Norway’s Monarchy: The Half-Billion-Krone Question Missing From the Royal Family Tree
Norway has a new king, an increasingly complicated royal family, and a monarchy that costs taxpayers considerably more than its most familiar budget figure suggests.
In his video Norwegian Monarchs Family Tree, UsefulCharts creator Matt Baker traces more than a thousand years of royal succession before arriving at King Haakon VIII, who inherited the throne on August 28, 2026. The history is engaging. The final examination of the modern monarchy is much less satisfying.
Baker recounts the controversies surrounding Queen Mette-Marit, Princess Märtha Louise, and convicted offender Marius Borg Høiby. He then asks whether Haakon might become Norway's final king.
It is a provocative question, but the evidence needed to answer it lies almost entirely outside his presentation.
The more revealing story is not whether another embarrassing relative will destroy Norway's monarchy. It is how a wealthy democracy finances a hereditary institution, what its citizens are permitted to know about that spending, and why constitutional privileges survive even when the people exercising them possess little independent political power.
I examined the Norwegian government's budgets, the Royal Court's financial rules, constitutional provisions, official explanations concerning Jeffrey Epstein, court reporting, and recent opinion polling.
The resulting picture is less sensational than the prospect of a collapsing dynasty. It is also more troubling.
1. Norway's Royal Household Has a NOK 469 Million Question
Baker spends considerable time explaining how Norway's royal families acquired and lost territories. He says almost nothing about the contemporary institution's financial arrangements.
For 2026, Norway's Parliament approved NOK 307.71 million in direct appropriations to the royal household.
Of that amount, NOK 277.963 million was allocated to the Royal Court's operations, while approximately NOK 29.747 million was divided between two royal allowances, known as apanasjes. These cover personal expenses and certain costs associated with privately owned royal properties.
But that is not the complete picture.
The government's 2026 budget proposal also identified spending for royal-related purposes under other ministries:
- NOK 89.558 million for properties used for royal purposes.
- NOK 58 million for the Royal Yacht and the vessel Stjernen.
- NOK 8.79 million for official foreign travel by the royal family.
- NOK 4.8 million for the King's military aide-de-camp staff.
Together with the direct royal appropriation, those published budget figures total NOK 468.858 million.
That is approximately NOK 469 million in identified public allocations.
And the calculation still does not establish the complete cost.
The same government document lists the Oslo police escort service used for royal purposes but does not disclose its budgeted amount. Consequently, the figures cannot be presented as an exhaustive total.
They are also budget allocations, not audited expenditure for the completed year. The property and naval appropriations include the maintenance and operation of assets that serve public, historical, and ceremonial purposes.
These distinctions matter. A royal palace does not automatically become worthless if a country abolishes its monarchy. A republic would still require official residences, security arrangements, diplomatic receptions, and a head of state.
But none of those considerations makes the public financing irrelevant.
A responsible assessment would distinguish expenses necessary for constitutional duties, heritage preservation, and security from expenditure that exists specifically because Norway maintains a hereditary royal household.
Baker never attempts that distinction.
The financial question becomes even more relevant in the government's proposed 2027 budget, which places the main royal household appropriation at approximately NOK 319.1 million following Haakon's accession. That proposal includes NOK 30.847 million for the royal family's allowance and NOK 288.211 million for the Royal Court.
The throne has changed hands. The financing continues.
2. The Royal Court Is Audited. The Public Still Cannot See Everything.
The Norwegian Royal Court publishes financial information and operates under formal accounting rules.
That is important because an accusation that the monarchy has no financial oversight would be false.
Its operating accounts are independently audited, and annual financial reports are submitted to the appropriate parliamentary and government bodies. The personal royal allowances are also subject to external audit.
However, the Royal Court's own financial-management policy contains a revealing distinction.
The allowances cover personal living expenses, private property maintenance, and other expenditures. Their use does not have to be publicly reported.
The Court's policy states:
“Det skal ikke rapporteres på bruk av apanasjen.”
In English, this means that the use of the royal allowance is not subject to a reporting requirement.
The institution further explains that the Royal Court and royal household are not part of the ordinary state administration and are not subject to government instruction in the same way as regular state bodies.
This is a carefully structured arrangement, not evidence of missing money or illegal expenditure.
But it creates a legitimate democratic question.
Why should public money used for the personal expenses of hereditary officeholders receive a different degree of public scrutiny from the spending of ordinary public institutions?
A private audit may establish that accounts have been reviewed without allowing taxpayers to examine exactly how the money was spent.
The distinction between accountability to an auditor and transparency to the public is substantial.
