History
The regalia of the king and the anointing horn were made for Carl Johan, King of Norway and Sweden, in 1818 for his coronation in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. The regalia of the queen were acquired in 1830 for the planned coronation of Queen Desirée. This coronation never took place and the crown was subsequently used for the coronations of Queen Louise in 1860, Sophie in 1873 and Queen Maud in 1906. The crown of the queen was present at the high altar during the benediction of Queen Sonja as queen consort in 1991 though it was not used in the actual ceremony. All the regalia were made in Sweden except the crown of the crown prince which was made in Norway in 1848 and the sword of state which was a gift from Carl Johan to the Norwegian state. The coronet of the crown prince was ordered for use in the planned coronation of Oscar I, as the Norwegian parliament wanted the heir of the throne Prince Carl, later Carl XV to have a crown and be crowned with his parents. However Oscar I was never to be crowned in Norway because the bishop of Nidaros refused to perform the ceremony for Queen Josephine as she was of catholic faith. The sword of state was initially a gift from Napoleon I, Emperor of France, to Carl Johan, then known as Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, when he was appointed Marshal of France. King Carl Johan carried the sword during the Battle of Leipzig; when he acquired the Norwegian regalia in 1818, he had the blade of the sword refashioned, in order that its symbolic language might correspond better to its new function.
Following Carl Johan, Carl XV and his wife Queen Louise were next in line to be crowned in Norway, in 1860. Then Oscar II and Queen Sophie were crowned in 1873. The regalia were last used for the coronation of Haakon VII and Queen Maud. This was to be the last coronation of a Norwegian sovereign after the dissolution of the union with Sweden in 1905 as the coronation paragraph in the Norwegian constitution was revoked in 1908. The coronet of the crown prince has never been used. as Crown prince Olav was too young to participate in the ceremony in 1906 and . The regalia are now on display in the Archbishop's Palace, next to the Nidaros Cathedral.
The coronet of the crown prince has in fact never been on any royal person's head. It was not used in any of the coronations.
In 2006, King Harald V made a speech where he emphasised that the Norwegian Crown symbolises a free, independent and democratic nation.
Read more about this topic: Norwegian Royal Regalia
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“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
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