Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Page 269

THE QUEEN OF NORWAY
By Halvdan Koht.
MAIJD, Queen of Norway, Princess of Great Britain
and Ireland, died on the night of November 20, 1938,
at the age of 69 years.
For more than five centuries she was the first queen Norway
might call her own, the first who, after so long an interval, came
to live in this country; for 575 years she has been the first whose
dust will rest in the soil of Norway.
These facts explain the quite particular sentiments of emotion
and mourning that were aroused in the people of Norway at the
unexpected news of Queen Maud’s death. She was one of the
links in the chain that connected new and ancient Norway, and
thus she incorporated in her frail body a part of the nation’s
history, uniting some of the powerful feelings of national tradi-
tion that shaped the modern development of the kingdom.
As a matter of fact, Norway is one of the oldest kingdoms of
Europe, constituted as such before the end of the 9th century;
tradition gives the date of 872, though possibly the true year of
consolidation has to be set one decade and a half later. During
the first century and some short period after there was still some
fighting about the dominion of the country; but finally it was
kept under the sway of the royal family of the founder, King
Harald, and his descendents remained on the throne of Norway
in unbroken line until the end of the I4th century, when King
Olav V, the son of King Haakon VI, died without children
(i387)-
The last King Olav was beforehand elected King of Denmark,
and after his death his mother Margaret, the widow of King
Haakon VI, took the reins of both countries in her strong hands,
even succeeding in winning the kingdom of Sweden. So was ini-
tiated the policies of Scandinavian union that came to decide the
destiny of Norway for centuries. By name and by right it
remained a separate kingdom, but the kings with their queens
and with their governmental bureaus resided outside the country,
and so it was overshadowed by the neighbouring kingdoms.
During these centuries democracy gained an ever stronger
foothold in Norway; after the separation from Denmark in 1814
Norway gave herself a thoroughly democratic constitution, and
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