Norway has chosen to preserve it. Baker's historical account gives readers no reason to examine it.
3. Norway's Constitution Gives Its King an Extraordinary Privilege
The Royal Court's budget is only one part of the arrangement.
Article 5 of Norway's Constitution states:
“The King's person cannot be censured or accused. The responsibility rests with his Council.”
Those words deserve more attention than another diagram of royal cousins.
Norway is a constitutional monarchy. Elected politicians exercise government authority, and ministers carry responsibility for government decisions. The monarch's contemporary duties are primarily representative, ceremonial, and constitutional.
That arrangement substantially limits the practical political power exercised by the king.
Nevertheless, Article 5 preserves a distinctive constitutional protection for the monarch personally.
It would be irresponsible to interpret this provision as proof that Haakon has broken any law or intends to exploit his position. There is no such evidence.
Nor does the provision mean that every member of the royal family enjoys the king's constitutional status.
The legitimate objection is simpler: Norway's head of state enjoys a constitutional protection that ordinary citizens do not possess.
A hereditary monarchy is not made fully democratic merely because its sovereign rarely exercises independent political power.
The office remains inherited, and the constitutional text continues to treat its holder differently.
Baker explains why Ingrid Alexandra will eventually inherit the throne ahead of her younger brother, Sverre Magnus. He correctly identifies the significance of Norway's reforms introducing gender equality into royal succession.
But equal treatment between royal daughters and sons does not resolve the larger inequality between royal descendants and everyone else.
The institution has modernized its method of inheritance without abandoning inheritance as the qualification for the country's highest ceremonial office.
That is a considerably more serious constitutional issue than whether a princess believes she can communicate with angels.
4. The Epstein Scandal Is Worse Than Gossip, but It Demands Precision
Baker identifies Queen Mette-Marit's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein as one of the monarchy's most damaging controversies.
He states that she was Epstein's friend and lied about the frequency of their communications.
The friendship and the problems with the Royal Court's earlier account are documented. Deliberate dishonesty, however, requires more evidence than an inaccurate statement.
The Court's own published explanation provides a more useful basis for criticism.
Mette-Marit maintained contact with Epstein between approximately 2011 and 2014. She stayed at his Palm Beach property for four days, through an arrangement involving a mutual friend.
The Court acknowledges that its account in 2019 gave an incorrect impression of when written communication ended.
It also acknowledges that information from private correspondence, subsequently made public in 2026, was not disclosed in the earlier explanation.
Its justification is that the details were not then considered appropriate to disclose.
According to the Court, the email account used during that period was subsequently deleted, and many messages were no longer available to the royal household.
These admissions create questions that deserve closer scrutiny than simply calling the queen a liar.
How thoroughly was the relationship examined in 2019? Who decided what the public should know? What procedures existed to assess the reputational and ethical risks of a senior royal maintaining contact with a convicted sex offender?
Mette-Marit has apologized and acknowledged poor judgment. She says she was manipulated, did not witness illegal activity, and did not understand the full seriousness of Epstein's offences at the time.
The Royal Court states that she did not receive money from Epstein, either personally or through foundations with which she was associated.
It also acknowledges certain benefits connected with the relationship, including accommodation at his property, transport, and a hairdressing service.
None of this establishes that Mette-Marit participated in Epstein's crimes.
The central issue is instead the judgment exercised by a public representative and the adequacy of the institution's subsequent disclosures.
There is a difference between being unable to prove criminal wrongdoing and being satisfied with an official explanation.
The first is a necessary evidentiary limit. The second is a matter for public scrutiny.
Baker recognizes the scandal but does not examine that distinction.
5. The Queen's Son Was Convicted. His Case Also Demonstrates That the Courts Can Act.
Marius Borg Høiby's criminal case is among the most serious matters discussed in the video.
On June 15, 2026, the Oslo District Court sentenced him to four years in prison following convictions that included two counts of rape and domestic abuse.
He was acquitted of two other rape allegations.
Høiby disputes the convictions involving rape and abuse. On September 10, the Borgarting Court of Appeal agreed to hear his appeal.
The district court judgment therefore remains subject to further judicial proceedings.
These details are essential to an accurate account.
Høiby is Queen Mette-Marit's son from a previous relationship. Although he grew up within the royal family, he does not hold a royal title or perform official royal duties.
There is no basis in the evidence examined here to claim that the king or queen participated in his offences, or that the monarchy directed the judicial proceedings.
Indeed, the prosecution, conviction, and permission to appeal provide evidence that the criminal justice system is operating through its established procedures.
This is an important limit on any argument that Norway's monarchy places everyone associated with it beyond the reach of the law.
