she went by Princess Astrid, Mrs. Ferner. Johan Ferner died in 2015.
Harald’s death left Astrid the only living child of King Olav V and Crown Princess Märtha; Ragnhild died in 2012. Her five children and seven grandchildren survive her. A great-granddaughter of King Edward VII, she died as the eldest surviving descendant of Queen Victoria and was considered the oldest working royal in Europe.
