Tuesday 18 September 2012

Princess Ragnhild’s funeral to take place on 28 September

The court has announced that the funeral of Princess Ragnhild, who died on Sunday at the age of 82, will take place in the Palace Chapel in Oslo at noon on Friday 28 September.
The Bishop of Oslo, Ole Christian Kvarme, and the Dean of Oslo, Olav Dag Hauge, will officiate. The King and Queen, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, Princess Märtha Louise and Princess Astrid will be among the 120 mourners present. Subsequently the King and Queen will host a reception at the Palace.
Princess Ragnhild will, as announced already in her lifetime, be laid to rest in the cemetery at Asker Church. Only the family will attend the burial, which it is their wish that the press will stay away from.
A memorial service will be held in the English church in Rio at 5 p.m. on the coming Thursday before the coffin is flown to Norway. The King and Princess Astrid will receive their sister’s coffin at Oslo Airport Gardermoen on Saturday.
The members of the royal family will carry on with their public engagements as usual and court mourning has not been declared. Indeed this seems to be a custom which has lapsed during the present reign. If I recall correctly the death of Queen Ingrid of Denmark in 2000 was the last time court mourning was declared.
Nothing has been said officially about any foreign royals attending the funeral, but most of those foreign relatives to whom Princess Ragnhild was close are by now either dead or too old to travel, the exceptions being her aunt by marriage, Princess Kristine Bernadotte, and the King and Queen of Sweden.

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