Yet the case still carries institutional consequences.
The royal family represents the nation at public ceremonies and in official life. The conduct of people closely connected to that family can affect public confidence, even when those individuals have no constitutional position.
The distinction between legal responsibility and reputational damage should not disappear simply because a scandal is commercially irresistible.
Baker gives the conviction a passing mention. The case deserves its own careful explanation.
6. The Princess and the Shaman Are Not State Representatives
Princess Märtha Louise and her husband, Durek Verrett, provide Baker with some of his most colourful material.
Märtha Louise has promoted spiritual beliefs, while Verrett has made controversial supernatural claims and sold products associated with supposed healing powers.
Their relationship has attracted substantial media attention.
But the narrator omits an important institutional distinction.
In November 2022, Märtha Louise relinquished her official duties representing the Royal House.
The Palace subsequently clarified that she conducts her commercial activities independently, is subject to Norwegian taxation, and has not received a royal allowance since becoming self-employed in 2002.
Verrett holds no royal title and does not officially represent the Royal House.
The couple also agreed to restrictions intended to prevent the commercial exploitation of royal titles and family connections.
Whether those boundaries have always been respected is a legitimate subject for investigation. Their existence, however, matters.
The monarchy has attempted to separate official duties from the couple's commercial activities.
That does not settle the wider question of whether a hereditary title provides commercial advantages even without formal endorsement.
But it prevents a misleading conclusion: the existence of questionable private businesses within an extended royal family does not prove that the Norwegian state finances or endorses those businesses.
The institutional arrangements are considerably more revealing than the supernatural claims themselves.
7. Norway's Founding Royal Referendum Excluded Half the Population
Baker describes Norway's separation from Sweden in 1905 as a peaceful victory for national independence.
He also highlights two impressive referendum results.
In August 1905, 368,208 voters supported the dissolution of the union with Sweden, compared with just 184 opposing it.
In November, 259,563 supported retaining a monarchy, against 69,264 who preferred a republic.
These figures are broadly consistent with Baker's account.
But the percentages conceal an important historical qualification.
Women could not vote in either referendum.
Norway did not introduce universal parliamentary suffrage for women until 1913.
Women nevertheless played an active role in the independence movement, organizing a major petition campaign that gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures.
Baker presents the referendum approving Prince Carl as a defining expression of democratic legitimacy.
It was an important democratic decision by the standards of its period. It was not a decision in which the entire adult population possessed equal voting rights.
His description of the separation as peaceful also needs context.
The Norwegian National Archives records that the country mobilized approximately 26,000 army and naval personnel during tense negotiations with Sweden. An agreement was eventually reached at Karlstad, preventing war.
The settlement was peaceful in its outcome, but it was negotiated under a genuine threat of military conflict.
Neither omission destroys the historical account.
Both make its neat narrative of national unity less complete.
Norway's modern monarchy was established through political bargaining, military preparedness, and a referendum conducted under the unequal voting rules of the early twentieth century.
That history deserves to be understood without being stripped of its complications.
8. The Evidence Does Not Support an Imminent Royal Collapse
Baker ends by asking whether Haakon VIII might be Norway's final king.
It is an effective ending for a video. The polling evidence makes it a weak prediction.
Norway's monarchy suffered significant reputational damage earlier in 2026.
According to polling reported by VG, support for retaining the monarchy stood at approximately 54% in February.
But public opinion changed substantially following Harald V's death.
A Norstat survey commissioned by broadcaster NRK and published on September 1 found 72% supporting the monarchy, against 20% favouring a republic or another system.
A later Respons Analyse survey conducted for VG between September 10 and 14 found support had risen to 78%, with 16% favouring a republic.
Those findings do not establish that the succession caused the increase. Harald's death, public mourning, changes in attention, and differences between surveys complicate that interpretation.
They do establish that the monarchy was enjoying substantial support after the accession.
The same September survey found that 88% expressed high confidence in King Haakon, compared with 41% in Queen Mette-Marit.
This is perhaps the most important public-opinion distinction missing from Baker's closing question.
Norwegians can strongly support the monarchy while expressing much less confidence in an individual member of the royal family.
The reputation of the institution and the reputations of particular royals are not interchangeable.
That separation may help explain why the monarchy survives scandals that might otherwise appear devastating.
It also makes predicting the institution's imminent demise exceptionally difficult.
The strongest available evidence points toward continuing public acceptance, not an approaching republican victory.
The Verdict: A Family Tree Cannot Answer the Question of Public Accountability
Baker's video succeeds at the task promised by its title: explaining the extraordinary genealogical history of Norway's monarchy.
