Princess Ragnhild of Norway was the first Norwegian princess in more than six hundred years to be born on Norwegian soil, yet she spent nearly her entire adult life in Brazil, so far from the court that the press eventually called her “the princess in exile. ” Before her death, she gave a candid interview that set off a national scandal, and her words about a six-year-old boy would be remembered years later when that child’s name appeared in the news for reasons no one could have predicted. Ragnhild Alexandra was the eldest daughter of Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Märtha. Her birth was a historic event because no Norwegian princess had been born in Norway since the fourteenth century.
When she was nine years old, the war forced her family apart. She left Norway with her mother, her younger sister Astrid, and her little brother Harald. They spent several years in the United States while her father and grandfather continued the fight from London. When the family returned home after the war, the fourteen-year-old princess met the man who would change the course of her life.
Erling Lorentzen was twenty-two years old, a member of a prominent Norwegian shipping family. During the occupation he had taken part in the resistance, and after liberation he was assigned to guard the royal family. He taught the princesses to sail, and a friendship grew between him and the young Ragnhild. Soon afterward he went to study at Harvard, while she went to Switzerland.
The distance did not end their connection. They continued to write to each other, and over time their friendship became love. The court was firmly opposed to the relationship. Her grandfather, King Haakon, forbade the couple from seeing each other or corresponding for a full year, hoping the separation would cool their feelings.
Instead, they continued to exchange letters in secret. In the end the royal family had to give way. Nearly eight years after they first met, Ragnhild and Erling were married. She became the first Norwegian princess to marry a commoner.
Soon the couple made a decision that gave rise to the legend of her exile. Erling was expected to build the family business in Brazil, and Ragnhild went with him. They believed they were leaving for only a few years, but they remained there for the rest of their lives. Less than a year after the wedding, her mother fell seriously ill.
Ragnhild, who was pregnant, managed to return to Norway in time to be at her mother’s side until she died. Months later she gave birth to her first child. The joy of becoming a mother arrived together with one of the heaviest losses of her life. After their mother’s death, the paths of the two sisters diverged further.
Astrid stayed close to their father and became the first lady of Norway. Ragnhild continued building her life on the other side of the world. In Brazil she raised three children, supported the Norwegian community and the Norwegian Seamen’s Church, and helped Brazilian children in need. She also kept in contact with her family.
For thirty-seven years she exchanged weekly letters with her father, and after his death she destroyed roughly fifteen hundred of them, considering them a private conversation. The year 2003 proved especially difficult for Ragnhild. One painful disappointment followed another until her growing resentment nearly brought the family into open conflict. In the spring, she and Erling celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, fifty years of marriage that they had once fought so hard to have.
The princess expected her brother to attend, but Harald and Sonja did not come; they had already planned other events. In the autumn the royal couple arrived in Brazil on a state visit. When her father, King Olav, had visited the country, Ragnhild had been part of the royal delegation as a princess and the king’s daughter. This time she was not presented as a princess and the sister of Harald, only as the wife of a well-known businessman.
She was not even permitted to fly with the delegation between cities. To Ragnhild it seemed the palace no longer regarded her as one of its own. After the official program, the king and queen were expected at Ragnhild’s home. Her children and grandchildren had gathered for a large family dinner.
Two hours before they were to arrive, a message came that the royal couple would not be coming. If the incident with the delegation had wounded Ragnhild as a princess, the canceled dinner wounded her deeply as a sister. That same year they also missed the wedding of her youngest daughter. The stated reason was that the journey was too long.
It was against this background of pain that Norwegian journalists recorded a long interview with Ragnhild. The film was called “Princess in Exile. ” Officially no one had ever sent her into exile, but after the events of that year the title took on a very different meaning for viewers. She spoke about her life, but several sharp remarks overshadowed her whole life story.
The princess suggested that her father, King Olav, would not have approved of Haakon’s marriage to Mette-Marit, nor of Märtha Louise’s partnership with the writer Ari Behn. People immediately saw a contradiction in her words: Ragnhild had once fought for the right to marry a man without royal blood. Asked how her own marriage was different, she answered, “At least Erling had a real job. ”
Her harshest words were directed at Mette-Marit.
Speaking about the day the crown princess would become queen of Norway, Ragnhild said, “I hope I die before that happens. I truly hope so. ” But today even more attention is paid to what she said about six-year-old Marius. “I feel terribly sorry for her son.
When they have a child together, poor Marius will become nobody. He will realize there is a difference between the children. They will have problems,” the princess said. Later, when his name became connected with a criminal case, people remembered the interview once more.
To some it seemed Ragnhild had foreseen how difficult it would be for Marius to find his place among the royal children. When the interview was recorded, Ragnhild was deeply hurt by both her brother and the palace. In an ordinary family such words would probably not have provoked such a strong reaction. But Ragnhild was a princess and the sister of the king, and her remarks became a major public scandal.
Some Norwegians accused her of arrogance and double standards. Others believed she had said what everyone else had kept silent about. The royal family did not respond publicly and maintained contact. Only two months after the film, Ragnhild attended the christening of Ingrid Alexandra, and later Harald hosted a dinner at the palace for his sister’s eightieth birthday.
It had been Ragnhild’s wish that her children give Ingrid Alexandra a family tiara, which the young princess wore for the first time at the official dinner for her eighteenth birthday. Ragnhild continued to come to Norway for family celebrations and state ceremonies. She was also the patron of the Norwegian Association of the Hearing Impaired. In 2012 she was diagnosed with lung cancer.
For a time Erling could not bring himself to tell his wife how serious the diagnosis was. The princess died at the age of eighty-two, in her own bed, surrounded by the people she loved. Her coffin was brought to Oslo, where Harald and Astrid were waiting for her. After a service in the chapel of the Royal Palace, she was buried in Asker Church, where she had been married nearly sixty years earlier.
Erling outlived her by almost nine years and died at the age of ninety-eight. He was buried beside her. Princess Ragnhild never became as well known as her younger sister Astrid, who died quite recently.
But she left her mark on the history of two countries, Norway and Brazil, as a princess who chose a life far from the palace and lived it on her own terms.