Its weakness emerges when that history becomes a discussion of contemporary legitimacy.
The narrator moves from royal ancestry to scandal and speculation without examining the financial and constitutional arrangements that determine how the institution actually functions.
The latest evidence does not justify portraying Haakon VIII as a king facing imminent removal.
It justifies asking different questions.
Why does a hereditary institution require nearly half a billion kroner in identified annual public allocations? Why are some royal personal expenditures audited but not publicly itemized? Why does the Constitution preserve a special protection for the monarch? And how should citizens evaluate an institution that remains popular while particular members face serious questions about judgment and conduct?
There are plausible answers to some of these questions.
Royal residences are national heritage assets. Ceremonial diplomacy has public functions. Governments require security and official representation regardless of whether their heads of state are elected.
None of those answers eliminates the need to justify the arrangements individually.
The monarchy's popularity is also a serious argument in its favour. In a democracy, sustained public acceptance cannot simply be dismissed because an institution's origins are hereditary.
But popularity does not settle questions of financial transparency, constitutional equality, or the adequacy of public accountability.
The real weakness in Baker's conclusion is that it directs attention toward the possibility of royal collapse when the institution's more immediate contradictions concern its continued operation.
Norway's monarchy appears secure enough to survive its latest scandals.
That security should make scrutiny easier, not unnecessary.
A country that can explain its royal family tree across eleven centuries ought to be equally capable of explaining what its monarchy costs today, what privileges it retains, and how those arrangements serve the people who finance them.
References
1. Norwegian Monarchs Family Tree — UsefulCharts, Matt Baker, 2026.
Watch the original video
The original work establishes Baker's historical narrative, his discussion of royal scandals, and his concluding question about the monarchy's future.
2. State Budget 2026, Proposition 1 S (2025–2026) — Norwegian Ministry of Digitalisation and Public Governance.
Read the government budget
Identifies the principal royal appropriations and additional spending allocated through property management, defence, travel, and other government functions; the figures are budget allocations rather than final expenditure.
3. State Budget 2026, Parliamentary Decision 123 — Storting, December 2025.
Read the parliamentary decision
Confirms the NOK 307.71 million approved under the direct royal household budget chapters.
4. State Budget 2027, Proposition 1 S (2026–2027) — Norwegian Ministry of Digitalisation and Public Governance, 2026.
Read the 2027 budget proposal
Documents the proposed financial arrangements following the accession of Haakon VIII, including the restructuring of royal allowances.
5. Financial Management — The Norwegian Royal Court.
Read the Royal Court's financial rules
Explains the distinction between royal operating accounts, personal allowances, external audits, and public reporting requirements.
6. Constitution of the Kingdom of Norway — Lovdata.
Read Norway's Constitution
Provides the constitutional basis for royal succession and the monarch's distinctive legal position under Article 5.
7. The Royal House's Response Concerning the Epstein Case — Norwegian Royal Court, March 2026.
Read the official statements
Records Mette-Marit's explanations, acknowledgements, corrections, and the Palace's account of what information was previously disclosed.
8. Son of Norway's Crown Princess Found Guilty of Rape — RTÉ News, June 15, 2026.
Read the court reporting
Details the district court's verdict, prison sentence, convictions, and acquittals in the case against Marius Borg Høiby.
9. Høiby Gets an Appeal Hearing — VG, September 10, 2026.
Read the appeal reporting
Confirms that the appellate court agreed to rehear the disputed rape and domestic-abuse convictions, limiting any claim that the case is finally resolved.
10. Biography of Princess Märtha Louise — Norwegian Royal Court.
Read the official biography
Explains her independent commercial activities, departure from official duties, and the restrictions intended to separate private business from royal representation.
11. Dissolution of the Union — National Archives of Norway, updated November 2025.
Read the historical records
Documents the 1905 referendum results, military mobilization, negotiations with Sweden, and the selection of Haakon VII.
12. 1905: The Year Norwegian Women Anticipated Universal Suffrage — Statistics Norway, February 28, 2005.
Read the historical study
Establishes that women were excluded from the 1905 referendums and describes their substantial participation through petition campaigns.
13. Seven Out of Ten Want to Retain the Monarchy — NTB/Vårt Land, September 1, 2026.
Read the September 1 polling report
Reports 72% support for monarchy following Harald V's death, up from 64% in the previous NRK survey.
14. New Poll: Nine Out of Ten Trust Queen Sonja — VG, September 15, 2026.
Read the September polling results
Reports 78% support for retaining the monarchy while documenting substantial differences in public confidence between individual members of the royal family.